Law professor says students should be suspended, expelled for free speech violations
A prominent law professor is calling for the suspension of students who shouted down a Republican congressman at the University of Georgia, yelling profanities and telling the lawmaker, “You’re dead.”
University security removed the protesters during Rep. Mike Collins’ speech, but Jonathan Turley, Shapiro Chair of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, said institutions need to take a strong stance against “deplatforming” speakers.
“Protesting outside of an event is an act of free speech,” Turley wrote on his blog. “Entering an event to shout down or ‘deplatform’ speakers is the denial of free speech. It is also the death knell for higher education in the United States.”
Last week, Collins, a Georgia Republican, spoke on campus as a guest of the university’s Turning Point USA and College Republicans chapters.
However, he was continuously disrupted by protesters, according to videos shared by a TPUSA field representative on X.
HAPPENING NOW 🚨 Protestors being removed left and right for disrupting @TPUSA event with @RepMikeCollins at University of Georgia 👏👏
The tolerant side everybody 🤡 pic.twitter.com/8XAP2Bml61
— Rachel (@rachelfarm04) April 3, 2024
“You’re dead right now, asshole. … He voted for genocide,” one protester yelled before security escorted him from the room.
Others yelled, “Why do you hate women?” and “F— you!” Another protester told Collins to “take your white supremacist rhetoric elsewhere, your neo-nationalist rhetoric elsewhere,” according to Turley’s blog.
Some also accused Collins of using the recent death of college student Laken Riley, who was allegedly murdered by an illegal immigrant at the University of Georgia, for political purposes.
Campus Reform reports:
Luke Winkler, president of the University of Georgia College Republicans told Campus Reform that protesters disrupted the event for about 20-30 minutes.
”Really, honestly, the rest of the meeting, to where it was just someone would stand up and start reading something off of their phone and just start screaming at Congressman Collins,” said Winkler.
Winkler said that he wanted campus police to attend the event as a precaution, but “didn’t envision” that they would have to remove people. […]
The College Republicans president said he will ask the University of Georgia to open an investigation into the students who disrupted the event.
Turley said the fact that the University of Georgia provided security for the event and removed the disruptors was good, but “not enough.”
With such disruptions growing common on campuses, he said universities need to take a stronger stance for free speech.
“If these ‘deplatformings’ are to end, the university has to suspend or expel those responsible for such actions,” he wrote. “Georgia must choose whether it will stand with free inquiry and free speech or whether it will yield to this entitled mob of speech-phobic students.”
Another congressman, Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin, also was shouted down at the University of Maryland recently, The College Fix reported. Afterward, university President Darryll Pines defended the pro-Palestinian protesters who disrupted Raskin, who is Jewish, arguing their actions were “free speech.”
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IMAGE: rachelfarm04/X
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