Free Speech and Civility Event at UC Irvine

Today I attended an event at UC Irvine that focused on issues of free speech and civil discourse. About 60 people were in attendance. The event was hosted by Vice Chancellor Thomas Parham and UCI law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky. A few weeks previous newly-installed UCI Chancellor Howard Gillman had sent out a missive to the campus community on this issue.

Outside in the hallway, a young man was sitting at a table featuring literature from the National Lawyers Guild. I chatted with him for a few minutes prior to the event and asked him some questions about his organization. He seemed surprised when I informed him that the NLG was established in the 1930s as a legal arm of the Communist Party USA. He described NLG's work as protecting the rights of people to protest. I also asked him if NLG would come to the aid of the Tea Party if they were denied their right to hold an event and speak. He said probably not since the NLG supports progressive organizations.

So much for NLG.


Most of the actual speaking was done by Chemerinsky as he outlined his legal views on the limits of free speech. He began by describing the 2010 incident when Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the US, was disrupted by members of the Muslim Student Union. It was Chemerinsky's view that their act was not an example of free speech but that he opposed their subsequent prosecution. He then went on to outline what constituted legally protected speech.

I won't dwell on the details of the event except to say that I was interested to hear what would be said. In my view, events like these have been mostly necessitated by the on-going campus controversy over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the resultant tension-and yes anti-Semitism that has occasionally resulted and has been exacerbated by certain speakers who have come to campus to speak against Israel. I wanted to see if that was addressed or acknowledged. Chemerinsky also alluded to a time when a group of professors wanted to prevent a certain anti-Semitic speaker from coming to speak at UCI (which was protected speech). It is Chemerinsky's view (correctly) that offensive speech- even hate speech- is still protected speech (unless it directly incites to violence).

Other than those two examples, there was no further reference to those types of problems on UC campuses.

In my question during the q and a, I acknowledged Chemerinsky's touching on the Oren incident and the other above professor issue, but that I still felt that there was an elephant in the back of the room since, in my view, the biggest reason that events like these needed to be held was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the resultant tension it caused on campus. I added that in my view, the resurgence of anti-Semitism had as its focal point US college campuses. I acknowledged that criticism of Israel was fair game, but that some speakers who had come to college campuses including UCI over the years had crossed the line into anti-Semitic hate speech. While I acknowledged that this also was protected speech, I asked why universities couldn't condemn it as such and specifically point out who the speakers were and what they said.

Chemerinski basically stated that if universities condemned every instance of hate speech on campus, the condemnation would be less effective, hence they had to be more selective (I am paraphrasing.)

In the future, I would like to see both gentlemen host an event devoted specifically to the issues I raised. With all due respect to certain instances where other groups have been offended, I still feel that this issue is the one major issue that necessitates discussion of free speech and civil discourse.