Friday, April 26, 2024:
“The Heckler’s Veto: Threats of Violence, Campus Events, and Free Speech”
by the red clock between Woodburn and Ballantine
12:00 noon - 1:00 p.m.

Free donuts!

Last month, the IUB administration, citing security concerns, requested that Jewish campus organization IU Hillel postpone their planned event featuring Hasan Mosab Yousef, a former Hamas member and now a critic of the group.

In early April, at an IU event featuring conservatives US Rep. Jim Banks (R-Fort Wayne) and Chaya Raichik, founder of Libs of TikTok, protestors disrupted the proceedings by chanting and yelling and were then removed by IU police.

In mid-April, the University of Southern California cancelled the planned graduation speech by the senior class valedictorian Asna Tabassum. The school made its decision based on reports that groups were planning to disrupt the event based on their opposition to Tabassum’s anti-Israel views.

All three of these cases involve the “heckler’s veto” which comes in two flavors. First, there is a preventative version where a governmental authority (e.g., IU) restricts future speech (e.g, cancelling a planned event) based on the anticipation of violent reaction by opponents of the speaker (the potential hecklers). Second, the “veto” can also happen during an event when speaker is shouted down or otherwise prevented from speaking by his/her ideological opponents (that is, by actual hecklers).

Defenders of the preventative version argue that university administrations must sometimes make hard choices and protect the safety of the campus community even if it means preventing an invited speaker or artist’s work (e.g., Samia Halaby’s exhibit at the IU Eskenazi Museum of Art) from being heard or seen. Defenders of the on-the-ground version contend that disrupting an event is not a violation of free speech but rather the exercise of counter-speech in justified resistance to views they hold to be dangerous and even tantamount to violence. Opponents of the “heckler’s veto” argue that, in any form, it dangerously undermines free speech for all.

Who is right? Do threats of violence warrant the cancellation of controversial campus speakers? Is there a free speech right to disrupt campus speaking events? What is at stake in this debate? Please join us for this discussion!

https://www.idsnews.com/article/2024/03/hillel-postpones-speaker-event-criticized-as-islamophobic-due-to-security-concerns

https://www.idsnews.com/article/2024/01/palestine-art-iu-samia-halaby-exhibition-cancel

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/16/us/usc-valedictorian-speech-gaza-war.html?unlocked_article_code=1.mE0.W45V.2A9KuRhou3pB&smid=url-share

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/19/us/usc-graduation-commencement-guests.html?unlocked_article_code=1.mE0.tn9C.BR8g8hiF3tDa&smid=url-share

https://www.thefire.org/news/rejecting-hecklers-veto

https://www.thefire.org/news/no-hecklers-veto-not-more-speech

https://www.talksonlaw.com/briefs/heckler-s-veto

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/protesting-anti-trans-judge-kyle-duncan-is-american/

https://ncac.org/news/blog/no-to-the-hecklers-veto-fear-of-protest-should-not-be-a-reason-to-silence-speakers

https://academeblog.org/2023/04/14/thoughts-on-the-hecklers-veto/

https://indianapublicmedia.org/news/warning-dangerous-art-teach-in-draws-in-more-than-100-attendees.php