| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
On February 8, 2010, Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the United States, began speaking to a packed hall at UC Urvine. Moments into his remarks, Oren was loudly interrupted by a group of students that spent the remainder of his talk hurling crude and unsubstantiated accusations at him. The disrupters delayed Oren's speech by nearly an hour, significantly foreshortened his remarks, and almost prevented the audience from hearing him at all. Faculty pleas for restraint were ignored. Both the university and the state of California responded vigorously. University administrators suspended individual student disrupters and the organization to which they belonged while the local District Attorney charged, and successfully convicted, the hecklers for interfering with a public meeting. Both the activists' behavior and the response of the authorities have drawn severe criticism from observers, and all sides present themselves as the genuine defenders of free speech and First Amendment principles. - See more at: http://jcpa.org/article/the-threat-to-freedom-of-speech-about-israel/#sthash.MHHuCtpj.dpuf
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