There is an age-old question, “If a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, did it make a sound?” The more important question here is if a protester yells at state and no one is around to hear it, did it matter?
In a recent issue of Insights, the university’s newsletter, University President Sharon K. Hahs wrote a column on free speech in light of the arrests at the CIA recruiting day last Feb. in the P.E. Building. Respectfully President Hahs, you don’t get it.
“Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances,” First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
What is troubling is that VP of Student Affairs Dr. Melvin Terrell announced the formation of the Free Speech Taskforce in Dec, 2005. The taskforce is still not finished with its work and they have not met since they gave recommendations to the university’s lawyer Jeff Brown last November.
Another meeting was scheduled for next week and according to taskforce members Alumnus Joe Hertel and Student Peter Michalczyk, the notices for the meeting were sent out in March, after the arrest at the CIA recruiting event. Curious.
Referring to “the courts,” Hahs said in her article, “universities can establish rules regarding the time, manor and place of these protests, and that these rules do not per se threaten freedom of speech.”
We will break this down and show why the “Free Speech Zone” concept seems unconstitutional.
Referring to the courts, the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court John Roberts said, in his Oct. 2005 opinion upholding the Military’s right to free speech on campuses, “nothing in the Solomon Amendment [a measure cutting off federal aid to universities if they did not allow the military on campus to recruit] restricts what they [schools challenging the law in court] may say about the military policies.” He continued, “The right to speak is often exercised most effectively by combining ones voice with the voices of others.”
Translated this means, the military has a legal right, to speak and recruit that can not be taken away if the school wants federal money, but go a head and protest all you want.
Surely regulating the time place and manor where people can speak and peaceably assemble is abridging those rights. It is saying no, you cannot assemble here or there or at this time or even to pass out this flyer misses the point of a protest.
To protest in response to something sometimes is the point, to confront and ask for redress. There are also laws that state that when a teacher is teaching a class, that is not the time for a rally or demonstration.
The other issue raised in the first amendment is that one of the primary reasons the first amendment exists is to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
If the “Free Speech Zone,” is in Village Square, how effective is it to try to petition the government’s representatives, the recruiters for the CIA, if they are in the P.E. Building a quarter mile away from the Free Speech Zone.
Hahs’ concern that NEIU not have a reputation for disruptiveness amoung potential employers who might attend a job fair is admarable.
However, as we study the history of the civil rights movements, we find that the most significant changes happened where it was not convenient, we study those leaders as heros now.
This is not then it is now, the war is in the Middle East and not Viet Nam, those fighting for civil rights are not nessisarilyAfrican American but more likely gay.
The administration should ask themselves how they want to be seen twenty or forty years from now. As champions to be celebrated or as caving to the imedate expedent need.