(Photo
by
Bonnie
Cash-Pool/Getty
Images)
This
morning,
Turley
took
a
break
from
sitting
outside
Fox
News
headquarters
with
his
“Will
say
anything
about
Hunter
Biden
for
food”
sign
to
highlight
the
grave
free
speech
concerns
implicated
by
the
University
of
Southern
California’s
recent
decision
to
cancel
its
general
commencement
ceremony.
Or,
more
accurately,
he
botched
the
actual
grave
free
speech
concerns
while
offering
up
some
vague
pablum
about
the
“mob.”
But
in
this
house,
we
believe
in
partial
credit!
The
sad
situation
at
USC
all
started
when
the
school
realized
that
its
valedictorian,
Asna
Tabassum,
was
both
a
Muslim
woman
and
a
minor
in
genocide
studies,
prompting
the
school
to
freak
out
that
she
might
use
the
speech
to
address
the
war
in
Gaza.
So
the
school
first
barred
its
valedictorian
from
speaking.
When
the
decision
to
revoke
Tabassum’s
earned
spot
in
the
ceremony
drew
scrutiny
as
blatantly
discriminatory,
the
school
canceled
its
other
invited
speakers,
testing
its
“it
can’t
be
viewpoint
discrimination
if
we
cancel
all
the
speakers,
right?”
defense.
It’s
a
serious
question
for
the
school’s
lawyers
since,
due
to
a
quirk
of
California
law,
the
standards
of
the
First
Amendment
fully
applies
to
private
universities,
robbing
USC
of
a
lot
of
the
latitude
private
schools
lean
on
when
trying
to
squelch
students. Finally,
having
whipped
up
general
outrage
over
its
botched
handling
of
the
event,
the
school
nixed
the
whole
ceremony.
Meaning
the
class
of
2024
will
end
its
college
journey
the
same
way
it
ended
its
time
in
high
school
as
the
class
of
2020
—
with
graduation
canceled
at
the
last
minute.
The
problem
of
violent
protests
and
threats
on
campus
is
not
solved
by
removing
the
potential
victims.
To
yield
this
ground
is
to
surrender
control
over
not
just
the
campus
but
the
academic
operations
of
the
school.
Higher
education
has
to
aspire
to
be
more
than
a
mere
mobocracy
where
threats
not
logic
prevail.
This
is
correct!
Assuming
he’s
denouncing
the
school’s
initial
decision
to
cancel
the
valedictory
speech.
Predictably
and
unfortunately,
Turley
has
no
apparent
qualms
with
that
decision,
focusing
his
disdain
on
the
school’s
decision
to
cancel
the
ceremony
over
fear
of
the
“mob,”
even
though
said
mob
wouldn’t
be
there
if
the
school
complied
with
longstanding
custom
and
just
let
the
woman
speak
in
the
first
place.
Turley
never
uses
the
phrase
heckler’s
veto
in
the
piece
because,
while
he
likes
to
toss
it
around
a
lot,
he
doesn’t
understand
it.
Which
is
a
shame
because
USC’s
treatment
of
Tabassum
is
what
the
heckler’s
veto
is
all
about.
As
a
legal
concept,
the
heckler’s
veto
is
the
situation
where
authorities
stop
a
speaker,
citing
the
risk
that
the
speaker
will
incite
some
sort
of
dangerous
response.
This
is
a
First
Amendment
violation
because
governments
can’t
use
hypothetical
third
parties
as
a
shield
to
engage
in
prior
restraint.
By
contrast,
Turley
and
his
fellow
travelers
deploy
the
phrase
to
mean
“people
heckling
a
speaker.”
The
rhetorical
trick
is
to
expand
the
narrow
legal
concept
of
the
“heckler’s
veto”
—
which
is
a
constitutional
violation
—
to
cover
“protesting
a
speaker”
—
which
is
not
a
constitutional
violation
—
in
the
hopes
that
blurring
the
lines
will
carry
the
constitutional
baggage
of
the
former
onto
the
latter.
Turley
gets
so
very
close
to
describing
the
contours
of
a
heckler’s
veto
but
he
just
can’t
get
there
because
he’s
hung
up
on
his
priors:
The
University
of
Southern
California
(USC)
is
under
fire
this
week
after
announcing
that
it
had
a
solution
to
the
possible
pro-Palestinian
protests
at
the
graduation:
it
cancelled
the
graduation.
It
is
both
enabling
and
irresponsible.
Rather
than
protect
students
and
their
families
at
this
important
and
well-earned
event
in
their
lives,
the
university
is
yielding
to
the
mob.
It
is
a
feckless
and
feeble
response
to
what
should
have
been
an
easy
decision
for
any
administrator.
It’s
not
“yielding
to
the
mob”
when
there
aren’t
any
actual
or
necessarily
even
credible
threats.
“Protect[ing]
students
and
their
families”
sounds
ominous
except
we’re
talking
about
a
hypothetical
risk
that
some
students
start
picketing
the
event,
which
is
about
as
threatening
as
USC’s
defense
under
Lincoln
Riley.
Which,
unintentionally,
provides
an
even
better
distillation
of
the
heckler’s
veto
in
action.
Because
the
heckler’s
veto
in
practice
was
not,
generally
speaking,
a
response
to
any
actual
threat
of
anti-speaker
violence
as
much
as
the
government
citing
flimsy
“safety”
concerns
to
justify
prior
restraint.
White
Southern
sheriffs
weren’t
really
worried
that
the
Klan
members
—
who
they
almost
certainly
hung
out
with
on
Wednesday
nights
—
were
going
to
engage
in
mass
violence.
But
they
thought
by
saying
they
were
worried
about
the
racists
they
could
shut
down
civil
rights
events
without
drawing
the
ire
of
the
courts.
You’d
think
Turley
would
remember
this
disgraceful
tactic
of
the
civil
rights
era,
but
he
literally
didn’t
remember
that
crooked
cops
used
to
arrest
Martin
Luther
King
Jr.
or
who
was
vice
president
in
2018,
so
maybe
we
shouldn’t
rely
on
his
grasp
of
history.
It’s
a
sham
intended
to
skirt
free
speech
obligations.
It’s
a
school
banning
a
speaker,
citing
the
vague
trouble
her
words
might
trigger
from
the
audience,
and
then
later
canceling
the
whole
event
over
fears
that
a
protest
might
break
out.
So
when
USC’s
Provost
tried
to
shrug
off
the
decision
to
silence
the
valedictorian
by
saying
the
decision
“was
aimed
at
protecting
campus
security
and
‘had
nothing
to
do
with
free
speech,’”
he
joined
a
long
and
ignominious
tradition
of
bad
faith
actors
using
“security”
to
enforce
decisions
that
have
everything
to
do
with
free
speech.
A
tradition
that
Turley
either
doesn’t
understand
or
just
doesn’t
want
you
to
understand.
Problem
Solved?
USC
Cancels
Graduation
to
Avoid
Pro-Palestinian
Protesters
[JonathanTurley.org]
Earlier:
‘Legal
Experts’
Need
To
Stop
Deliberately
Misleading
People
About
The
First
Amendment
Shut
Up
And
Stop
Heckle
Vetoing
Me,
Law
School
Prof
Yells
At
Clouds
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Patrice is
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