The free speech debate on campus keeps missing the real problem with hecklers

I keep seeing people on here arguing that shouting down a speaker is just another form of free speech. But I was at a talk at my university in Ohio last month where a group drowned out the whole event for 45 minutes. That's not adding to the conversation, it's shutting it down completely. I run a moving company and I've dealt with plenty of loud disagreements on job sites, but there's a difference between making your point and refusing to let anyone else speak. The campus administration did nothing because they were scared of being called censors, but that left 200 students who paid tuition to hear both sides stuck in the dark. Why are we treating coordinated disruption the same as a passionate debate? Has anyone else watched a whole event get derailed like that and felt like the rules just gave up?

2 comments

2 Comments

emma7684d ago

You gotta shut it down early or it just snowballs. At my kid's school board meetings, we had a rule that one warning was all you got before security walked you out. If the administration had stepped in after the first couple minutes, the other 200 students would've actually gotten to hear the talk. Giving hecklers unlimited time just teaches them that screaming works better than talking. Sometimes the only way to protect free speech for the majority is to stop the few from hijacking the whole room.

torres.jason5d ago

Man, I have a bad habit of jumping into arguments I know nothing about, so trust me I get the urge to yell. But heckling a whole event into the ground just feels like bringing a bullhorn to a library fight.