By Samuel Rubenfeld
The speech police are out in force again, and once again, it’s political.
Early last week, we saw how transparently dangerous it is for Rupert Murdoch to be holding the censor button. When accepting an award at the Emmys, Sally Field attempted to make an anti-war statement, and her microphone was cut off. Granted, she did precede her statement with profanity, but it isn’t in Murdoch’s interest for the United States people to hear that women wouldn’t start these “god-damned wars in the first place.”
The Canadians, as shown the next day on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” saw the full statement (sans profanity), but it highlights how Murdoch’s media outlets will accede to his political and/or business interest, at least where it matters most.
Americans apparently do not deserve to hear anything from the celebrities they hold so dear, unless it involves Lohan’s coke habit or Hilton’s love for all things “hot.”
Seriously Rupert, Sally Field? What’s the worst she’s done, “Absence of Malice”?
The Wall Street Journal better watch out; it’s next. No more bad news on MySpace, or you will be fired.
And this was the mild, subtle attack of the last few weeks.
The overt and forceful one came in the form of an arrest and Taser incident at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), a former presidential candidate, gave a talk and began answering questions from members of the audience.
Andrew Meyer, a senior communications student, ran up to the microphone as he was running out of time to ask a question. His rambling preface teetered on the edge of obnoxiousness.
Then the university police rushed in.
As the amateur video played thousands of times over the Internet and on network television shows, the microphone was cut off. The police grabbed him by the arms; Meyer resisted. He is led to the back of the auditorium, screaming for help along the way. One officer takes out a Taser and said he will use it if Meyer does not cooperate. Meyer’s bloodcurdling screams still haunt me in my sleep.
Now the question remains: an abridgement on free speech or legitimate police action? Well, even if Meyer’s “statement”-he never got to finish his question-was obnoxious, that does not mitigate or lessen its importance. Meyer had just as much a right to question the senator as a homeless man, a university professor or a constituent does.
Kerry even attempted to answer the statement as chaos ensued, though both the answer and the effort to stop the police action were half-assed-kind of like his run for the presidency.The rush to arrest Meyer is hardly unforeseen in the post-Virginia Tech world, but that doesn’t justify it.
He was neither wielding a weapon nor posing a threat to his colleagues. It is a sad world where a student cannot question a public official without fearing for his life.
The use of a Taser in this case is cruel and unusual punishment of the worst order. People become incapacitated and have even died after being Tasered, yet the law enforcement lobby sees the Taser as safer than a nightstick.
Tell that to the family of John Cox, 39, who died in 2005 after police Tasered him six times to subdue him after a fight at a house in North Bellport in Suffolk County.
The Taser device has never been tested in clinical trials where victims of its use were afflicted with heart conditions or under the influence of drugs.
The Supreme Court precedent sides with Meyer’s case as well. In the landmark case of Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the Court held that a state cannot censor speech by “force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action” and is “likely to incite or produce such action.” Meyer did no such thing.
If Kerry or any other public official speaks on campus, I’d like a guarantee that my questions will not result in my microphone being cut like Field, an arrest like Meyer, or something even worse.
Samuel Rubenfeld is a junior print journalism student. You may e-mail him at [email protected]
Samuel E. Rubenfeld