Free speech at IVC: the case of the Christian provocateur

Photo by L Tonkovich

     At 2:02 this afternoon, IVC President Glenn Roquemore sent this remarkable email to the college community:

Colleagues,

This afternoon, in the free speech area in front of the Student Services Center, a man exercised his first amendment rights drawing an angry crowd that remained mostly peaceful. One student was arrested and released when he spit gum on the speaker. No further incidents were reported. Following the incident, the free exchange of ideas continued peacefully. A successful “teaching moment” was afforded to many IVC staff because most of the students in the crowd had little, if any, familiarity with the concept of free speech and several students rejected the idea outright. 

—Very Respectfully, Glenn R. Roquemore, Ph.D.

     At the end of my second class today, at about 1:50 p.m., a student motioned to the east window and directed my attention to some excitement in front of the Student Services Building. I saw the usual noisy Christian speaker or speakers, shouting "Jesus saves" and the like. The student called them "idiots." I said, "Maybe so, but they've got a right to think and say what they like." I went to my office.

     Just now, upon encountering Roquemore's remarkable email, I went outside to the aforementioned area and found two men with signs surrounded by maybe fifty or sixty people. As often happens midweek, one of them was shouting the standard "Christian" pleas: "repent," "Jesus saves," etc.

     One of the men held a sign with a predictable message about Jesus on one side. On the other side, however, the sign declared that Mohammed is/was a false prophet and that he was a "child molester." The latter notion seemed to be the most obnoxious of the messages displayed on the speakers' four or five signs. I later learned that, throughout the afternoon, the speaker had been shifting from target to target, sometimes attacking Muslims, sometimes attacking gays, sometimes attacking the "n-word President," and so on. 

     He was there, not to discuss or enlighten, but to provoke. He was successful.

     A student, evidently a veteran, stood about twenty feet from these "Christian" speakers, holding up a sign that said something like: "I'm a veteran. I didn't fight to protect 'bigoted' speech." There were two signs flat on the ground at the feet of the "Christian" speakers. Both condemned the speakers' message (the Islamophobia?), though they did not quite suggest that these speakers should be made to cease ranting. The crowd was somewhat rowdy, much amused, and a little hostile.

     I bumped into one of our police officers standing nearby. I asked if our students were behaving themselves. He stated that some of our students seem not to understand the First Amendment—the right to speak one's mind freely, to express even unpopular ideas—for there were some students, he said, who thought that the speakers' presentation should be stopped, that surely it was "illegal."

     The cop also noted that, in general, students had behaved very well and allowed the speakers to express themselves without hindrance.
     While I stood there, I saw that informal groupings of male students occasionally sought to shout down the Christian speaker. The idea, it seemed, was to prevent him from expressing his views.

* * *

Things were winding down by the time we took this pic. The chief
speaker was the man in black.

(Photo by L Tonkovich.)

     P.S.: 3:15 p.m. — The crowd has grown to about 100 and it has grown rowdier. The main "speaker," sporting a fedora and cheap suit, has offered attacks on gays, the field of psychology(?), the Obama administration, women (who, evidently, should not teach), and other predictable right-wing targets. He is clearly trying to provoke the students to anger, to action; unfortunately, students are taking the bait.
     There seem to  be at least three IVC policeman standing by, monitoring the situation. I spoke with them; they seem to be doing a good job keeping the crowd under control.
     I'm told that the crowd has swelled and shrunk and swelled again throughout the afternoon. Earlier in the afternoon, it was much larger, and that's when trouble occurred and Irvine PD were called in.

     P.P.S.: 3:45 — Just spoke with a colleague who noted that the college really ought to provide some kind of follow through to today's episode. It is clear that many students are in need of instruction concerning the notion of free speech—that, as Chomsky explains in the clip below, one does not believe in free speech unless one is willing to support speech that one does not like. (Even tyrants support "free" speech that they agree with.) She also said that this kind of episode reveals the desperate need on this campus for a student newspaper, where such issues can be addressed in a more satisfying manner that reaches students. (As you know, the reason that we do not have a student paper is the President's fear of criticism and other inconveniences that attend a genuine journalism program.) 
     As things are, there are now lots of angry and confused students at the little college in the orange grove and nothing will occur to address that situation, aside from various ad hoc efforts in classes here and there.
     I recommend viewing the clip from the documentary "Manufacturing Consent" below.

"If you believe in freedom of speech, you believe in freedom of speech that you don't like."