Free speech "zones," police crackdowns threaten to muzzle debate
Haley Koch is a senior at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, a Morehead-Cain scholar and a graduate of Sidwell Friends, a northeastern high school that counts Chelsea Clinton and Gore Vidal among its alumni. Koch has received numerous UNC-CH awards for her work as an LGBT activist and community organizer. In mid-April, she accepted the Engaged Scholarship Award on behalf of UNC-NOW, a grassroots student group Koch works with.
A few days later, on April 23, she garnered another distinction: She was arrested by campus police outside of a classroom.
Koch is charged with disorderly conduct in connection with the now-infamous April 18 protest of a speech by former Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo in UNC-CH's Bingham Hall. That night, left-leaning students protested Tancredo's anti-immigrant positions with a "dance party for diversity" that devolved into a raucous rally. Campus police used pepper spray and waved a crackling Taser to disperse a crowd of protesters from the building, and, after a student outside Bingham Hall shattered a window, Tancredo fled campus with a ragtag band of protesters running behind him, shouting insults. He barely had a chance to speak.
The incident report filed by Koch's arresting officer is riveting. Officer Michael Davis wrote of being ordered to wait outside the Frederick Brooks building where Koch's class was in session and then to proceed with the arrest when she left early. Incidentally, the lieutenant who ordered Davis to make the arrest is the same officer Koch has accused of throwing her to the ground at the protest. "For her comfort, I allowed KOCH to remove her backpack before placing her in handcuffs," Davis wrote. Koch was taken to the Orange County Jail in Hillsborough and later freed on $1,000 bond. She goes to court in September.
Koch's predicament wasn't entirely unpredictable, given North Carolina's complicated history of free speech on campus. In the summer of 1963, the General Assembly pushed through the Act to Regulate Visiting Speakers, a nasty piece of Cold War censorship that effectively banned any communist or communist-leaning speakers from state campuses. That law was struck down by the courts five years later, but more recent events at UNC, North Carolina State University and other colleges and universities illustrate that free speech is not as free as it should be.
Read the Full Article @ The Independent Weekly
Haley Koch is a senior at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, a Morehead-Cain scholar and a graduate of Sidwell Friends, a northeastern high school that counts Chelsea Clinton and Gore Vidal among its alumni. Koch has received numerous UNC-CH awards for her work as an LGBT activist and community organizer. In mid-April, she accepted the Engaged Scholarship Award on behalf of UNC-NOW, a grassroots student group Koch works with.
A few days later, on April 23, she garnered another distinction: She was arrested by campus police outside of a classroom.
Koch is charged with disorderly conduct in connection with the now-infamous April 18 protest of a speech by former Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo in UNC-CH's Bingham Hall. That night, left-leaning students protested Tancredo's anti-immigrant positions with a "dance party for diversity" that devolved into a raucous rally. Campus police used pepper spray and waved a crackling Taser to disperse a crowd of protesters from the building, and, after a student outside Bingham Hall shattered a window, Tancredo fled campus with a ragtag band of protesters running behind him, shouting insults. He barely had a chance to speak.
The incident report filed by Koch's arresting officer is riveting. Officer Michael Davis wrote of being ordered to wait outside the Frederick Brooks building where Koch's class was in session and then to proceed with the arrest when she left early. Incidentally, the lieutenant who ordered Davis to make the arrest is the same officer Koch has accused of throwing her to the ground at the protest. "For her comfort, I allowed KOCH to remove her backpack before placing her in handcuffs," Davis wrote. Koch was taken to the Orange County Jail in Hillsborough and later freed on $1,000 bond. She goes to court in September.
Koch's predicament wasn't entirely unpredictable, given North Carolina's complicated history of free speech on campus. In the summer of 1963, the General Assembly pushed through the Act to Regulate Visiting Speakers, a nasty piece of Cold War censorship that effectively banned any communist or communist-leaning speakers from state campuses. That law was struck down by the courts five years later, but more recent events at UNC, North Carolina State University and other colleges and universities illustrate that free speech is not as free as it should be.
Read the Full Article @ The Independent Weekly
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