Legal experts call pro-Palestine free conversation claims “meritless.”
Legal experts refrained this week from a pro-Palestinian person’s claim that she was exercising her First Amendment right when she interrupted a private supper party at the residence of the law professor of the University of California at Berkeley.
During the first of three joyful meals held at their house for third-year law students on Tuesday, UC Berkeley law student Malak Afaneh, Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, and his family, law doctor Catherine Fisk, were the guests, according to the LA Times.
According to a film released on X by American Council of Trustees and students fellow Steve McGuire, Afaneh stood up and began a statement criticizing the school for no renouncing the Muslim holiday Ramadan.
This more in-depth picture of the altercation between Dean Chemerinsky and Professor Fisk’s home reveals just how unbearably rude these students are.
And Chemerinsky has confirmed it’s a private residence ( see below ), which, as you can see, they were asked to leave repeatedly. photograph. twitter.com/ojbaK1fnuM
— Steve McGuire ( @sfmcguire79 ) April 11, 2024
Chemerinsky, who is Jewish, and Fisk constantly asked Afaneh to depart, but she continued to speak, the video shows. According to the picture, Stark once attempted to take Afaneh’s microphone while requesting her to keep their property.
” The National Lawyers Guild has informed us this is our First Amendment proper”, Afaneh responded, according to the picture.
Afaneh and a small group of students finally left, according to the film, after the pair threatened to call the police.
Afaneh claimed that Fisk had assaulted her in an appointment with the LA Times afterwards.
According to The Jewish News of Northern California:
According to one student present at the event, the video does n’t paint the whole picture. A third-year Israeli law student who attended the breakfast claimed that Afaneh and other protesters had been speaking and causing a delay in the dinner’s escalation. Chemerinsky and Fisk initially asked them to leave respectfully, the student claimed. The protesters had been speaking that for three or four hours, he said, and the picture just shows the incident’s conclusion.
” They did not leave when they were asked the first 20 or 30 days”, he said. After Fisk explained that she would call the police if necessary, the scholar added that they eventually left when they finally did.
The pro-Palestinian students were not permitted to speak freely on the professor’s personal property, according to lawyers who responded to the event.
In a statement released to The College Fix, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Director of Campus Rights Advocacy Alex Morey stated that quiet rally on public schools is protected speech. Trespassing on personal home and destructive protests are not. The First Amendment does n’t guard seriously disrupting activities on public school campuses, significantly less at one’s garden dinner group”.
Orin Kerr, a laws professor at UC Berkeley, described the pro- Arab students ‘ say as “meritless”.
” There’s lots of discussion about various aspects of the event, but I do n’t think there’s disagreement (among anyone serious, at least ) that the First Amendment claim is meritless”, Kerr wrote on X.
Chemerinsky also made a public statement on Wednesday, describing the years without incident that he and his wife have hosted these dinners for law students.
” It’s very unfortunate that we have students who are so rude that they enter my home and use this social occasion to advance their political goals,” he said.
Security will be present, but the dean said they still intend to hold the dinners on Wednesday and Thursday.
Any student who disrupts the bar will be informed of the student conduct code, he said.
Pro-Palestinian students posted posters around campus earlier this week that read,” No dinner with Zionist Chem while Gaza starves” and depict the dean holding a bloody knife and fork, according to Chemerinsky.
While the posters were “awful” and some people complained, he said he did not remove them because he is a” staunch” supporter of free speech.
However, “my home is not a forum for free speech”, he said.
MORE: Lawsuit accuses UC Berkeley of not protecting Jewish students
IMAGE: Steve McGuire/X
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