The Case of Andrew Meyer

Last night I discovered, belatedly, the new case of campus tasering. The incident which immediately comes to mind is a similar event in the Powell Library of UCLA last November. There, a student with the misfortune to be approached by the campus police while studying...and not carrying his ID card...had the good fortune to be tasered multiple times while being hauled out of the facility.

This time, we get the case of Andrew Meyer, a journalism student at the U of F, getting hauled off and tasered in the middle of asking Senator John Kerry a question in a campus speaking event. In the aftermath of the event, a number of facts have come to light. Apparently, Meyer is a journalism major with something of a penchant for making public spectacles. Apparently, he had planned to make something of a scene. Apparently, he jumped in line to ask his question. And then, obviously, his question was something of a rant that went on for, well, not quite two minutes.

So here we have it: an obnoxious person making an obnoxious spectacle and getting tasered.

Except that none of what Mr. Meyer said or did rose even remotely near the US bar of prohibited speech, outlined most famously in the fighting words doctrine of Chaplinsky vs. New Hampshire. Given that Meyer engaged in no violence, and had actually managed to formulate three provocative, but also quite politically relevant questions, his treatment by the campus police was simply illegal. The moment they laid hands on him, they crossed the fine line that separates civil discourse from violent suppression. Meyer's speech was obnoxious, perhaps offensive, and very definitely public. But the funny thing is that he was taking part in an event--a speech by a sitting Senator--that by definition is precisely where such speech should be most protected.