I’ve seen the video of the professor in Missouri, demanding that the aggressive reporter be thrown out of a circle of students. And I have mixed feelings about it. So many people are reflexively aghast, and shouting about “freedom of the press!”, but I’m wondering if we’re going to have any limitations on freedom of the press.
For example, if a journalist storms into my bedroom tonight waving a camera, demanding to document all that’s going on, don’t I have a right to privacy, and can’t I demand that they be thrown out (even though it is true, baby, that I make earthshaking news in the bedroom every night)? There is a good argument to be made for a right to know what government and industry is planning to do that might have an impact on our lives, so I’m generally for an open press, but there are reasonable limits. In the case of a group of students gathering to discuss their feelings about racism on campus, I think they should have a right to draw a line and say that it’s private and personal.
I’m wondering now whether those reporters are just as assertive and demanding about recording what’s going on in meetings of the board of regents, or pursuing university president’s decisions. I’m also wondering whether anyone can make a good argument for why that particular gathering of students required immediate photographic documentation, other than dogmatic recitations of that stock phrase, “freedom of the press”.
I have to agree with Amanda Marcotte. This is a more complicated issue that it superficially appears to be, and the chant of “political correctness” is the new repressive slogan, used to justify silencing criticism of the status quo.
That’s the power of the term “political correctness”. It allows people like Chait to argue that students who are organizing protests, standing up to authority figures they disagree with, and demanding a voice in the governance of their own universities are somehow anti-democracy and anti-free speech. It’s a great weapon for those who want to tell kids to sit down, shut up and do as they’re told that it’s all in the name of “freedom”. Nice trick, there.
It’s also ironic. Somehow “PC” has become a way to pretend that disagreement with people in power is the dominant mode of discourse, that it has vast power, and that it’s really the wealthy, dominant hierarchy of convention, the Establishment, that is weak and suffering under the terrible burden of college students, deeply in debt and lacking a moneyed institution to prop them up, who dare to complain about injustice.
Speaking of ironic, you can read how to write a “political correctness run amok” article. If you’re a bit anemic, I guarantee your bloodstream will be throbbing with a rich supply of irony afterwards.
Another excellent piece on this subject by Jelani Cobb.
And this is where the arguments about the freedom of speech become most tone deaf. The freedom to offend the powerful is not equivalent to the freedom to bully the relatively disempowered. The enlightenment principles that undergird free speech also prescribed that the natural limits of one’s liberty lie at the precise point at which it begins to impose upon the liberty of another.
Yes. We always seem to forget that when the limits on the powerful are brought up.
I posted this in another thread, but here is some additional background on why protesters don’t want the media around.
The text reads: “with ability to publish themselves via social media, a lot of organizers/activists believe pretty firmly that they don’t need to cater to MSM”
I know some people are complaining about the students’ resistance to the presence of the media. Some people are suggesting that the opposition to media presence somehow means the students don’t support free speech. This is not the case. The students are not saying the press has no right to be there. The students are saying they don’t want the press there. And I can’t blame them.
In thinking about the coverage of racism in the US over the last year, how often have we seen the same footage of a slain black person over and over again? To me, there were times that such repeating footage acted as a substitute to actual journalism. How often have we heard the MSM try to present a “balanced” view of events, by also including the “dissenting” views of politicians and pundits who don’t agree with the Black Lives Matter movement? How often is relevant information not included in MSM stories? The mainstream media so very often doesn’t serve the purpose of bringing the truth to the public, especially where the lives of black people are concerned. And especially as it relates to Black Lives Matter protests. I posit that the mainstream media as it currently stands is incapable (or perhaps unwilling) to present anti-racist activism and the Black Lives Matter movement as the civil rights issue it is. IMO, this is one of the reasons that protesters do not want the media around.
As an aside, I find it amusing to think about the complaints from conservatives about the “liberal media” in relation to BLM protests.
Oh, and the always-awesome Arthur Chu wrote this piece over at Slate- Bring on the outrage: Go ahead and hate on coddled college kids, just admit that the anti-PC backlash is fueled by outrage too.
PZ, you’re 100% wrong about this as both the professor in question and @ConcernedStudent1950 have said. The quad is a public space and the media had a right to be there, as the reporter knew. Don’t conflate the professor’s admitted mistake with the much more important issues.
PZ, this didn’t happen in your bedroom, it happened in a public place where there was a large gathering. You can’t have a private meeting in the middle of the university quad.
qwints, cervantes:
They cannot deny the media the right to be there, but they *can* tell them they don’t want them there.
To be sure, I think the professor was in the wrong. I’m talking about the actions of the students who created a shield to keep out the media.
This quote pretty much nails it for me: “Stop being so concerned about this reporter’s 1A rights and start being concerned about why these black kids feel so unsafe that they have to camp out in fucking tents in fucking November.”
qwints and cervantes:
Yes, the school quad is public, and reporters have the right to shove their way in, but I understand those concerned feeling that “hey, this is our school, and we’ll deal with these issues the way we want, and we don’t really want you here”, as well as the fact that quad or not, they have the right to tell reporters they don’t want them there and won’t talk with them.
The government has to leave the press alone, and can’t impose prior restraint.
Any private person or group of persons can ignore the media. So why is there this pretense that the media must be responded to if they approach you? I don’t get it.
Tony!,
They absolutely can tell them that they don’t want them there. You know what they can’t do? Physically intimidate them.
And it was actually faculty among the protesters who were encouraging students to intimidate student journalists. Here is a piece about this particular issue. It’s not from The
Milquetoast-Liberal Circle Jerk of Hero WorshipAtlantic, and it makes valid points. On so many other aspects of this story, I agree with you and PZ. But this is a case where Professors were behaving threateningly toward journalists, including students, and encouraging the student protesters to join with them. And qwints is correct. ConcernedStudent1950 has spoken out against these actions.PZ, this isn’t a case of people complaining about PC, it’s about journalists’ rights as human beings not to be harassed when working in public spaces. Thanks for the link to the Julia Serano article, however. It beautifully explains how bullshit all these Atlantic pieces are. The only quibble I have with it is that it doesn’t advise the use of the word “illiberal”.
@Tony, absolutely.* I’ve just seen a number of pieces like this from progressives who weren’t at the scene, but who try to explain or defend the faculty actions. They’re wrong and they’re focusing on the wrong part of the story.
*minor qualification – the human shield tactic was debatable, but everything else done (moral pressure, refusing interviews, etc.) by students was legal and moral.
That reporter–who was also a fellow student–was outnumbered by students and faculty members who were very aggressive with him. He was shoved and his camera was grabbed.
All this happened in a public square, in which he, as an individual and as a journalist, had as much right to be as anyone else.
Prof. Click was an excellent example of why Communications / Mass Media degrees have nothing to do with journalism (they teach you how to lie to journalists).
I am sure there are many things I agree with Amanda Marcotte on, but until she stops gratuitiously insulting white men for not being Hillary supporters, I really don’t care what she has to say about this. She’s PCed herself into a very tiny box, and I hope she stays there.
Thirdly, it is impossible for me to think of anything you could do to protest racism on campus that I wouldn’t support. Our universities have been corporatized and now teach conformity.
Well, the tent city is gone now. #ConcernedStudent1950 struck their tents and cleared the quad last night, in fear of death threats.
Interview with Butler, the student whose hunger strike provided the rallying point, just published this morning: LA Times
gmacs @10:
As I mentioned upthread, I completely agree that the actions of the faculty and anyone else involved in intimidation are wrong. No excuses.
I do want to note, however, that the criticism going on about the actions at Missouri are not just about those inappropriate actions. There *are* people complaining about the protesters at Mizzou being PC. There are multiple things going on right now relating to the racial tension on the UoM campus.
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qwints @11:
Understood.
Why do you find the human shield tactic debatable?
Freedom of the Press means the government cannot censor what you print. It does NOT guarantee a reporter’s free access to EVERYWHERE. Students blocking reporters’ access to a public square is a protest against the media. The students have as much right to this form of protest as the reporter has in trying to gain access.
Blocking access to public spaces is a right in the US?
Interesting country you have there.
Tony
I don’t know MO. law, but it might not be legal. You generally can’t intentionally obstruct pedestrians at a protest. See e.g. ACLU Missouri
Where the reporters told in public spaces nobody in a certain area wanted to talk to them, and they tried to MAKE people in that area talk to them after being told that? If so, they media went overboard.
qwints @18:
I’m not sure if journalists would count as pedestrians though.
qwints, that’s a rather interesting take. “should leave them alone if asked to do so.” But you do not think this applies to the reporter???
I should be clear. My understanding was that the students wanted that reporter to leave them alone. Perhaps my understanding is wrong, but, if not, the question is the reporter exempt from this concept of leaving people alone if asked to do so?
I don’t want to appear rude, but I’m going to stop talking about the incident with media. Here’s what really matters:
“Hunger striker gives credit to fellow activists fighting racism at University of Missouri”
“University of Missouri students report threats of violence”
#BlackOnCampus
The students are not saying the press has no right to be there. The students are saying they don’t want the press there.
But who else is qualified to video, then ask deep, probing hand-wringing questions when the students get pepper sprayed? The media are standing by!
Seriously; they’re in the pocket of the political system and the corporate mega-conglomerate; who the fuck needs them around? Wanna ’embed’ with the protestors? March with them. That guy’s problem was he’s a goon and wanted to wander around among the protestors. They shouldn’t have to share their space with him and he was taking advantage of the fact that it was hard for them to all get up and leave.
It wasn’t just one faculty member who was at fault, at the original video of the event documents. It was intimidation and physical obstruction that the photographer and reporter experienced, as you can see for yourself. That is what the First Amendment is about, their right to tell their story to you.
#ConcernedStudent1950 vs the media
@22
A reporter has a right to cover an event occurring in a public space. If the students wanted privacy to strategize or vent or whatever, they could rent out a meeting space and control who has access. So, I suppose it depends on what is meant by “leave them alone.” Can’t stop them from taking pictures or recording the event. If the reporter was aggressively following a student around Bill O’Reilly style, they probably have a decent argument for harassment.
I worked closely with a labor organizer for a few years. I have exactly zero qualms about the importance of the work. What I did find somewhat troubling was the effort we expended trying to keep members of the union away from the press during strikes/marches/protests.
On several occasions my job was to wander around and interrupt unsanctioned interviews. Why? Because a sizable percentage of the people in the strike didn’t really understand the issues. Nothing wrong with that. They knew enough to trust the labor leadership, they weren’t there involuntarily, but the organizers were in perpetual terror that an embarrassing interview would hit the airwaves.
And yet, this is what we rightfully do with Tea Party rallies (meltdowns). Obviously, the Tea Party people are, in addition to being unaware and ignorant, mean and petty, but the press principle is the same: wander around till you find a real nut, let them talk, use the tape. As awful as the Tea Party is, that paints an even worse portrait. People would do the same with union members.
I don’t know if a similar motive was involved at Missouri, but it always makes me uncomfortable when people involved in public protests try to chase away the media. Now, if individual students didn’t want to talk to a reporter, that’s fine and dandy. But if someone did want to interact or a reporter was chased away merely for covering the event and/or asking questions, that triggers a bit of concern.
That being said, as with the labor unions, I have exactly zero concerns about the substance of the protests.
Sorry, I seem to have munged the link. Here it is unadorned:
Ahhhh…the great American trick of misdirection. I have noticed that the narrative has shifted from students protesting racism on campus to, this one person told not to take photos.
methos (#28),
Good point.
Just a quick note to mention that in my opinion and in everything I’ve seen, the student photojournalist, Tim Tai, has shown a boatload of class and professionalism both during and after the incident. During the event I think he did extremely well calmly expressing why he thought he should be there (and felt he had a right to be there), and he has made a real effort afterward to not become the story and to keep focus on university and student reaction to racism.
Funny, from recent high-profile users of this term, I’ve taken it to mean “I’m a dumbass who doesn’t want to have to explain or correct the dumbassery I’ve spewed.”
It is odd that a student protest in Missouri could become such massive international news that I’m reading about it in British national newspapers. And the reason? I’m not sure. Maybe they’re being used as a surrogate for people to debate racial issues without having to actually get anywhere near them. In which case, there’s an argument that talking about them could be in the public interest, but it’s still exploiting some other people far, far away to serve our interest.
In this case I don’t think it’s even working well, because the reports are functioning to promote the idea that ‘throwing a tantrum’ is the way to get what you want. It’s impossible to someone who doesn’t know how US universities work to understand how or why getting that guy to resign could have any relationship to catching the idiot who paints swastikas in toilets. Nor would I expect British people to grasp why anyone should care at all about a football team refusing to play. It’s all completely decontextualised to the point where it makes no sense. It comes across like negotiating with your mum by refusing to eat dessert. Cultural differences, I know, but they do happen. It may even be that the story is presented to us just to get clicks from entertaining Britons with the eccentricities of people on the other side of the Atlantic. In which case, it’s even more exploitative.
What’s certain is that it must be disconcerting for a group of young people who surely can’t be all that experienced at activism to suddenly find themselves in the middle of massive media storm. Their chances of coming out of it looking like they know what they’re doing are inevitably low, and then the media can make more views out of about that.
Its an exceptionally simple concept. If you are taking part in a public demonstration, you have zero legal or moral expectations to privacy. That is the point of the word “public” so the comparison to your bedroom is ludicrous. You of course have a right to refuse to answer questions or to even listen to a journalist asking you questions. You have a right not to be assaulted (physically or verbally) or threatened due to your refusal to answer. If a reporter is being overly assertive or pushy or a downright asshole, you have a wide range of responses. You do NOT have the right to violate their freedom of speech by establishing comfort zones or assaulting them. Demonstrations that take place on public land are still on public land… your declaration that you would prefer anyone in particular not be there does not transform said space into your private property and others have every right to ignore your request whether it is reasonable or not. To sum it up very simply, they have the absolute right to be present and to ask you a question. You have the absolute right to ignore them.
@tony!:
The media don’t count as pedestrians? So once you take a job reporting for ESPN, even if you’re still a student at Mizzou in the journalism school, you lose your right to walk across the quad?
Exactly how do media members on foot not count as pedestrians? They want to use the walkway to get to somewhere either for their job or for their studies or to get food for for any reason at all. While they are using that walkway, they are standing on human feet and using human legs for propulsion.
What is it that makes it so that the reporter loses the rights every other pedestrian possesses? If it’s merely that some other people using the space don’t want them there because they’re afraid how the media will talk about them later, can I ban PZ from walking down a public sidewalk because I’m concerned about what PZ might right on this blog if he witnesses what I’m doing or others are doing on the same sidewalk?
Why or why not?
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I think qwints is right in multiple ways: students have the right to persuade (or attempt to persuade) media to back off from certain areas or not cover certain events – even if the persuasive tactic they choose is shame. Qwints is also correct that what is at issue here isn’t the first amendment right to speak, but the first amendment rights to peform the functions of media. Too many people forget that the first amendment, even though a single amendment, protects multiple different rights. And, finally, qwints is right that over-focus on the press/protesters conflict detracts from the much more important story here: the change in the fight against not only gross racism, but racist inaction in the face of others’ gross racist actions.
There was not only a major victory here, but also an assertion of the present inadequacy of past mechanisms used to keep athletes under control so as to protect the revenue streams of the powerful and wealthy.
If you’re white and you simply have to focus on white concerns, the most productive place to focus might be the actions of the white head coach, the coaching staff generally, and the players that weren’t part of the Black students’ meeting and declaration Saturday night.
The coach:
1) recognized what the student athletes were risking by boycotting football
2) took the steps within his power to negate as many of those risks as possible
2a) when acting to negate these risks, he considered what would happen if he was removed from power.
2b) a statement that he would not punish kids for missing practices or games would be hollow if the university removed him and put in another coach who would
2c) so he cancelled the practices that would otherwise be missed, and put it out that he would be willing to cancel games as well.
2d) he used his position as an insider to the system granted power over others by the system, to undermine the ability of others inside the system to make use of the power of that system against the students. This is the moral response in inappropriately given power: not to deny one has it, but to use it in full awareness of the implications, in ways that are moral, and in ways that tend to undermine the system itself, working toward its eventual demise even if, as a system, it is beyond your individual ability to kill.
2e) He did this knowing that as a head coach who now has a history of making things more difficult for higher-ups (by failing to use discretionary power to shut down things that trouble the higher-ups and making it so clear he was making a choice to use his discretionary power to make it easier to trouble the higher-ups), his choices were making him less employable to those with power who see power as a thing to defend for its own sake. Given how common that sentiment is among individuals who wield greatly disproportionate power, he has slashed the number of institutions at which he is employable in the future by quite a bit.
2f) Thus he’s set a precedent for white people: fighting racism can be dangerous even for white people, but fighting racism can be gloriously worth such dangers – even for white people.
3) He exercised leadership by bringing people together to support the strikers:
3a) “to support the strikers”: this is crucial.
3b) he persuaded others rather than ordering others
3c) when the team as a whole was ready to act with solidarity, note that the team did not adopt the platform of the Black student athletes: they merely stated that they all stand together.
3d) this sends a clear message that white leadership doesn’t have to be a threat to Black leadership: the head coach wasn’t there to take over, and didn’t take over. It’s ridiculously clear from the efforts he took that he was with the strikers 100%. It could easily be inferred that he wanted Wolfe gone. And yet, he stopped far short of that so that the media could never make it about “head coach vs. system president”. It had to stay students vs. admin, and in particular Black students (though, to a lesser extent, it’s clear that Jewish students had a manifest stake when the events ignored included creating a swastika out of feces). It did stay students vs. admin. The effort might still have succeeded if the head coach had taken up the demand to oust Wolfe, but it would still have been the theft of student power by administrators. The lesson then would not be that student power can overcome administrator power when applied thoughtfully in a just cause. The lesson then would be “#notalladministrators”. Fuck that noise.
If you really feel the lessons of the Black student athletes’ football boycott are not for you, there’s still a lot more to explore with a lot more moral impact than, “Can a reporter cross a quad?”
It can be tricky. As one who has fairly frequently over the years demonstrated and faced a position where the collective group needs to make a collective decision (for example whether to retreat, stand our ground, or march), I can say that I would not want those discussions to be public, even if they took place in the context of a demonstration occurring in a public place; and even less if they took place during an occupation or other illegal action (as of, for instance, a military recruitment center).
In this case, I’d prefer not to focus on what may have been a mistake (I do not have all the facts and I’m not going looking for them). Conservatives will pick up on this to discredit a valuable movement; self-described moderate leftists like Chait will continue to insist that lefter than him is beyond the pale; and some radicals will fall into the temptation to dispute or discuss or otherwise move away from the most important issues.
Also, let’s rejoice in taking the occasional smooth with our rough.
@Pen:
It’s because it was so immediately effective. Neo’s moment in the hallway had very few immediate consequences. He was saving a life in a world of billions of lives. But the change in tactics, and the effectiveness of the new tactics, in the metaphor, Neo’s new way of seeing his own power to oppose the Matrix, this is much more new and newsworthy than the downfall of a particular administrator or particular agent of the Matrix. It foreshadows quite a large number of victories to come, because as currently structured the NCAA and the universities are terribly vulnerable to this kind of student activism. They thought it would never happen, because they had so much control through scholarships, mentor relationships that help students get jobs when their student-athlete careers end and they DON’T turn pro (as most of them won’t). But now it has happened.
If the basketball players want to deny the NCAA the opportunity to produce video games using the NCAA brand which is only valuable because of the players, a strike can accomplish that.
What if the athletes want to have their work acknowledged by having their universities pay into Social Security as if they were working a job with a cash salary equal to the value of their scholarships, as strike can accomplish that…and provide a huge boost if the students become disabled as a result of their athletics, or leave behind a spouse or children after dying of heat-stroke on the practice field, or just provide a more comfortable retirement after a good life if no calamities befall – a just reward that doesn’t make the sport professional, but greatly assists the players in their lives and in creating security around the risks of athletics? A strike by football or basketball players in revenue sports could make that a reality for all student-athletes.
In a country that believes the proper response to externalities is to lock the door and load the shotgun, these new tactics are incredibly newsworthy.
Maybe the UK papers don’t do a good job of communicating why, but they sure as fuck are newsworthy.
Yeah, every necrotic white administrator at the NCAA, in the various conferences, and at the individual schools profiting off of the uncompensated, mostly African American athletes (in the revenue sports) should be quaking in their boots. The effort by the Northwestern team to unionize failed, but this sure looks like a powerful precedent for other schools.
Marcus @24:
Have you watched the video?
A lone reporter patiently explains over and over again his right to be there, and gets surrounded and intimidated and shoved and pushed by a shouting mob, and you think HE’S the “goon”?
A professor calls for some “muscle” to help her “remove” a reporter from a public space, and you think the reporter is a goon?
I really like the idea of social security contributions from Universities – it was a one-off idea as I was writing, but the more I think about it, the more I think about the structure and function of social security, the more I think this is a great idea.
Moreover, there are lots of specialized programs to help people buy their first home. Home ownership does tons to help families over time.
What if monies from things like jerseys and video games and all that went into a pool that was used to double or triple down payments for a first-time home buyer that engaged in a minimum amount of college athletics under scholarship? What if it was used (instead or additionally) to provide disability or death insurance on any mortgage of such a person’s primary residence, so that the spouse and children of such a person had more security? While divers and swimmers might not face the long-term risks of premature death or disability as, say, football players, I don’t know which sports *do* in fact take a long term toll on a person’s body, and an insurance program, rather than a salaried program, needn’t threaten the “amateur character” over which the NCAA frets so much.
Moreover, there are threats to long-term security from leaving school early and not getting a degree. By making some of these benefits take longer to vest than others, it would provide a little bit more incentive for those on the bubble of a professional draft to stay in school. In fact, you could make some of the benefits conditional on getting a degree – but not conditional on getting the degree during your playing years. That way those people who did jump to the draft would have an incentive to go back and finish their educations.
Home ownership, life and disability insurance, social security – these are the kinds of benefits that can make real differences to real families without risking NCAA’s cherished “amateur status”.
imagine all the homes we could fund, all the persons on retirement who could afford to buy fresh vegetables that might otherwise stretch a budget to thin, all the persons injured in the course of entertaining the masses who would receive benefits that reflected their hard work?
That’s some shit that needs to happen, right there. And we can do it all for the price of a few luxury skyboxes…
Pen @32:
These protests are not the result of recent incidents. These protests are the result of long-standing racism on college campuses. Racism that has been long simmering and ignored by the people in power. Black students are tired of college campuses ignoring the problem of racism.
What’s not working well? The protests led to one of the specific goals of the protesters: the resignation of the UoM president whom protesters felt was not addressing racism on the campus.
I don’t know how the universities responded to racist incidents on campus. I just know that the black students felt university officials-going all the way to the top-failed to adequately address racism on campus. And again, this is far more than a single incident of a swastika being painted.
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CD @34:
Point taken about pedestrians and media. I still think that the students have the right to say “hey, we don’t want y’all here” (though I don’t think you contest that).
****
Question for all:
Do students have the right to form a wall preventing media from entering a specific public area? I’m not talking about intimidating, harassing, or in any way being aggressive towards media figures.
Tony, I don’t think there’s anything special about students or media, so any reason we can’t reframe your question to be:
Do people have the right to form a wall preventing other members of the public from entering a specific public area?
My answer is “hell, no.” And my answer is the same regardless of whether my political sympathies lie with the people hoping to enter the space or those blocking it. In other words:
— blocking access to a public school is wrong, whether it’s modern-day progressive students blocking reporters they think will be unsympathetic, or 1950s racists trying to keep a school from racially integrating
— blocking public access to a business is wrong, whether it’s striking workers protesting against management, or marriage rights activists protesting chick-fil-A, or anti-abortionists protesting an abortion clinic
The point of a public space is that it’s equally open to the public. One group of people doesn’t get to take over the space and exclude others, and that’s what you’re describing; the “I’m not using force against you, I’m just going to require you to use force against me or give up your right to access” tactic doesn’t change the nature of what’s being done. (Obviously, there are public spaces that are occasionally given over to the exclusive use of particular segments of the public, i.e. your group reserves a meeting room at the local public library. But that’s a decision for public officials to make according to lawfully made policies, not for mobs to enforce through superior numbers.)
They were little better than cops that don’t like being recorded. It’s a pubic space. They were threatening physical harm to the reporters. I would expect this from right wing goons. Not people striving for equal rights.
I think it was obvious given the context, but just so it’s clear: my references to “blocking access” mean “blocking ALL access,” as in, not letting anyone through the “human wall” Tony was describing. I have no problem with peaceful picket lines or demonstrations, but you’ve got to let the students/media/customers/patients/whoever pass through.
@Tony!
You’re correct: I’m totally with you on this. The students should feel free to attempt to convince anyone of anything they like, so long as they are using “mere expression” (in the legal sense) and not other kinds of statements like immediate threats or conspiring to commit violence, etc. (and, to be clear, your example doesn’t come anywhere close to those lines).
I think we’re in the same place.
As for
A legal right or a moral right?
I believe that they do not have a legal right, but I don’t know for sure. I’d be happy to be schooled by someone with more knowledge of the US constitution and of Missouri constitutional and statutory provisions than I have. Note that this will have certain complexities under the landlord tenant laws for all those students who are renters. Such laws generally have specific subsections or at least specific exemptions for college students who rent dorm rooms, but nonetheless certain rights do apply. Depending on how “common spaces” are defined, it might be arguable that a statutory right to block others from a common space does exist for those who rent dorm rooms when applied against those who do not rent space on campus. As I understand it – which is primitively – landlord/tenant obligations have been established that drastically favor the landlord in the case of universities. However, I know in some jurisdictions that those obligations have rarely been challenged, especially in recent decades. Therefor, it certainly looks like the students have no legal right to do this, but no one should be confident in this answer (not least because it comes from the underqualified Crip Dyke).
A moral right? Short answer, no. Longer answer: it depends on more information than is contained within your hypothetical. Are the media trying to get to the only working phone in the area to call out a report? Do the media have other available pathways to get where they are going? If the public has an interest in the happenings that follow from this organizing-in-a-public-place, are the people forming the wall in the organizational context also making it difficult to cover the actual events after planning is over? What about media acting in bad faith: do the media intend to communicate the planning to those with the power to prevent action? What about resource options: Do the students have the option of meeting somewhere more private for their planning so that barring the quad doesn’t happen because they have no choice but to meet in the quad, but instead happens because they simply want/choose to take possession of the quad and deny it to others?
I’d judge the morality of the wall-builders by the resources available, the media’s relationship to power, and the organizers’ willingness to have the public actions be subject to scrutiny even if their planning process is walled off.
@Tony
Yeah, I think so.
If me and 6 friends sit in a circle in a park, do we have to let a random person go and sit in the empty space in the middle? Or can we just say “What the hell, sit somewhere else!”
There’s an image at this link that shows the wall protesters formed to keep the media out.
I hadn’t seen that. That’s a far bigger area than I thought. I thought the space protesters were trying to keep media out of was smaller than that (although I guess it wouldn’t matter what the size of the area was, if it was on public property).
Vivec @45,
Exactly! Great point.
Now let’s just scale this up a bit.
If we and 100 friends form a circle big enough to surround the whole entire park (or quad) does someone else have the right to push their way through us to get to the middle area? Does their right to use the park trump our right to stand in a circle around the park? Does it matter if we got there first?
We agree with Professor Myers on this one. The students should have the right to draw lines beyond which no nobody can cross. They have a right to expect privacy when and where they choose to assemble and in this case they even put up signs communicating that expectation.
The real question is where the eff was the media when all the racist incidents were happening? They only showed up because there is revenue to be made in telling the story now but if they genuinely cared they would have been there long ago.
All I’m hearing here is an argument that is functionally equivalent to “lunch counter sit-ins were wrong”.
Is it illegal? Probably… Is it a freedom of the press issue? Not really, the government isn’t the one doing the interfering. Is it effective in getting the job done? Definitely looks like it.
The students were lucky they weren’t Muslims as this nice little piece of media trash shows.
That’s all you’ve heard in this whole conversation? Then you haven’t read much – and not anything by Tony! or qwints at all, have you?
I was being hyperbolic.
I’m reminded of the Occupy movement. The MSM so often turned it into comedy, looking for reasons to not take it at all seriously. I can totally understand a complete mistrust of the media by disadvantaged groups. And the cynic in me thinks this has worked out well for those who might want to change the conversation, as mentioned by methos in comment 28. I do not think it immoral for protesters to block public areas. I do not think it wrong for protesters to tell reporters to buzz off, especially in a place where threats have been made. Violence against individuals goes too far, but power holds on to power, and the powerless need to use what they can to bring about change.
In the 60s, students took over entire buildings, for weeks or longer, to protest. To get to school, I walked every day past a campus where this happened. I was 10, and proud of those students.
So if I understand correctly, the media only got interested after a white privileged dude stepped down. That’s a bit late, isn’t it?
If a bunch of white students had treated an Asian student in exactly the same way that this crowd of mostly black students treated Tim Tai, Marcotte would be screaming bloody murder.
The hypocrisy is deafening.
So what I’m being told is, the protesters had to find their voice… but they didn’t want people there to witness it.
People gathering in the public, making a public spectacle, trying to be noticed, are also supposed to have privacy as they do it.
Exactly what was supposed to be ironic, again?
I haven’t looked at this particular incident, but it’s astoundingly simplistic to say that it’s always (morally) wrong to block access to a public space. Sure, it’s an intrusion on the rights of those prevented from accessing it, but it may well be the only, or most effective, way of drawing attention to a far greater wrong. I can think offhand of 4 times I’ve done it (or attempted it): once at Liverpool docks to try to prevent illegally logged timber* being landed; once sitting down on the main drag in Aberdeen, in protest at the UK’s participation in the illegal invasion of Iraq; once at the gates of Faslane Naval Base, where the UK’s nuclear weapons are based; most recently at the entrance to a site where exploratory drilling for fracking was going on. I’d be absolutely willing to do any of these things, or similar, again. Then you have occasions like the Battle of Cable Street”, in which Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists were prevented from marching through the East End of London, which had a large Jewish population. That event went well beyond peacefully blocking access, because police tried to force a way through for the fascists, leading to a riot. Those who stopped them doing so were heroes.
*Logged in Indonesia, from the lands of indigenous people who relied on the forest for their livelihood.
This thread is like the racism version of Anita’s law: Any protest organized by and for black people demonstrates the necessity of said protest.
Half of ya’ll are crowing about a journalist whose career prospects are probably going to improve as a result of this protest while white people are waving candy in front of someone on a hunger strike?
You’re more outraged by the reporter being pushed away from a protest than you are about the reasons the protest started?
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!
Also: Any protest that can be ignored, will be ignored.
To get people’s attention, you have to take something away. Hold it hostage. Preferably “it” doesn’t have rights or is a dependency on human life.
Blocking access to a University quad is hardly blockading a hospital. It means the student body and the faculty won’t have the luxury of pretending the protest doesn’t exist–or if they insist on doing that, they have to go around. If anything, blocking access to a quad is mild, since the only thing lost is a short cut to another class.
Yet half ya’ll would sooner protest the state of the fucking grass under the protest’s feet than you would the administration’s apathy towards repeated instances of blatant racism.’
#56 – Nick: yeah, my Pop did something similar a couple years ago to protest the Keystone pipeline. Got arrested after chaining himself to a building in DC; retirement seems to have brought out the firebrand in him. I assume that your protests were done fully in the expectation of being arrested, right? In other words, you felt a moral obligation to do something illegal to prevent something from happening? So maybe a ‘moral right’ is the wrong way to state it, as opposed to feeling an obligation.
I do feel that your (and my Dad’s, and the lunch counter) protests are different than the students trying to prevent access to their protest. In the first example, preventing access to something was the direct purpose of the protest. With the students, they were trying to, I don’t know, maybe control the messaging about the protest? For example, if they’d blockaded the university president’s house I’d feel differently about it.
#57 / Lesbian Catnip: We’re discussing a post specifically about what rights the students have to limit access to public spaces, and you’re outraged that that’s what we’re talking about?
ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME?!
And it’s “y’all”
And in conversing about the justification of excluding the media in the protest we somehow gloss over the detail where the press has a long and thoroughly documented history of twisting stories against minorities. I thought this would be a fairly intuitive thing: minorities, especially protesting ones, have exactly zero reasons to trust a white, hetero and cisnormative machine to accurately represent their interests. Even if an individual journalist is a minority member, that’s no guarantee the platform they publish on won’t whitewash the story at one point. Why take that risk? They already put themselves on social media for the world’s scrutiny.
Can’t separate a conversation about press coverage of a protest from the context of the protest itself. Existing systems already failed them. Where were the journalists the first 500 times they tried to do this the “legit” way?
plutoanimus #54
You’re making an accusation of deafening hypocrisy based on a situation that didn’t happen.
That’s kinda stupid.
#57 Lesbian Catnip
You’re making what amounts to a “Dear Muslima” argument. Besides, this post is about a specific incident, so that’s what is being discussed here.
I actually don’t understand why there is any debate over this issue. The students were clearly in the wrong on this occasion. They harassed and threatened the journalist. Calling the reporter “aggressive” is astonishing, given how he was treated. Over and above everything else, this actually hurts their cause. It moves the focus elsewhere, which gives those who are allergic to nuance an opportunity to dismiss the larger issue.
It’s perfectly reasonable to acknowledge that the students were at fault while still acknowledging that their cause is just. However, it is not reasonable to make excuses for them because their concerns align with your own.
Lesbian Catnip #61 is right. The media can no longer be trusted to report the news without applying an ideological twist that distorts the facts and make those who want change look like something they aren’t.
Since they can’t be trusted to tell the real story, why bother with them? If they stand off to the side with their cameras, microphones, and recorders, but nobody talks to them, they might start to get an inkling of the problem. I’m not very optimistic they truly know how to listen though.
Of course you can separate a conversation about the tactics of protests from the protests themselves. There’s some sixty posts here that do just that.
Let’s listen to this thread’s greatest hits. (Various artists, 2015)
This thread has been just great. Just great.
Glad we could all find an excuse to poke belittle and/or demonize anti-racism protesters. And to, in multiple ways, insist that any protest that inconveniences anyone is immoral. Obstructing traffic is a woeful crime that protesters commit wantonly. The only good protesters are ones that are easily ignored.
Whatever. Carry on.
Even granting all of that, the students still do not have the right to infringe on that reporter’s rights. They certainly do not get to harass and threaten a journalist purely because they assume ill intent. The ends do not justify the means. As soon as we say it’s OK to violate an individual’s rights because our cause is righteous, where do we draw the line?
Those students were in the wrong. It is that simple. Acknowledging that fact does not invalidate the importance of their cause. This tribal mentality is toxic. It shouldn’t be this difficult to acknowledge the mistakes of people we line up with politically.
What about the tribal mentality of the fucking MEDIA? What about the tribal mentality that the media CAUSES on a day to day basis? Is that not important?
@68
Any tribal mentality is toxic. It is the single biggest obstacle in our discourse.
It shouldn’t be this difficult to acknowledge the mistakes of people we line up with politically.
Are you aware that these students are black? What reality do you live in? They will be vilified. Look, they are being vilified here. One white reporter wasn’t welcomed with open arms, and the black students’ cause is ignored, and instead we are talking about the one damn reporter who wasn’t welcomed with open arms.
Tribal mentality, in-fucking-deed. The irony is not lost on me.
Oh, the poor, poor, white mainstream media! They were treated oh so poorly! We must talk about how one reporter was treated oh so poorly by some fucking students, beat it into the ground, but let’s completely ignore the reasons they were protesting. That one white reporter? Oh man, they didn’t want to talk to him! How fucking terrible.
Remember: It isn’t tribal mentality when it is the status quo!
What a really vague term that has no definition. “Tribal mentality” is the new “Political correctness”. Interesting that “tribal mentality” is aimed toward BLACK STUDENTS and their supporters. Not the white media. No, not at all. It’s the BLACK students and their supporters who have the “tribal mentality”.
Tribal. Mentality.
There is no issue of free speech here, despite the claims. Nobody has to talk to the media. If they do, cite the SCOTUS case. If the media is given the middle finger salute by a group, and the media chooses to press the issue, then they are the aggressors.
Yup, the BLACK students are the aggressors with tribal mentality.
Of course they are.
And last I checked, isn’t choosing to remain silent also freedom of speech?!
Is the white reporter the one in the video in comment #27?
And this is exactly what I’m talking about. You weighed in without even being aware of what happened. The reporter is not white. He’s a minority. Secondly, not all of the students are black, and the faculty certainly isn’t.
How is that not tribal? Without even understanding what happened, you chose to defend your “side”.
Again, a “Dear Muslima” argument. There are worse things than harassing and physically threatening a reporter (not white), so we shouldn’t care about it? How did the people on here react when Dawkins made a similar argument? It’s possible to care about more than one issue.
Yes.
Because marilove chose to weigh in on the subject without having any idea about what occurred, then had the gall to claim it isn’t tribalism.
How is any of that relevant? We’re talking about how a single reporter was treated. He wasn’t harassing anyone. He was trying to take pictures and was subsequently harassed and physically threatened for trying to exercise his rights.
He wasn’t forcing anyone to do anything.
I’d like everyone who thinks it’s really important to argue on behalf of the protestors to ask themselves what concrete steps they’re taking to advance the strategic agenda of anti-racism rather than talk about a tactical choice.
Mizzou-Inspired Protests Coming At Other Colleges
“Jonathan Butler made his mark – quietly at Omaha Central, and more loudly at Mizzou”
From Tim Tai:
Yes. Let’s focus some more reporting on systemic racism in higher ed institutions, indeed.
Also: http://www.komu.com/news/reporter-tim-tai-speaks-on-camera-for-first-time-since-viral-video/
That’s what has been omitted in this conversation thus far, from those mocking the idea that they were trying to block off a private area on public land: that area is where their tents were set up.
Honestly, the whole thing seems like the making of a mountain out of a molehill. And it is a very telling choice of a molehill….
Ah apologies, I finally watched the video. Still, black students are the aggressors engaging in tribal mentality… sigh.
Tony!
I think we’re in agreement then. I was criticizing the (white) faculty member who intimidated students, kind of taking for granted we all understood that it was a single aspect of a larger story. Since I posted yesterday, I’ve learned about the threats against black students at UoM and the mass exodus from campus.
I think intimidation is an unacceptable tactic, so I hope the more severe intimidation (y’know, the death threats) gets more media attention than the professor.
Dear god, I can’t believe I’ve wasted my time on this storm in a teacup.
Yes, the reporter has the right to be in a public place without being accosted, pushed or even having his property (in the form of his camera) grabbed by strangers.
Yes, the students have the right to gather and do whatever they want without being harassed by incessant reporters or having their photos taken without their consent.
I don’t give two shits about MO or US laws. This has nothing to do with freedom of speech. Both sides could and did say whatever they wanted to say. If anything, this is about the students’ right of gathering/protest and privacy (as they didn’t consent to having their pictures taken) versus the reporter’s right to freedom of movement and right to work.
Generally speaking, freedom of movement trumps the right to gather (private rights trump group rights) and the right to privacy trumps the right to work (rights regarding one’s self trump right regarding one’s interaction with others). So the answer to this epic Solomonic dilemma, the likes of which was never seen by mortal eyes, is: the reporter closes his camera and the protesters let him stand wherever he wants.
There. I think I’m now ready for my post-doc in Philosophy and International Human Rights.
___
anteprepro #66
Me too. I’m always glad to take petty assholes down a notch. Because nothing screams “brave protester” like a group of about twenty people ganging up on one unarmed guy. Their video should clearly be accompanied by “We Shall Overcome”.
Or, less sarcastically:
Anti-racism protesters, as people who are supposed to be well aware of power dynamics, should have understood the power imbalance in one unarmed guy facing a group of twenty. Such self-awareness would do well to educate others of their struggle and to prevent any future media embarrassments.
That is, if they care about public opinion or the media. Some don’t, as is also quite evident from this thread.
anteprepro and marilove remind me of the folks who went apeshit over criticism of Matt Taylor’s shirt. How dare we talk about a guy’s shirt when we should be celebrating this scientific and engineering triumph! We can never acknowledge any minor wrongdoing while a greater wrong still exists!
Meanwhile, the professor, like Taylor, had exactly the right response, owning up to their mistake promptly and apologizing. The only thing preventing the discussion from ending or moving on to “more important” matters is the stubborn refusal of their misguided defenders.
#84 I don’t think it makes sense to talk about rights after saying you “don’t give two shits” about the laws that implement those rights. Your comment also suggests a misunderstanding of privacy and speech rights.
First, the right to privacy does not include a right to not be photographed in public places. Being photographed without your permission can be rude, and you have no obligation to give a good photo, but in general you don’t have a privacy *right* to stop someone from photographing you in a public place.
Second, the right to report or document in public places is a speech right. It is not only dismissive, it is wrong to characterize it as a “right to work.” The right to publish a photo means little if you have no right to take the photo.
doubtthat @26
Problem with the Tea Party is, they are leaderless, and they hold protests where the goal of the protest is not clearly defined. So not really the same as those labor protests.
methos@28
Unfortunately, a tactic not limited to the US of A, but applied everywhere by the sacred keepers of the status quo.
treefrogdundee @33
Bullshit, partaking in a public protest means you have less expectations of privacy, but you don’t forfeit your right to privacy.
look I am a little confused here about just what is being argued and why.
It was a protest and occupying the quad correct. part of the protest was denying access to some who were deemed unwelcome by the protesters correct?
If a protest is not willing to break the rules or laws and really inconvenience who they are protesting against I do not see how they the protesters could ever hope to succeed.
Should they not be willing to go to jail for what they believe or even die for expressing the desire to redress grievances? The history of protesting for the rights of free people as demonstrated by the union movement, anti-war movement, the early feminist movement and of course the civil rights movements around the world would demonstrate that without serious disruptions there is very little advancement in gaining those rights and freedoms that are the goals of those movements.
Than the right response in this particular case of breaking the law would have been to call in the state police and the water cannons and disperse the offending protesters, arrest them and restore order immediately .?
uncle frogy
unclefrogy
No. Please read more about what happened before opining.
I read here that some are disapproving of denying access to the quad to a reporter by the protesters ,. If i did not read that or that was not meant then what is the argument about. I also read that the protest should not inconvenience other people who wanted to use the quad, that seems to be saying it was both illegal and immoral did I read that wrong? Were their tactics too rude and too threatening and violent is that what was wrong? was anyone hurt?
Did the protest get enough attention? have they now gone away? Did the actions not flush out any racists in to the open?
uncle frogy
#90 unclefrogy: it’s not just a matter of “inconveniencing” the reporter(s), but literally denying him (them) access to a public space and thus denying their freedom of expression. Worse, there were at least two school employees physically blocking/shoving the reporters and potentially directing the students to do the same. So we’re dealing with potential government actors, not just students, effectively censoring expressive conduct.
Was anyone physically hurt? Not that I’m aware of, but they were grabbed at, shoved, and physically forced backwards. And of course, they were denied their constitutional rights – arguably a greater injury.
There is no requirement that protests be convenient. But the same document that protects your right to protest also protects the reporters’ right to document the protest. You cannot coherently deny one and permit the other.
And you don’t need to take it from me. To my knowledge, both the protesters and the Professor involved have admitted they were wrong.
if these issues and ideas were easy there would never be these problems. they got this way in this case by a lot of racism both overt and covert which now being once again highlighted is not banished to history nor do expect it to be anytime soon.
Well, oh my, I will ring my hands and cry some protesters became over emotional and responded that way. Therefor what? They should never shout at or touch anyone like a reporter if they do they are to be discounted? arrested?
What do any of you who are so condemning of this behavior expect people to do who have this history (it is approaching 400 years in the U.S. ) here in the fucking U.S.A. any way?
uncle frogy
#86: jdsb
I am impressed by the photographer’s comments.
Actually, Dr Click has gone some way to redemption by severing ties with the journalism school and by issuing a real apology. (And a personal one to Mr Tai.)
As she says, she’s done a disservice to the community that do want to address racism at the University of Missouri, by causing or at least exacerbating this distraction.
zenlike @87 We aren’t talking about personal space, the ability to carry on a personal conversation in private, etc. We are talking about one group demanding that others not even be allowed in the vicinity. Someone’s declaration of a “private” protest in no way affects the fact that it is still public space.
treefrogdundee:
Is all “public space” the same? Maybe that concept needs to be thought about a little bit, because it doesn’t seem especially helpful at the moment.
What else was happening on the MU quad? Nothing, that’s what. It’s not a business or a road or a public office, nor is it any other kind of vital public infrastructure, which would essentially be the point of protecting everyone’s access to such things: we have to make sure the whole community can use them. (So what can a university quad be used for? There’s a question you don’t ask yourself. Can they be used for student protests?)
If you can reserve/restrict “public space” for an event of some kind, would getting a permit to do that (or whatever process sounds “official” enough to you) violate everyone’s rights somehow? If not, why isn’t it a violation then? Do you whine like this every time there’s a parade or a street festival or whatever the fuck it may be?
But we probably don’t need to be this fucking abstract about it. What would someone have done in this particular region of public space at that time, if they were not a part of the protest there — stare at grass? (Isn’t there lots of other “public grass” to stare at?) Just give me one tangible thing they should have been able to do. I can’t think of anything reasonable, except intrude on the protesters, because that message was certainly made clear to anyone who happened upon the area. The protesters (some of them at least) didn’t want to be bothered, and they didn’t give their consent to any interviews and/or photographs. Also, they presumably wouldn’t want the stuff in their tents stolen or damaged, if anybody and everybody were utterly free to amble around while the owners were away. Anyway, whatever their reasons, I’m having an awfully hard time seeing how it’s supposed to be a problem.
More questions: Should they not have been allowed to set up tents on public land at all, or where exactly is this sharp boundary supposed to be drawn between public and private property? That tent takes up part of the area of the quad — that’s still public land, right? Is there some reason why everyone should be able to go inside the tent, because it can’t possibly be “private”? Is there some distance away from them, which would be a reasonable zone of control, to manage the roaming crowds of people who love innocently staring at grass? Exactly how big is “the vicinity” around their protest (or anybody else’s protest)?
Is there any good reason at all why we’re talking about this shit, instead of the real fucking problem? You don’t say, and I haven’t seen a decent explanation of that yet.
Razor,
During parades, etc that take place in public spaces other people are still free to be in that space and make use of it so long as it conforms to basic standards of safety (e.g. you cannot drive your car where a high school band is marching). Yes, the powerful and connected often find ways to fence the public off of public spaces. That doesn’t make it right or legal. Your tent argument is a red herring. A tent is legally private property… the fact that it is set up on public land does not make it public. We are talking about protesters who were refusing to allow others to merely be present on a sidewalk.
The fact that I’m talking about this does not negate or trivialize what the protesters are doing. The reason why I’m talking about it is because I don’t find much use in “debating” a subject which everyone here no doubt agrees on. What I find horrifying are individuals who historically and currently stand to benefit the most from free speech rationalizing others who physically violate the speech rights of others, not to mention the most basic right to exist in public. The sheer hypocrisy is breath-taking.
P.S. Normally I wouldn’t have bothered talking about this incident at all, chalking it up as a few loudmouths to be blown out of proportion by Fox News. But then I turned on the internet and saw the legions of progressives lining up to rationalize the silencing of others and the use of violence (the same methods bitter ‘ol racists used to create their own “safe spaces”) and I died a little inside.
@consciousnessrazor:
Take photos of a public space.
So, they didn’t want to be noted in public space?
Do you really want to go with that? That unless someone gives consent to be photographed, a photo that includes that person is a violation of some right? So, if I’m a tourist taking a photo at the base of the Statue of Liberty, I have to get the consent of everyone who is in the picture or might walk into it, not realizing what I’m doing or how wide my field of view might be?
What if I remember that i saw you in a public place? Does it violate your rights if I later make a highly accurate sketch of what I saw, including a recognizable portrait of you? Why should you have control over what I’m allowed to recall?
Moreover, people are missing the very important point that the students used professors – employees of the government – as proxies to issue threats to shut down the press. First amendment issues are not merely expression issues – the right of the press to cover an event without government interference is well established and log cherished. The professor has since apologized – and yay – but that was an effort at state-enforced prior restraint. You have no qualms about that at all?
What about if you stand on a public sidewalk, photographing trucks driving onto private property. You have reason to believe that the trucks are carrying something nasty and intend to report such. While the trucks end up on private property, they are clearly visible from where you stand on public property. The business owners who are taking delivery of something nasty want you gone and call the cops to do it.
OTHER THAN MOTIVE, how is this different from the scenario in which protestors use a professor with state power (who, herself, threatens to escalate by calling the cops).
The motives of the protesters are awesome. I’ve repeatedly praised the people and the protests. But this is not a simple scenario. I object to this being painted as a simple scenario. If a person engaged in a very public act, on public land, for the purpose of influencing public policy and, ultimately, causing a change in who is granted the authority of the state (in this case, the powers of the presidency and chancellorship of Mizzou) cannot be photographed unless and until consent is given, what hope is there for open government of any kind? Can a politician just grab my camera during a ribbon cutting ceremony because no consent to photography was given? Why not, if this issue with the students is so easy and clear cut?
There are difficult lines to draw. Yes, the protesters can use the quad. yes, even for camping. yes, even if their uses make the quad less useful to others. They don’t have the right, per se, to exclude others from the quad, but in the right cause and as part of a specific, right action, and when using specific, right tactics I would support that action. But it’s highly contextual.
Yes, reporters can be assholes, and I support confronting reporters about their bad behavior – when their behavior is bad. That is also contextual.
I still think, as I’ve said before, that we should spend most of our efforts on fighting the racism and a much smaller percentage of our efforts discussing tactics. I’m not saying it’s not fine to have this one thread devoted to discussing tactics.
Too many here, however, are treating the issues as if they are ridiculously easy. They’re not. They can only be resolved by looking at the facts of the case. There is no “right” not to be photographed in public spaces as you go about public organizing meant to affect the public policies and employment decisions of our shared government. Moreover, while people have the right to decline to answer questions, and someone who pursues comment after being told no comment is forthcoming is acting like a jerk, threats to employ governmental power against the press are horribly fraught. Likewise, grabbing someone’s expensive camera should be something we approve of contextually – not unconditionally, or even nearly unconditionally so long as we approve of motive.
You want to have a conversation about the actual tactics of the media, generally, and of successful protests, generally: fine. Go at it. You want to have a conversation about this specific interaction? Fine. Go at it. Some people here are even doing those things.
But fuck this shit that assumes we have a “right” not to be photographed in public, in efforts to change public policy. Even the prof thought there was a “right” not to be photographed in her enforcement of limits she was setting on the press. There is way too much here that is so extreme in its rhetoric that there’s no room for a distinction between cops that want a “right” not to be photographed while they abuse and kill and citizens with no public power that want a “right” not to be harassed even after they’ve made plain they have no comment simply because they were arraigned on a moderately severe charge.
Propose a way to draw such a line and then examine how such a line might be applied in the Mizzou case, or your contribution is useless.
To be extra clear on why I think this is outrageous, this is someone in the act of prior restraint who is insisting on prior restraint not only on reporting on the demonstrations, but prior restraint on the fact that prior restraint was being attempted.
If a government agent can prevent you from reporting on an issue AND ALSO prevent you from reporting that there was, in fact, government interference with the media’s attempt to report on an issues, we enter 1984 territory. It’s completely ludicrous.
While the professor, I repeat, took great actions after some time to collect her thoughts, the student-protesters were happy with the professor’s intervention at the time, supported the professor at the time. I have no interest in shitting on the protesters or on anti-racism efforts, but I don’t think that saying, specifically, that was a bad call, a monumentally bad call, is shitting on the protesters or anti-racism efforts. It’s taking seriously what actually happened, criticizing what is reasonable to criticize, and then carrying any lessons learned forward. The rhetoric of too many – some insisting that we don’t need to examine the facts to see if the reporter was in the wrong, some insisting that we don’t need to examine the facts to see if the protesters were in the wrong – makes it appear as if there’s nothing to question here, that we already know all the answers (even before examining the facts).
it’s fucked up, and the fact that Consciousness Razor’s rhetoric supports 1984-like tactics is just one example of bad argument. I call out that argument not because CR is the worst or because CR’s side is worse, but merely because it’s easy to illustrate.
fFs, let’s get it together.
“What about if you stand on a public sidewalk, photographing trucks driving onto private property. You have reason to believe that the trucks are carrying something nasty and intend to report such. While the trucks end up on private property, they are clearly visible from where you stand on public property. The business owners who are taking delivery of something nasty want you gone and call the cops to do it. ”
Some states have legislation doing just that. Attempts to film activities in cattle feedlots and abattoirs are illegal even if you are not on their property . Freedom depends on who is willing to give it to you and wwhether you are willing to take it.
treefrogdundee:
They circled around their tents and were facing outward. They were not forming a wall between anywhere outside the protest area to some other place outside that area. They can refuse others, who aren’t part of the protest, from disrupting the form the protest was taking (as well as protecting their private property inside). That’s the only thing going inside the circle would have done.
That’s a reason to not talk about something else (not a great one but I’ll admit it), not a reason to talk about this.
Whose free speech rights were violated and how? Were journalists were not allowed to write about this or cover it? Could they not take pictures of the protest, from outside the demonstration itself? In addition to simply be capable of reporting on a story, is there another right journalists have, to embed themselves into any group they want in any situation whatsoever, no questions asked?
Someone’s right to exist in public was taken away? Bullshit.
Crip Dyke:
They could have done that, and in fact they did. They simply couldn’t take such photos from every possible perspective at every possible moment. They didn’t have consent to get certain kinds of photos, not of the space but of some of the people in it. Maybe they couldn’t get the kind of shots they had hoped for, but I don’t see a reason why everyone must be obliged to give photojournalists anything they want.
(I wonder what it would be like if the intuitions people have worked like this in the case of musicians …. “Oh, you want to express yourself using the acoustics at this very spot right here? Well then, you must be utterly free to express yourself, so please everyone stand back.” That would be quite a fantasy story. Maybe toss in some elves to spice it up, and that thing is going to sell like hotcakes.)
Are you going to accidentally print/broadcast a story as well, reporting on what that specific tourist is supposedly doing? No, so your scenario isn’t analogous to the actual case at hand, and people’s privacy should be respected in public in many ways, even if you have the excuse of calling yourself a “journalist.” It’s not clear why I would even need to talk in terms of “rights” here — this is just about acting respectfully and decently toward other people. If you can’t do that while expressing yourself, without getting some kind of reasonable pushback from the people you’re disrespecting, then try to think about expressing the same thing in another way.
Did the protesters stop anyone from making highly accurate sketches of what they saw, or try to control anything about what others might recall? No, they didn’t.
I wasn’t talking about professors (or anyone else) issuing any threats or doing anything threatening, which of course I don’t support. The claim, such as it is, is that everybody, because it’s in “public space,” has a right to enter the circle those protesters formed for any arbitrary reason. If doing that disrupts their protest, too bad, because everyone has a legal right to disrupt their protest in that way.
I don’t agree with that claim. And I don’t see how it even gets off the ground as an argument, except through the use of misleading analogies and muddled thinking.
I still don’t see what I wrote that supports anything like that. Could you quote something in context and show me where I appeared to support that? I don’t want to look for it in one of your free-associating paragraphs that try to interpret what I wrote. I want to find it in the thing I wrote myself. Where did I do that?
I want to emphasize that this is supposed to be a legally protected and legally enforced right. There doesn’t seem to be recognition that it would be the government effectively shutting down the free speech of the protesters, by somehow legally enforcing this right that non-protesters supposedly have to stifle the protesters’ speech (and their right to assemble). Journalists can’t have a universal right to put every single location in “public space” into use for their form of free expression, over and above everyone else, because that simply isn’t universalizable, since it means nobody else can be doing that same thing in the same place at the same time. The whole of it has to be shared and reasonably accessible to the community — and it was — that doesn’t mean everyone must be able to be in literally the exact same spot within that whole, which is fortunate because that isn’t physically possible. You could certainly can ask to enter their circle (or take up their spot in a line, embed yourself in the group and travel along with them, etc.), but I have no idea how it would be a violation of a legal right if that kind of request is rejected.
I’m tired already this morning. Need more coffee.
It’s not complicated. Just as we as citizens have the right to use public spaces to protest, photographers also have the right to take pictures in said public spaces.
Suggestion for those choosing to continue this discussion:
1) Ground it in the actual experience of those who were there – not just the one video;
2) Unpack what you mean by a “right” to do something;
3) Think about whether you’re actually saying anything you haven’t already said
starfleetdude
Actually, it is rather complicated. Yes, citizens have the right to use public spaces to protest. That right is not absolute. Photographers have the right to take pictures in public spaces. That right is not absolute. It is of course an interesting discussion what is the scope of those rights and what are the limits. Hence the 100 comments above.
Let’s make this easier:
The KKK is staging a legal protest on the quad. They want more white supremacy. The KKK members plant their flag in the center of the quad and put up signs saying “KKK space – no media.” As they stand in the center of the quad, KKK-friendly people stand in a wide ring (probably 150-200 feet in diameter) blocking off a major portion of the quad and preventing journalists from accessing this public space. When journalists approach they are physically confronted, shouted down, grabbed at, and shoved back. Later, it turns out that two school administrators were among the KKK, both obstructing the journalists and directing others to do the same.
Are the people supporting the protesters (who, as has already been pointed out, *have already apologized for being wrong*) still ok with this? The only thing I’ve changed is the identity of the protesters and the subject matter of the protest.
zenlike, if you’re talking about someone being restrained from photographing a crime scene on a public street, that right can be limited by the necessity of investigating the crime without interference from either the public or a photographer on the scene. That’s why there’s that yellow tape marking the scene off-limits. In the case of a public protest on public property, the protesters have a right to be there, the public also has a right to be there, and photographers also have a right to take pictures there. That right isn’t something that’s granted by the protesters, it’s the law.
If me and my friends are playing basketball at the local park and a reporter wants to come onto the court to take pictures is that their “right?” Do we not have a right to use this public space for our own purposes without interlopers stepping on our feet?
It’s not as if the only way to take pictures of the protest was to pass through their lines and get a very specific sort of picture from a very specific perspective. They have a right to be in the general area doing that general thing, and they were in the general area doing that general thing, because nobody actually violated any rights like that. Do you not see the difference between “I want to do this very particular sort of journalism in exactly this way, and no one can be allowed to put up any resistance whatsoever against it” and “I have a right to be here in general and to report on this story”?
Moving a person out of the way so that you can “claim” it isn’t something the law could consistently enforce for everybody, because the first person could move you right back out of their way or say they have good reason to be there. What the fuck are the police supposed to do about it if that’s the case, since they’re the ones responsible for enforcing our laws? As long as there’s no violence or other such (actually illegal) behavior, the state can’t do anything reasonable to adjudicate disagreements like that, and it doesn’t need to. At some point you have to accept that not everybody can get every last thing they want all of the time, so we have to do our best to guarantee actual rights that actually make sense and can actually be enforced fairly. We don’t need to hear the general theory about why reporters should be able to report, because it doesn’t appear that anybody arguing here is that fucking stupid. So what, specifically, did someone actually do in this specific situation, which you think was wrong and which should have some kind of legal ramifications?
consciousness razor, the photographer walking across that public space looking to take photographs of the protest scene wasn’t looking for someone to run into, but was trying to move around them. It was dozens of protesters who deliberately blocked his way, put hands out to block his camera, were intimidating and ultimately were physically pushing him away. That’s harassment, pure and simple, and is legally actionable. I’m surprised you don’t recognize that.
starfleetdude @ 112:
So, a well-known public figure is walking across a public space, looking to run an errand in peace, and is mobbed by dozens of paparazzi who deliberately block their way, shove their cameras into the public figure’s face, let go with flashes, and are both physical and intimidating. That’s harassment, pure and simple, and isn’t legally actionable.
Whose side do you come down on now?
caine, if they’re blocking someone, it’s harassment. If they’re shooting photographs while they freely pass by, it’s not.
I once saw Harry Belafonte walking by as I was waiting for a flight at the Los Angeles airport, and he had a photographer trailing him. He was taking it in good stride, literally, as he was walking briskly to his own destination. I’m sure he was used to it.
I’m astounded by some of the mental gymnastics here. I get it, you like the protestors and you want to take their side. I like the protestors too, but I can recognize they did something wrong in this instance. One reason I know this is because the *protestors and professor themselves recognized that they did something wrong and apologized.*
You’re dismissively framing the photographer’s actions as him “want[ing] to do this very particular sort of journalism in exactly this way, and no one can be allowed to put up any resistance whatsoever against it.” In fact, the law is quite clear that he had the right to do the very particular sort of journalism he was trying to do, which involved taking photos from a closer vantage point in a public quad. And the law is also quite clear that the protestors did not have the right to the kind of “resistance” that occurred in this case.
We can get into the particulars of what he couldn’t do, if you want. For example, open people’s tents and photograph them inside. Take pictures up people’s skirts. Touch or push them. And we can get into the particulars of the kinds of “resistance” that are allowed, too. For example: turning away or otherwise worsening the shot, blocking your face, moving, asking people to stop.
In response to your specific question: things that were wrong in this instance included (1) the grabbing; (2) the shoving; (3) obstructing (with the specific intent to obstruct, I’ll add) a large section of a public space. And that’s leaving out the fact that potential government actors were involved in suppressing speech. All of these can have potential civil and criminal ramifications. I don’t think those ramifications are appropriate in this instance (I think the news coverage was more than enough) but that’s not for me to decide.
P.S. police are not the only ones charged with enforcing our laws. Courts also do this.
@consciousness razor:
Why don’t you say something about “consent to photographs”.
When, in your opinion, is it needed? Here, it’s unqualified even though the protesters were, as I mentioned:
It seems like if you actually had an idea that consent to photography was sometimes unnecessary, you would have stated that. But you make it clear that there’s NOTHING legitimate anyone could do on the quad – that the only thing people might do is disrupt the protest.
I quote:
When I said “take pictures of the protesters” you wrote that people had done so.
But that misses the point entirely. People can succeed at unreasonable things. People can succeed at things that they “should NOT have been able to do”. You concede that photos were taken, but that doesn’t seem to affect your analysis at all. Is taking a photo of the protesters something that
You assert:
Well it is a road – it’s a public walkway that is meant to be used as the shortest route between some parts of campus and other parts of campus.
You say:
Nor can protesters have the right to put every single location in “public space” into use for their private organizing.
You keep espousing principles that have no limits attached, effectively granting unlimited rights to exclude not only media but anyone (since there’s nothing legitimate you can imaging someone doing – not just no legitimate reporting you can imagine someone doing), if you arrive in a public space first.
What are your limiting principles? Your outraged tone, combined with your refusal to state limiting principles, make it hard to take anything you say as nuanced or less than absolute. If you’re not an absolutist, stop talking like one.
@Caine:
Actually, it is legally actionable. The problem for the public figure isn’t that harassment isn’t legally actionable, it’s that they (frequently) don’t know the identities of the harassers despite the harasser’s knowledge of their identity. It takes more money than you’re likely to win in court, and even if you get a restraining order against a photographer, they’re almost certainly freelance even if they primarily sell to just one outlet. That outlet can then sic a new jackass on the public figure.
It’s wrong. It’s legally actionable. And, if you’re a marginal public figure, the costs of legal action are worth it (these suits are brought and won and do make a difference in cases of, say, local politicians). However if you’re a major celebrity, the costs of legal action are generally not worth it – or at least that’s the message I take away from people not using legal action against the paparazzi more often.
I was, at first, having trouble understanding why you would bring this up: nothing starfleetdude has written suggests a pro-harassment position. It seemed like you were in exactly the same position as SFD – an anti-harassment stance determines outcome. Tim Tai was the one vastly outnumbered, right? Tim Tai was the one grabbed and pushed, right?
Then I realized that you were probably trying to get at the fact that the protesters might have felt themselves to be harassed by media writ large before Tim Tai appeared, and were responding to that. Tai took the brunt because the protesters could outnumber Tai, could swarm Tai, could physically intimidate Tai. If Tai were part of a coordinated army of media, this would make sense: divide and conquer. To Tai, however, there may not appear to be any reason the protesters should escalate to this harassing behavior.
I think it’s easy to say, “I’m anti-harassment. The protesters were in the wrong when they marched forward with linked arms pushing Tim Tai. The protesters were in the wrong when they grabbed his expensive equipment. The protesters were in the wrong in urging (as they did) a professor of mass media/communications and an officer in the department of “greek life” to use their power as representatives of a state institution to order Tim Tai to leave the area and not to report on a particular gathering in the quad.”
AND ALSO SAY: “I’m anti-harassment. The paparazzi were in the wrong when dozens mobbed the figure, deliberately blocked the figure’s way, shoves their cameras into the public figure’s face, let go with flashes, and acted physically intimidating.”
I think the more difficult thing to answer, and which much better resembles what happened while keeping it about fame and not politics, is the question:
Now: despite being outwardly polite, is the reporter nonetheless a jackass for asking questions and taking photos at all, given that the reporter should have known that other media members can be harassing, and might very well have been harassing in this case?
Is the family in the wrong by responding to the harassment by certain figures with harassing behavior towards someone who has not (yet?) been harassing?
I find your hypothetical trivial: I’m anti-harassment. I find questions about the Tim Tai analog in my hypothetical to be far less trivial. (does a polite person have to take responsibility for the acts of others in order to move beyond polite and into the realm of actually respectful? If so, when? To what degree?) Though, ultimately, I find the family’s actions to be harassment enough to condemn the tactics of the famous family as well.
I’m unsympathetic towards the paparazzi, AND I’m critical of their tactics.
I’m sympathetic towards the famous family. But I’m still critical of their tactics.
I’m sympathetic towards the Tim Tai analog, and I’m undecided on certain aspects of that reporter’s tactics.
No, he wanted their picture. He said as much in the video. Not move around them, which he could’ve easily done. If you want to complain about a fake event that didn’t happen, have at it I guess, but don’t blatantly fucking lie about what everybody can fucking see and hear for themselves in this video.
I didn’t see any substantial or aggressive pushing, but they blocked him because he insisted on getting inside the circle, closer to the tents, or closer to whichever people were there near the tents (maybe organizers, or some particular person he wouldn’t need to know about in advance). I don’t actually care about reading his mind to tell you why he wanted to do that. The fact is, he was only some 15 or 20 feet away from them anyway — why is that not more than close enough to do his job? You can get a perfectly useful picture from that distance if you want one (or much farther back, considering the huge lens on that camera). He wasn’t taking a crime scene photo or some shit like that, for which he would need to be up close and personal. He very well could get the kind of picture he needed to simply fucking visually report what was fucking happening, since that’s what he has an actual right to do.
Whatever you read from him after the fact (maybe now he genuinely regrets what happened, maybe not), it’s clear at the time that he was acting like a fucking nuisance, who wasn’t trying at all to be cooperative with or respectful of the protesters. And trying cooperate with someone who won’t cooperate back is simply how you lose the fucking game — how the fuck else do you expect they should’ve reacted? In the moment, he did make the focus all about him and his bullshit sense of journalistic ambition, which he mistook for his constitutional rights. That’s what you’re fucking defending here.
I can see the video and recognize what actually happened. Can you do that? Have you done that? Can you describe it accurately for once? He wasn’t simply moving around them, to start with. If he were, he could’ve simply done that, instead of charging into a mass of people like a fucking idiot who doesn’t get what “move around them” means.
Ah, so I’m the one being absolutist, when I respond to absolutists about how “public space” and “free speech” aren’t argument-stoppers that give way to everything and a bag of chips. Got it. I’ll just not not point out any difficult or thorny issues, which I thought I was actually doing, but hang on your every word instead, like a non-absolutist should.
consciousness razor, I’ve watched the video and it’s clear that the photographer tried to move around people that were intentionally blocking him several times, most notably at 2:30 minutes in as you can see for yourself. Not sure why you want to insinuate anyone’s lying about it when anyone can see it for themselves, including the pushing that the photographer asked them to stop doing more than once as well. As for getting the picture he wanted, it’s clear he wasn’t able to get it given the physical resistance he was facing, again, all very clearly shown on the video.
As for lessons learned, I think the protesters, including the faculty and staff who were also involved, have realized that the press does have the right to cover public protests, given this leaflet about the incident:
https://twitter.com/collier/status/664130421806907393/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Sigh.
If that’s what I thought you were doing I wouldn’t have any qualms. But it’s you who wrote:
you’re pretending that there was not one legitimate thing that could be done on the quad besides intruding on the protesters.
Fuck, it’s not at issue in this case, but taking the shortest path between two university buildings is, in fact, a legit thing to do that make take one through the protest area. You could have made your point on the actual facts of the case (since you’ve obviously watched at least one video) without writing that you couldn’t think of a single legitimate reason to be on the quad or to walk through the area besides interfering with the protest.
If you could think of other things, but just didn’t think those other things were at issue, you could have said so and didn’t: you were lying.
If you couldn’t think of things as basic as “take pictures” or “walk the shortest path between my origin and my destination”, then you were thinking like an absolutist.
Since I clearly have no idea what’s going on in your head, I’ll leave it to you to decide whether you were thinking like an absolutist or just lying.
Incidentally, the one who was shooting the video being discussed here is at Skepticon this weekend and will be doing a Q&A about it there:
Q&A with University of Missouri Protest Videographer Mark Schierbecker
All I saw in the recent events in the US was the kids telling faculty members to “sit down, shut up and do as they’re told,” literally including one girl screaming off the top of her lungs that her professor hasn’t apologised for voicing a different opinion and trying to reach a mutual understanding. I wonder who is in the position of power this time? The one who can’t have anything happening to him/her because she/he is protected by the laws of the country and the public opinion, or the one forced to resign because he/she didn’t grovel fast enough in the feet of the whimsical crowd? I’d say this century sees the students as the position of power in universities, while the faculty are the ones oppressed and afraid they’d lose their jobs if somebody even decides to accuse them of being communist moles– I mean, racists.
Crip Dyke:
So, if you see a big protest in the middle of a quad, you would call it reasonable to walk right through the middle of it, without interference, because the “reason” to do so is that in some cases it’s along the shortest path between two points?
If that’s what you thought I meant by “reasonable,” then you were mistaken. I was talking about behavior that makes good sense in members of a social species, not a statement about geometry. But if that’s what you thought, then you’re picking at a different nit here. You said I was being absolutist. Where’s the absolutism in asking a question, or in saying I can’t think of a good reason why someone needs to go to that specific place in the quad? If I’m not absolutist, am I supposed to not ask such questions, or am I supposed say that I can think of something that qualifies when I’m fairly sure I can’t? That’s not what I take to be the meaning of the word “absolutism,” so perhaps you should explain what you mean by it.
Let’s be clear these actual facts then: there were others on the quad, taking pictures of it and so forth, without incident. It’s a fairly large area, and the protesters did not attempt to restrict the entirety of it. So I’m not talking being on the quad, full stop — because it would make no sense for people like you to complain about something that didn’t happen, or for me to respond to such complaints in that manner, as if it’s my job to defend that — I’m talking about going to the middle part of it, where the protesters actually were and had actually circled around their tents, in the actual case at hand.
What good reason, more important or fundamental than allowing the protesters their right to speak and assemble, would someone have to go to that specific place at that time? I don’t think “it would’ve otherwise been possible to walk in a straight line” is a sensible answer to the sort of question I’m intending to ask. Does this really need to be spelled out for you, or are you fishing for something to complain about?
They weren’t, for instance, chaining themselves to the doors of a courthouse, or protesting in some other way like that, as sometimes happens (appropriately, in certain cases, I think), which would prevent other people from doing some notable or important thing in a public setting, which a public policy is aimed at protecting. They simply made use of part of a university quad, which is about as close to empty and unused as public spaces get, with the exception of looking at some dying grass in November (something I don’t consider very important).
If they’re allowed to take up any space at all in their protest, anywhere at all in or near their own campus (which is in central Columbia, fyi) not in the middle of fucking nowhere in the woods, could they have picked a less obtrusive location? Why make any fuss at all about how obtrusive they were supposedly being? By simply taking up some fucking space and insisting others have no right to interfere with their use of it during the protest? Did they have a better choice, or any choice, about taking up space? Instead of hearing “I don’t want those people existing, at least in public,” am I supposed to be hearing something else under the surface of all of these bullshit complaints, suggesting some better option that they were supposed to have considered?
WTF? What am I lying about?
But they could in fact take pictures… and see above to understand what I meant by “reasonable,” although it’s surprising to me that it requires explanation. Maybe somehow according to your interpretation, I was being absolutist (and/or lying??), but apparently it’s not a charitable interpretation at all. You could just try reading it differently, more “reasonably” I might say, to see if you still think it makes any sense whatsoever to say I’m a liar and an absolutist.
Again…. what the fuck? It’s not lying about anything, to have a different interpretation of my own words than the one you made up for me. Hopefully, what I meant is clearer to you now, and I’ll clarify myself some more if it’s really necessary. But let me register that I think you’re much smarter than this. And if I’m absolutist about anything, it’s my thorough hatred of dishonesty, which unfortunately is the best explanation I’ve got at the moment since I don’t think you’re incapable of understanding what I had said in the first place. So, if you’d rather move on from this bullshit, I would be fine with that too.
@erejnion:
Oh, please. Individuals have individual power. Institutions have institutional power. The institutions delegate their institutional power to actual human beings. These human beings still have all their individual power.
If enough individuals join together – pooling their individual power if you will – then the massed power of those individuals can win a battle against institutional power. That doesn’t mean that there’s a power imbalance between individuals and institutions that unjustly benefits individuals.
Fuck this is straight Ghandi and Thoreau. Yes, the institutions have power, but
1) individuals don’t have no power. It’s not zero, though it’s finite and small.
2) individuals can choose to join their power with others
3) if enough finite (but small) bits of power are amassed, they can exceed the finite (but large) power of an institution
4) individuals can be motivated to join their power with others if they see an opportunity to do good
5) if enough individuals can be motivated to join to do good, others will join out of loyalty to family and friends, perceived opportunity to pick up hot trans* dykes at the protest marches (I attest this is conceivable – more people should try it), cynical machiavellian motivations once the individuals appear headed toward victory, and more
6) the unjust actions of a socially powerful institution can be highlighted in order to kickstart step 4.
7) Pressing massed power against institutional power will eventually topple the institution as more individuals join their power with the movement.
8) Profit!!!!!!
yes, some individuals will lose institutional power, but that doesn’t mean that they are losing their individual power – it doesn’t equate to oppression simply because you lose the power granted to you by an unjust institution. Even if your little bit of delegated power was reasonable and not used in oppressive ways by you, toppling the institution entirely would, yes, mean all institutional power is lost, not just unjustly-employed institutional power. I have sympathy for those who had few options save to take a job with an institution that used its power in unjust manners. But they are not oppressed because the unjust institution is taken down. Nor are they “oppressed” by the process of opposing unjust institutional power. This is true even if they aren’t unjustly using their institutional powers. This is true even if the massed individuals wrongly believe that they are unjustly using their institutional powers.
This is simply not oppression. Sucky situations do not equal oppression, fFs.
As several others pointed out up-thread: The famous sit-ins and non-violent protests of MLK Jr was in the standard spirit of nonviolent civil disobediance. The particular tenants of this philosophical approach is recognizing that your protests are illegal, and that you will be arrested for your protest, but that you choose to accept your arrest nonviolently because you value your protest more than avoiding arrest – because you think that this form of protest is especially effective.
Further, in particular for sit-ins, MLK Jr argued that there is a difference between just and unjust laws, and that we have a moral duty to follow just laws and a moral duty to violate unjust laws. Thus, certain sit-ins were violations of unjust laws, and thus morally allowed and perhaps morally obligatory.
Again, I thoroughly applaud and support illegal actions like the sit-ins of old, violations of unjust laws as a form of protest. I think everyone needs to read Letter From A Birmingham Jail and take those lessons to heart. I actually agree with MLK Jr when he says that the biggest obstacle to the freedom of the black person is probably not the KKK member; it’s probably the white moderate, “who favors a negative peace that is the absence of violence compared to a positive peace that is the presence of justice” (paraphrase). To put it another way, let me give the great quote (paraphrase) that is often attributed to Edmund Burke, but more probably originates from JS Mill: All it takes for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing.
However, there is no parallel regarding the unjust actions taken towards the reporter. Note: The exact case before us is still in some gray area for me because I do not yet know the size and scope of the tent encampment, and exactly where and wherenot the reporter was allowed to go. However again, many people in this thread are taking positions that are ridiculous and obscene, so let me attack them.
…
To AlexanderZ
No, they don’t. Not in the USA.
The students have no such rights to privacy while in public.
Nope. Not in public. No right to privacy in public for things that are publicly visible.
A “solution” which is an obscene affront to first amendment rights.
…
To consciousness razor
Yes. Because it seems some that you are more than willing to sacrifice the most important right of all in order for some minor temporary progress. Because the effect that precedent can have in legal matters. I would be the first to support the KKK’s right to do lawful protests, and I would be the first to support Westboro Baptist Church to do protests outside of public soldier funerals.
As the great Voltaire paraphrase goes: I might disagree with what they have to say, but I will fight to the death for their right to say it.
All rights step from the rights of the first amendment and depend on the rights of the first amendment. The rights of the first amendment are the most important of all. Sacrificing the first amendment with the intended purpose of furthering other rights of minorities is counterproductive, because for example those very minorities depend on the legal protections of the first amendment in order to organize and protest in the first place!
Frankly, this entire thread is bizarre.
I’ll echo what screechymonkey said here:
The only good reason that “we’re talking about this shit, instead of the real fucking problem” is because of the ridiculous and misguided attack on freedom of speech and freedom of press done by others in this thread, including you.
I’m here because speech and press is a pet issue of mine. No one is obliged to spend effort to fix all of the world’s problems or to spend equal time on all of the world’s problems. I applaud the efforts of these students in trying to combat racism, and I wish them the best. However, compared to other issues, I spend much of my time on speech and press concerns and on inherently unjust economic disparities, and it’s legally and morally reasonable for me to do so.
Back to consciousness razor:
I’ll admit that the particulars of this particular case are interesting, and I need more information. I discuss some of the gray area below. However, let me respond to some of your specific hypothetical questions:
The same argument could be applied to public parks, public beaches, etc. What can a public park be used for? Congregating. Talking. Enjoying oneself.
Getting a permit would not violate the rights of others – presumably. Depends on the particulars, but some forms of permit schemes are just.
However, I would whine if the government sold public pools to private organizations in order to ensure that blacks cannot use the public pool. I assume you know it, but for others: This used to be a really big deal. There used to be a lot more public pools, but since the legal requirement for no racial discrimination for public spaces like this, a lot of city governments sold their pools to private organizations rather than share the pool with those “icky black people”.
Remember, the law is a blunt and uncaring instrument, and any precedent you set now can be turned against you later. I’m with Crip Dyke on this one. You need to take a slightly longer time horizon, and realize that these same rules can and will be used against you. The law does not distinguish – and as a simple implementation matter cannot distinguish – based on whether the speaker is morally right or wrong in their advocacy.
This is bullshit. A group cannot take over a park and exclude access arbitrarily and without permit on the premise that there’s another park available down the street.
That is their right. It is their right to monitor protests on public land, to attempt to engage with protestors, to record protestors with audio and video. This is a right that should be respected and should be near sacrosanct.
You do not have a right to not be photographed while in public. Deal with it.
Do they have a permit? What are the local regulations for setting up such tents?
When I go to a public beach, presumably you can set up a parasol and a blanket, and refuse access to others. Of course, there is a difference between setting up a very small parasol and blanket compared to cordoning off the entire beach.
Right now, that is the gray area concerning this particular incident on the MU quad. I wish I had a better camera angle to judge how much of the quad was being taken up, and where the student body walls were, and where and wherenot the reporter was allowed to go.
Now you went completely off the rails.
With a proper permit, presumably it could include the authority to do crowd control. Without a proper permit, what the fuck gives them the authority to establish a zone of control outside of their space? Now you’re making it sound like someone cannot be 10 yards outside of the limit and take pictures, which is extreme bullshit, just like trying to stop Westboro Baptist Church from protesting in the vicinity of public soldier funerals.
…
To consciousness razor
In terms of the law: Fuck that.
…
To zenlike
Actually, legally speaking, it is absolute, thereabouts. I’m finding it hard to fathom an example where this is not true. Actor’s rights perhaps, but that’s basically unrelated to the discussion at hand. Maybe taking pictures in a courthouse, esp. of a witness whose identity is hidden, but again that’s unrelated to the discussion at hand.
…
To dysomniak
Presumably there are some regs (or there should be) governing the use of a shared public resource like a public basketball court. I’ve never used such things. I presume most of the time that it’s handled on first come first serve, or some rotating basis, on an informal basis. I fully expect the lawful solution is to tell the reporter to get off the court proper and stop interfering in the proper use of this public facility. However, they’re still free to take photos of you, and when their turn comes up, the reporter is then free to make use of the facilities and play a game of basketball.
A basketball court is designed for the express exclusive use on a temporary and rotating basis. There is not a good analogy to another public space like a park or quad.
…
To Caine in 113
Actually, I’m tempted to side against the paparazzi. The cliche that we have in our heads of what they do when mobbing someone and blocking movement is not morally right, and it’s probably not legally right. I expect in practice that they could sue and win, but the damages would be so small, and court costs would dominate, and the celebrities have better things to be doing with their time, and so the lawsuit simply isn’t worth it.
This sort of position is often taken by naive young people with absolutely no experience of the court system. “If you’re right and your position is justifiable, then you have nothing to fear going to court.” That’s incredibly naive and wrong-headed.
I see Crip Dyke beat me to this point too.
No what I said was an invitation to articulate your limiting principles. What I said was that if you’re not an absolutist, stop talking like one.
BUT – the very fact that you can’t tell the difference between
1) a unilateral declaration that you must be an absolutist and
2) a specific invitation to make things more complex and nuanced and fact based rather than about your imagination, e.g. “I can’t even imagine anything a person might want to do in a quad save interfere with a protest” with an accompanying statement that your rhetoric up to now doesn’t do anything to distinguish you from absolutist,
…well, that would certainly tend to indicate that rather than merely coming across as absolutist, you might actually be thinking in absolutist terms.
That’s what I’ve asked you. I’ve written quite a bit about what I think was right and wrong. I didn’t condemn or even criticize setting up tents or forming a circle of linked arms.
I have criticized, but not condemned, pushing the reporter, grabbing the camera, and using persons with institutional authority to threaten prior restraint.
I have criticized language, including yours, that asserts that there is no legitimate reason for anyone to be on the quad save interfering with the protest.
I have criticized language, including yours, that defends the protesters without regard to the actual actions criticized, seemingly merely because they are protesting racism.
I have not criticized, but now do, language, including yours, that has asserted justification for pushing a reporter, grabbing a reporter’s camera, and using allies with institutional authority to threaten prior restraint…even when the particular reporter was not engaging in swarming or harassing behavior.
I have criticized language, not including yours, that suggests media members don’t have to be accountable for harassing and swarming behaviors.
By engaging specifics, not failures of my imagination, I have articulated actual principles which might be used to guide people to good behaviors in the future. You are the one implying that there’s no reason for anyone to enter the quad. You are the one denigrating the idea of walking directly across the quad as the shortest distance between two points.
As someone with a disability that causes a hell of a lot of pain when I walk, and as someone whose disability has been so bad the last couple of days that I’ve been on morphine and missing class, I just want to say a big, hearty, “Fuck you!” to you and anyone else who thinks that my taking the shortest path between two points is somehow illegitimate – or, to use your word, “unreasonable” – because people are protesting between here and there.
How about this limiting principle: If someone struggling to walk or walking with crutches or a cane or using a wheelchair wants to move through the area of your protest, reasonable people get the fuck out of the way at minimum, and at best offer to move shit lying on the ground that is only there because of the protest and/or the presence of the protesters.
You and your, “I’m not making a statement about geometry” can fuck off entirely. It’s not about geometry, it’s about people. Take some responsibility for your own fucking statements. How about apologizing and saying,
I’ve invited you to articulate some limiting principles. You come back with
If you actually wanted to engage in conversation, you would have realized that I’ve already provided some of this and that I’ve already invited YOU to do this.
But if you really, really couldn’t get any limiting principles at all from what I’ve written previously, here are some reasons that someone who does not wish to protest might nonetheless want to move into or through protest territory. For the record, yes I consider the following reasons to be sufficient to overcome any moral right of the protesters to exclude others:
All of those things have a right which either coexists compatibly with the rights of the protesters because the disruption would be minimal or non-existent, OR they have a priority of use which exceeds that of the protesters, frequently in part because although the disruption might be real and even substantial it is short in duration (imagine moving a gurney through the protest area, which, even if you don’t ask, might reasonably be expected to motivate people to leave off protesting for a moment to move books and backpacks, etc. out of the way of the gurney before going back to protesting). I would go so far as to say that you might be sued for negligent injury of a person if you didn’t let the gurney through and it turned out that the person was suffering from something where time was very much of the essence, like stroke or heart attack. I would go so far as to say that although most uses of gurneys are not for such situations, because those situations in which time is of the essence are real and are a substantial proportion of gurney-uses (especially outdoors, not merely between hospital rooms), merely stopping the gurney long enough to ask what’s going on and whether or not the gurney really needs to move through the protest area is rude and unreasonable. (Although noticing it coming and running ahead to ask such a question without slowing the gurney down so that you can clear the area with alacrity if needed, that’s not rude and unreasonable – only stopping the gurney while asking those questions is rude and unreasonable).
I’ve gone far out of my way, CR. You have not. Why not try engaging in the same types of investigations you demand of others? Why not take responsibility for your own statements? Is that too much to ask?
And more or less completely agreed with Crip Dyke in 126.
However, I think Crip Dyke was too wishy-washy on this point:
I would make that point but stronger. If someone interfered with an obvious medical emergency to maintain the integrity of their protest camp like this, I bet their ass is definitely culpable for civil damages, and probably criminal penalties too.
erejnion the Milo Yiannopoulos fan @122:
All you see is oversimplified bullshit then? I think we’re done before we even get started. What a rusty hinge to rest your premises on.
Once again, your interpretation of reality doesn’t corroborate with actual events.
Power to the fucking people.
I don’t see how (or whether) we’re disagreeing about first amendment rights. From what I can gather, I don’t think they did anything which violates those rights. That’s what I’ve been saying, not that they should be undermined for other purposes. So, telling me how important those rights are is not a productive way to have this conversation, if we do actually disagree about something. It’s not clear to me that we do disagree, yet I’m included under the heading of “ridiculous and obscene,” having said things which you would actually attack. But I see nothing that attacks my position.
Yes, it could be. That is the point: they have first amendment freedoms to assemble and express themselves. If there were beaches in Columbia, Missouri, they could have assembled there too. But there are none.
The talk of “it’s on a straight line between two points” could not conceivably reject this more, since it’s a property of literally every point in space that it lies on straight lines in every direction. They could have been anywhere whatsoever, and by this reasoning people would claim that they have some kind of a right to make them move from that location or not make use of it. Any place whatsoever. Doesn’t everyone have a sacred right to travel in a straight line, after all? That’s some ridiculous and obscene sophistry, right there. And I’m saying the protesters do have first amendment rights, which are much more important than enjoying oneself on the fucking beach, if that were something people in Columbia did.
They’re exercising their first amendment rights. That is the premise: that they can do that, within certain reasonable limits. It actually has nothing to do with whether or not there is grass to stare at somewhere else, but the fact that staring at fucking grass is not that fucking important in the big scheme of thing, compared to have the ability assemble and express yourself freely for example. How could you have misinterpreted what I meant by that?
So…. did they get to monitor them, attempt to engage with them, record them, and so forth? Yes, in fact, they did. That is what happened, so what are you complaining about?
You can blow out of all proportion how sacrosanct the first amendment is — I don’t especially care at the moment — but you shouldn’t misrepresent (or confuse yourself about) what actually happened.
I was talking about the area within the circle they made, around the tents, not an extra zone outside of their circle. I don’t have a big problem (not as a legal issue) that the guy walked right up to them and got right in their faces. But he’s the one with no authority to push them back or move them out of his way.
Look at it from their point of view. Presumably, the protesters weren’t interested in the time-tested method of protesting by all looking in the same direction, with others milling around behind them (or sneaking up on them, since this is in the context of death threats and other threatening behavior against the protesters), so they formed a unified front in the shape of a circle, which faced outward toward the rest of the world (or merely the quad), with their tents and other property inside.
The dude wanted to break the circle and go inside, for no compelling reason, and I claim he doesn’t have any such right, legally or morally, since you can do perfectly adequate journalism and photojournalism without interfering in that way, and he had no clear (legally-supported, police-enforced) right to do anything else in that specific place at the time, and that would’ve infringed the rights of the protesters to speak and assemble as they see fit. At least, as I said, I can’t think of an example of a reason he’d need to be in the middle of their circle, not that there must necessarily be no conceivable thing he would have a right to do in every hypothetical circumstance you can dream up.
If protesters have the “authority” to be there and take up any space at all, I don’t know why they wouldn’t have the very same authority to use the space they chose in ways like this, since it seems to be entirely reasonable and doesn’t inhibit the rights of anyone else in the process. If you’re saying they need a permit, which varies according to local regulations, simply in order to exercise their first amendment rights effectively, then you don’t seem to be as serious (or thoughtful) about the first amendment as you claim to be. But the issue, from my point of view, is whether the reporter was attempting (inadvertently or not) to violate their rights — but somehow people have made the assumption that it’s the other way around, that the protesters were at fault, simply for being there and not caving in a suitably submissive fashion to the first person to call themselves a journalist who makes demands of them.
To consciousness razor
I think I can agree to your position, with minor reservations and conditionals – specifically the size of the encampment relative to the space of the whole quad, the history of other uses of the quad, the regs for use of the quad, and so forth. It’s a huge gray area IMHO, but I think I can agree to most your basic principles.
In particular, I’m still very hesitant to agree to the assertion that protesters need to set up a location where only insiders are allowed inside while “wasting” lots of extra space. In particular, I don’t agree that protesters need an area of ideological purity in order to be an effective protest. However, I think I can agree with the effect of your position with a conjunction of other principles, specifically the comparison to setting up an parasol and blanket on a public beach and expecting others to stay off of my blanket. Another comparison is probably comparing it to other groups that probably regularly set up shop on the quad, and there probably is frequently tents involved there too where it’s expected and enforceable that you cannot just go into their tent where they keep stock of items for sale or distribution. As I said above, huge gray area IMHO where the proper position depends on arcane particulars which I do not have access to.
@englightenmentliberal:
I agree with quite a lot of what you’re saying, but you should remember just because it’s the law, doesn’t make it right in more situations than you do. While, obviously, your pool example does integrate this, in other places you simply state what the law is. Since this is a mixed conversation about both the law and about ethics/morality, some people might be talking about moral rights. Clearly, you’ve written a lot I don’t state that you have an obligation to write even more, I’m just opening this comment with a reminder that “It’s in the first amendment” isn’t necessarily enough for certain aspects of this argument. Some people may believe that certain relevant case law on the first amendment is, in fact, wrong. Some of those people might be in this thread, though it’s hard to tell.
I’m going to move on and discuss some aspects of your long comment not because I’m attempting to be contentious, but because i think that there are good things to discuss in it (some of which I agree with, some with which I disagree, some I believe are simply/factually wrong).
Next?
You’re right about the law. But note for later that you said, “no such rights to privacy” exist while in public. Not “no privacy rights at all” exist. I support you here. You’re right about the law here. You’ll be incorrect a bit later.
Moreover, in the sense of morality, I think whenever anyone uses massed power to attempt to change government actions and/or government personnel there is a moral mandate for such actions to be open to media scrutiny. While in this case we have protesters advocating for anti-racist actions, the principle is a general one. Media scrutiny might be more limited in some cases where actions are taken in private. I don’t believe that there is a public right to scrutinize X Corporation’s discussions with legal counsel about the best way to influence government. However, once X Corp actually sends a document to a government official, I support that document being public record and subject to FOIA requests with a duty on the government for such documents to be preserved and made available. Likewise, I don’t think that the media has a right to be in a dorm room where students are plotting strategy, but once the protesters are engaging in public protest on a public location, there is a good moral reason that the protests and protesters be subject to media scrutiny.
Lesson: don’t fuck with the government and expect to be immune to media scrutiny. Instead, fuck with the government as much as you can, to get the best and most just government you can, but expect to be (relatively) immune to media scrutiny only while you are not actively taking such action.
I get what you’re saying here. I used to use similar rhetoric.
Nowadays the statement that I feel is more honest (and which, if it feels more honest to you, you are welcome to steal)
I would never be the first to defend the KKK’s rights. The fuckers have their own lawyers. It’s a nit, sure, but the easy idiomatic expression sometimes miscommunicates. I don’t mind having it known that I have to wash out my mouth afterward, even if the right itself is worth defending.
and:
Here you’re wrong. You do have a conditional right not to be photographed in public. You do not have an unconditional right to not be photographed in public. However even avoiding moral rights, courts have found that for example up-skirt photography violates privacy rights.
Since all rights are effectively conditional (legitimate self-defense overcomes right to life, for an extreme example) I’m not going to say you’re kind of right, but failed to articulate the limits of that right. You said that there is no right. There is one. It’s limits are much narrower in public, but there is such a right.
And the right is broader when talking about ethical/moral behavior rather than merely the law.
This is why I feel it is so important to include the context that the protesters were attempting to influence government. When asking whether the protesters’ actions were reasonable, moral and/or legal, this is relevant. The answers would be vastly different on grounds of reasonableness and ethics if, say, an arson victim had thrown off clothes in public because they had been set on fire and people were trying to prevent pictures being taken. The answers might even be legally different, though not sufficiently so for the government to exercise prior restraint.
I’m with CR here. There are many ways that privacy should be respected even in public. Some of those should even carry the force of law. Up-skirt photography is but the easiest example, but imagine you see your doctor in the grocery store and ask if everything is okay or if the follow up appointment the office requested is for something serious. If such a question is asked in public, even with HIPPA the doctor is allowed to answer the question asked due to implied consent. “Yes, it’s serious,” “No, it’s not serious,” and “Well, I think you would think it’s serious, but I’m not worried about it long term,” are all fine answers. “We diagnosed X which will require Y treatment and have Z effects over the 9-month course of that treatment, but eventually you’ll be cured,” is illegal for the doctor to say in that public space even though you opened the conversation.
All CR said in that quote is
Without a specified list of ways with which I might disagree, I am forced to agree, even with your limitation that we’re speaking “in terms of law”.
CR got it right here. The statement is vague enough so as to not help us much, but it’s not absolute and it is, in fact, correct both morally and legally. In this case, you’re the one whose rhetoric is absolutist and does not display reasonable thoroughness of thought.
@enlightenmentliberal
Being wishy-washy is an occupational hazard of being a law student. As a lawyer I get to be the advocate for one side. As a student we get our heads ripped off for failing to anticipate others’ arguments or for being overconfident in our own.
So I cop to it, but I think my wishy-washiness is hopefully understandable.
@throwaway, #128:
speaking to erejnion the Milo Yiannopoulos fan @122, you said:
Where were you when I composed my #124? You could have saved me a lot of time.
I’ll say this again for you: this applies to every location. Where can protesters go, since all points fall on a line (an infinity of lines)? What’s your “limiting principle” here? If they cannot be anywhere, because there is always a line going through that point from A to B, then this doesn’t guide me toward a more fair or responsible form of protest. Or it’s headed toward rejecting all protests (or everything) that happen to be in your way, which you clearly don’t want to do.
And I didn’t call it unreasonable to travel in straight lines. However, it’s not the kind of reason that coherently addresses the point of my question. Why did the journalist have to go inside the circle? That’s the context here. He didn’t have a disability and wasn’t feeling while he was walking — that was not the reason, and I doubt it would’ve gotten the same response from the protesters if it were the case, and I wouldn’t be defending them if it was…. So you’re either trailing off on a tangent that’s irrelevant here, or you’re being disingenuous and trying to score a rhetorical point. I’ll assume the former, and I’m sorry for causing you any distress about it.
But you don’t have to read my comment that way, then call me a “liar” when you misunderstand the point of it so profoundly, because I can tell you that is certainly and honestly not what it meant. If I said anything terribly misleading and relevant to the actual discussion in this thread, as I’m sure my informal and all-too-brief comments sometimes do, please correct me on it, but don’t claim I was lying unless you have a good reason to think that. So, unless I’m totally misunderstanding what you think I lied about, just give it a fucking rest.
Agreed.
You’re right that to me, what I said is just a particular idiomatic expression. I like the way you phrase it.
Yes, but… sigh. Always exceptions yes, but this particular right to photograph things in public should be about as close to absolute as you can get. I did hedge my language in several places, but I did not do so in all places – it’s tedious.
I will note that I’m not absolutist, but seemingly I’m much closer to the absolutist end of the spectrum that both of you.
I don’t think that up-skirt photography is a good example. I think it’s part of dress codes, public modesty laws, and laws against public indecency, which in strict terms are entirely culturally relative and have no objective merit. It’s tradition at its finest. It’s part of the overall prudist nature towards sex that we all have that I think have no objective basis in the well-being of humans – apart from the interesting accidents of history that have shaped our culture and that have shaped the expectations of persons in our culture that can cause real emotional harm. In general, I have decided that these public modesty laws do so little harm that it’s not worth my time to contest, but that in principle I think I am against them, in the same way that I’m against laws that prohibit swearing in public.
I fail to see how the HIPPA example relates to the discussion at hand of when it’s legal to record audio and visual in public. Further, this seems to actually support my position. As I understand your example, you gave consent to the doctor to talk in public with the understanding that someone near by might hear it and might be recording it. I don’t understand what sort of connection you’re drawing between what the doctor is allowed to say and not say, vs if someone nearby is allowed to record it or not record it.
So yes, I am extremely close to absolutist on this particular point of censorship and restriction of what can and cannot be recorded in public.
Of course, as you note, I’m often talking about the law is, and what the law should be. Questions about what the law should be are moral questions, but the question “should the law allow X?” is different than “is it morally permissible to do X?”. From first principles, perhaps they exactly coincide, and perhaps they do not. This is a subtle point that many people do not understand. The law is a blunt instrument, and I believe that a proper knowledge of human psychology, sociology, politics, history, etc., shows that certain kinds of laws will invariably be misused, and that it’s better to not have laws against certain morally wrong behavior because those laws will do much more harm than good.
For example, I think it’s fair to say that it is often morally wrong to overhear something in public and spread rumors when the person would rather that information be kept private. However, the law should not forbid spreading this information that was obtained in public. Example: Not exactly the same concept, but the so-called “false light” legal action in the US is bullshit, and it should not survive proper first amendment jurisprudence.
@consciousness razor:
In your response to enlightenment liberal:
What are those limits? You keep declining to articulate those.
I would have thought it was obvious, by the frequent complaints in this thread: Mobbing someone. Pushing someone. Grabbing that someone’s expensive equipment. Using people with power delegated by an institution of the state to threaten prior restraint.
Oh, and people asserting that “consent to be photographed” matters at all when people are publicly gathered in a public space to influence government policy.
You now seem to have backed off that, but in weaselly way that never overtly concedes that you were wrong that consent is necessary. You’d gain a lot of credibility with your discussion partners if you concede error when an error of yours is found, rather than reframing your argument without any acknowledgement that you’ve dispensed with a bad claim as a result of others’ successful arguments.
In one long discussion that involved a lot of back and forth between myself and enlightenment liberal, I made a point of the fact that EL’s claims in that argument would shift without acknowledgement. I agree with EL on a number of things in this discussion. I agree with you on some things in this discussion. But you are engaging in the same bad tactic I criticized from EL, and I’m happy to criticize it when it comes from you or anyone else.
Is there or is there not a right against the media to be free of unwanted photography while engaged in public protest on public land?
you keep saying, “But photography happened anyway.” Sure. It did. But you previously insisted that it was wrong if it happened without consent. Unless and until you retract that, you’ve made the claim that media photography without consent of the photographed is wrong even in the context of public actions on public land (for the purpose of) influencing public policy.
To say that it happened is not to say that it is morally right (or morally neutral). You’ve said it’s wrong. Defend that or retract it. Don’t weasel out of it by saying, “but it happened anyway”.
As long as you brought it up…
I really do try to admit when I’m wrong, when I was in error, and when I change my position. This is concerning the “violence” thread right? Suffice to say, I still do not agree with this characterization of that conversation. However, I still strive the utmost towards honesty, clarity, and admitting when I was wrong.
I was making the point that our privacy should be respected in public “in many ways”. Not necessarily in ways relevant to the Mizzou protests and Tim Tai, but yes, “in many ways”. If you consider my examples off-topic since they don’t illuminate right/wrong and il/legal in relation to that particular event, my apologies. I was reacting to a broad and vague statement by CR being opposed by you in a manner that allowed no wiggle room.
Yes, a person nearby has a legal right to record in most states. No, the doctor does not have an unfettered right to compromise your privacy in public.
Also, though you made it about legalities, CR seemed to be making a more general proposition. I happen to think paparazzi shouldn’t photograph celebs at the grocery store. I don’t think it’s possible to draft a law that bars that without enshrining a right to be free of public scrutiny while in public that would be far too broad for my taste. Therefore, on practical grounds, I’m against legislating in this area. But I completely agree with CR that such privacy should be respected by individual persons, even when such individuals work for media companies. The legislative difficulties don’t stop me from agreeing with CR in principle. (And your caveat about limiting the discussion to legal grounds means I won’t assume you disagree)
Yes, my examples are wandering away from what actually happened on the quad, but I didn’t start the meanderings. I’m merely responding to where I perceive meanderings to be taking place, especially if those meanderings seem to be expressing unlimited principles.
You’re free to disagree with the characterization, of course, and I respect and appreciate the latter sentiment.
I believe I am in agreement. I said so here:
@EL:
Sorry for my failure to note that bit about morality of spreading overheard information. I did say I didn’t assume you disagreed, but you’re right that there was info I had forgotten/neglected that provided direct evidence of your agreement.
As for False Light as a tort, I wasn’t aware of it. In Canada Intentional Infliction of Mental Suffering would likely handle most of those claims. I’ve been reading up on US False-Light claims, starting at your wikipedia link. I haven’t gotten too far yet, but the requirement of actual malice in the technical legal sense is sufficient for me to greatly relieve my concerns.
Yes, it could be misused or misapplied. But I don’t reject it out of hand at this point as you appear to do. In that, despite my being more absolutist on free expression than most persons, I appear to be less absolutist than thou. I’m not saying it’s a good thing or a bad thing, it’s just interesting to note when people are more protective of expression than I am, since it happens fairly rarely.
@Crip Dyke
In general, my position is that mere offense, mere outrage, mere emotional harm, should never ever constitute a legal basis for censorship. That is IMHO the foremost principle of the first amendment and free speech. Regarding false light, that seems to be the entirety of it. Similarly, regarding your brief description of Canadian law, I would most likely be against criminal or civil action for “intentional infliction of mental suffering” on exactly the same basis.
To drive this point home, I can invoke the sad and horrible case of the Megan myspace suicide. The only mitigating point in my mind is that we’re dealing with a minor. If it was an adult (without known mental illnesses that would compromise competency in a legal sense), then I have to stand firm that nothing legally actionable happened here. Yes, it’s horrible. Yes someone died. Yes, the other person was horrible, and mean, and the actions were unconscionable. Still, the case here can be boiled down to merely causing offense, outrage, sadness, etc., aka emotional harm, which should never ever be legally actionable IMHO.
I do support the legality of defamation, harassment, false advertisement, actor’s rights, and probably a slew of other exceptions to free speech, but none of those exceptions operate on the mere basis of emotional harm.
In particular, if you allow emotional harm on its own to constitute a basis for legal action, then that immediately opens up the Pandora’s box of a heckler’s veto, and that’s precisely what should not be allowed to happen. IMHO. As an extreme example, we see this around the world with certain subsets of Muslims who will kill you without trial on the mere accusation that you blasphemed their religion. As a less extreme example, I can also talk about the Comstock laws. The Pandora’s box of action on the mere basis of emotional harm and personal outrage must remain closed.
PS:
I noticed that my position might be inconsistent with the eggshell skull rule regarding intentional malicious infliction of emotional harm. Minors don’t bother me at all because of the well-established legal principles of treating minors specially in many ways. However, my initial reaction was also to provide a rule that if the inflictor knows that the target is suffering from extreme depression, then perhaps it could be legally actionable. However, I very much want to ensure that the eggshell skull rule does not apply in this case – the inflictor should not be responsible for the death from suicide if the person happened to be suffering from extreme depression if the inflictor did not know this, in order to avoid the obvious chilling effect on free speech. So, either I need to abandon the eggshell skull rule in this case, or go with the position that it’s not legally actionable even if the inflictor knew that the target was suffering from extreme depression. I’m not sure offhand as to my position. I’m leaning towards violating the eggshell skull rule, perhaps on the mistaken belief that there’s a long legal history of providing special rules for those with certain debilitating mental illnesses just like we do for children.
PPS:
Of course, the existence of that requirement for false light is comforting, and it probably explains why we don’t see much of this type of civil action.[citation needed]
Still, I think that part of the explanation of why we don’t see many false light claims is that people like me and you are fighting constantly against encroaches on free speech by people who want the right to not be offended, humiliated, made to feel uncomfortable, etc.
For example, I can easily imagine a case of false light which is morally justifiable. Imagine someone is running for public office, and a reporter digs up some highly embarrassing but pertinent information concerning the fitness of the person for office. From my admittingly highly naive understanding, publishing that information might allow for a false light claim.
For example, the reporter might have published this with the intent of harming the person’s chances at election, and with the intent to humiliate the person, and the reporter is bitter and also had intent to cause shame and embarrassment. That should satisfy the legal malice requirement, right?
That this can be a basis for a civil action is morally bullshit, and legal bullshit (in the sense that it should not be legally possible to bring such action for such a case).
Whereas, for standard defamation lawsuits, AFAIK, “being true” is always an absolute defense, and further it needs to be shown that the speaker spoke knowing that the speech was false (or with reckless disregard for the truth). That’s a fundamentally different standard than with false light, which AFAIK deals nothing about truth, nor with the speaker’s intent to speak falsely. For defamation, the malice requirement is in the context of knowingly speaking falsely. For false light, the malice requirement is completely detached from the speaker’s intent to speak falsely. Rather, AFAIK, the malice requirement of false light is instead attached to intent to cause emotional harm, and that’s my problem with false light claims.
Sorry for multiposts:
One last point. I know that the contemporary law concerning defamation – at least the US – is a little more nuanced. AFAIK, in most jurisdictions, you need to show malice only when the target of the defamation is a “public figure”. For non-public figures, there is no malice requirement (and that lack of malice requirement for non-public figures is IMHO probably wrong-headed).
That would take a long time, since there a fuckload of them. Some I’m sure I’ve never even considered and perhaps never will. If someone thinks they have unlimited freedoms, they are simply wrong (we do both agree on that), and we can discuss particular examples as they appear to be relevant. Asking me to do justice to the entirety of moral and political thought on the subject in the space of a comment is not a reasonable request. Well then…. what counts as a reasonable request? I decline to articulate all of the necessary and sufficient conditions for that, or to give you a list of all possible examples. That’s just how I roll.
It’s already pretty fucking weird that, if I don’t bother highlighting them explicitly as such, that’s evidence that I’m talking like an absolutist or that perhaps I sincerely believe there are none. It’s extra weird, when the point I clearly have been making is that journalists don’t have unlimited free speech rights, nor does everyone have unlimited access to every cubic centimeter of public space at all times. So, if you’re still paying attention after the last paragraph, I did actually articulate at least two such limits (maybe quite a few more, depending on how you split/lump issues like these), which I just rearticulated for you. Is that not what you were asking for? If you wanted me to talk about even more than those, I’d first want to consider whether they are relevant to this thread. I also don’t feel the need to spend the fucking time doing that for you.
Well, you can quote that exchange to introduce that other stuff if you like, but you don’t seem to understand the point. It’s not the case that journalists weren’t able to monitor, engage with, record, etc., the protesters. So if you thought that was the problem in this case, since the press has a right to do such things, you are very clearly mistaken and shouldn’t complain about that. It’s not clear how much mobbing or pushing or grabbing or using of people with power was actually going on, and who was doing those — but go right ahead and complain about it if it really happened.
I didn’t realize I needed to concede anything.
There is not one-sized-fits-all answer to this. (Sounds absolutist, doesn’t it?) There’s not one for certain kinds of unwanted photography. You already gave the example of upskirt photos, and I don’t need to give it again. Also, barging through a protest line, demanding a close-up of someone or something, is also something you have no particular right to do. If you can get the photo, okay, but no one needs to cooperate with your plan of getting it, for fear of infringing your rights. My point in bringing it up at all in this case was that they clearly didn’t want to cooperate with photographer dude, yet he persisted and aggravated the situation, as if he was entitled to some kind of unlimited access to them. Too bad, so sad. His fucking legal rights are not thereby violated. If he doesn’t get that Pulitzer-winning shot he desperately wants, because he’s acting like an ass and people clearly weren’t interested in cooperating anyway, that’s not a violation of anybody’s fucking rights. And for that matter, given the circumstances, it would probably not be a very genuine example of worthwhile journalism that merits some kind of recognition, so it’s not like the Pulitzer people should feel like they lost something valuable here.
The point certainly wasn’t fucking weaseling out of anything. For fuck’s sake, lying about the protesters and misrepresenting the events is not something we should do. You cannot have a coherent or fair discussion of any of this as long as people are allowed to do that. What responsibilities have you weaseled out of, by not addressing those serious fucking misconceptions that people have spread throughout this thread (and elsewhere I’m sure), so you can have a long-winded discussion of your abstract fucking principles that doesn’t seem to be getting us anywhere? I’d say the first thing we have to do is stop the bleeding. After that, we could make some finer adjustments to people’s thought processes, which aren’t so critical to simply understanding what the fuck actually happened. If that looks like weaseling to you, when I wasn’t even making the erroneous point you assumed I was making, but simply cared about the truth, then I don’t know what else to say. If you don’t want to have a conversation with me, the real person, but with the weird character you dreamed up in my place, there’s not much I can do about that.
To Crip Dyke (and CR)
Reread what CR wrote with a little more principle of charity and hindsight. When I did, I actually cannot find anything actually objectionable – on the assumption that they cordoned off only a small part of the quad. I imagined something much larger, and maybe even a cordon going from building to building.
Thankfully, I didn’t make a fool of myself and I included the caveat that the situation depends on how much of the quad they’re taking up and cordoning off.
To Crip Dyke, for some reason that I cannot put into words, I also read CR as meaning things that are not there on a second reading. I don’t think it’s there.
It really depends on whether one views it as
1- a group cordoning off a whole public city park without a permit, or
2- a person putting up a reasonably sized parasol and blanket on the beach for their own personal use.
CR seems to be viewing it more like a single parasol and blanket, whereas you Crip Dyke and I both seemed to have interpreted it as cordoning off a whole public city park.
I also think that the history of use of the quad in particular is important. It’s probably common practice for student groups to set up stands, tents, etc., for other purposes, as part of other groups. The size, extent, and duration of those are important IMO when analyzing the current situation.
anteprepro @81:
I linked to an image of the area with the tents upthread @46 if anyone is interested in seeing the area that protesters didn’t want the media.
****
On another, related note, I think some of the conversation is not moving forward bc the rights of the protesters to not be filmed in the area around the tents is getting conflated with the aggressive, intimidation tactics of *some* of the protesters and faculty. From most of what I’ve read in this thread, I see no one arguing that it was ok for them to do that. IOW, the actions of those who were aggressive and bullying appears to be fairly condemned around here. So now that *that* is condemned, can we move on to do the protesters have a right to say “I don’t want you to film in this specific area of public land”. No more conflating the two.
Oh fuck it. I give up.
To Tony:
I think plenty of us are arguing that such a demand is unreasonable, and not legally enforceable. The protesters can be legally filmed without their consent. Further, plenty of us are arguing that this is the way that the law should be.
Some of the discussion at the end between Crip Dyke, CR, and myself is seemingly the result of an unfortunate confusion, that hopefully we can clear up.
PS: Thanks for helping me clear that up CR. You made some good points.
I figure it’s fairly easy to visualize, if you pay attention to the background of the video I linked above. They had enough protesters that if they had straightened out their circle, they could’ve blocked it off like that. But you can see that they didn’t do anything like that. And you can see people were walking on the sidewalk conveniently located near the buildings instead of in the middle of a field, who don’t seem (though it’s hard to tell from that distance) like they’re being substantially inconvenienced by the protest in the middle.
It’s basically an empty plot of mowed lawn, and it’s not at all clear to me why anybody would have any kind of desperate need or legal to go to one spot in the middle of it in these circumstances. That’s bullshit, and you can be sure it’s bullshit because the reporter in question wanted to go into it for much more comprehensible reasons of getting an “exclusive” look inside, that other reporters might not get. As I already said, if he really did merely want to move to the other side, or move around them, he could’ve easily done that, as others visibly were. And I give him enough credit that he would’ve been able to look around and figure that out for himself, if that were his intention. But as he himself explicitly said, that’s very obviously not why he was trying to pass through their lines. So, as I think you’d agree, we shouldn’t talk as if that were the situation to be scrutinized/defended/etc., whatever else they actually said or did (as you can also see on video and/or read about in accurately-reported articles) which does warrant some kind of criticism. That’s a conversation better suited for another time, when such things as blocking a path in a protest are actually happening.
@Tony!, #148:
I disagree that they have such a right.
I think there is no such “right”.
For clarity, I still see this as easily interpretable in 3 different ways:
1. “I don’t want you to film while standing on this specific spot in this specific area of public land”
and
2. “I don’t want you to capture any images of this specific area of public land”
and
3. “I don’t want you to capture any images of any people who happen to be on this specific area of public land”
In certain circumstances, you can claim a certain public space as yours for a time. In that case, you can engage in #1. But you don’t have a “right” to do so. You get to do it according to campsite reservations, etc.
For #2, I can’t think of any time when this is acceptable. You can make other claims – for instance, if your tent is on the piece of ground someone wants to film, they can’t move your tent to film it. But that’s because they can’t move your tent, not because they can’t film the land.
For #3, I can think of very few times when this is acceptable. You can make other claims and make other arrangements – for instance, if someone is inside a tent, the reporter can’t open the tent to get a shot of the people inside. But again, that’s because they don’t get to fuck with your tent, not because you have a right to decline to be photographed. Legally, I think this is a dead letter. Morally, I think situations in which a person can’t help but be in public and can’t help but be more vulnerable – the aforementioned arson victim removing clothes is an example of the principle – do raise issues of privacy for me that I would be willing to say justify an insistence that no one capture images of that person even though that person is in a public space.
These are competent adults. They’re engaged in an effort to influence government, and not through elections. I think that process demands scrutiny whether engaged in by protesters or lobbyists.
Even without the specific tactics used against any specific reporter, the underlying claim of privacy while in public taking public actions to change public policy is, I think, fundamentally wrong.
If they want privacy they can go in a tent or leave the area, but if they’re present at a public protest (by their own choices) taking public action to change public policy, they are subject to press scrutiny and should be so. I believe in Freedom of Information laws. I believe in Sunshine laws. I believe in scrutiny of any process by which government makes decisions. I don’t believe that there’s a reasonable, moral basis on which to draw the distinctions that subject the Koch’s lobbying efforts to scrutiny save when acts are taken to influence public policy. All such acts should be examined.
I’ve been hesitant to post on this thread, hoping that more information would become publicly available about the specifics of what happened. But the current discussion seems to have moved on from certain aspects of the incident where they’d be relevant, so I’ll just add some complication into the current discussion. The MU campus is public property, but not public space. At least not according to MU policy and actions. And as far as I know, that has been upheld legally. That is why there is a specific space designated as Speakers Circle, where free expression is allowed by both students and the general public. Elsewhere, free expression is curtailed. So talking about rights of the protesters or of the student journalists from from the standpoint of the US constitution or laws regarding public spaces aren’t necessarily meaningful in this situation.
As far as MU policy goes, I don’t know how it might apply to all the specifics. The attempts to forcibly move people were certainly wrong. Other than that however, I don’t know of any policy that would consider anything else said or done to be wrong. I understand that’s a subject of debate however.
—-
@ CD
Is there a right for a person to make a statement about what rights they have, even if they are incorrect in their statement? Is that different than taking actions to carry out the supposed rights that they believe they incorrectly believe they have? I think a lot of this discussion is a confusion between those two, statements vs actions. At least I hope it is.
Myself
I have been corrected.
http://www.columbiamissourian.com/opinion/guest_commentaries/guest-commentary-deja-vu-all-over-again/article_98a1c53e-8a50-11e5-944c-9fa0dbbcb5b6.html
It hasn’t been legally upheld. So ignore that.
@D:
Sure: “I believe I have the right to punch you in the nose if you misuse the word “literally” one more time!”
That’s protected speech.
Punching you in the nose is not protected. In fact, if I remember my first year of law school correctly, such behavior is even potentially tortious.
I think a good deal of confusion about those things in this thread (I’d have to read the thread again to be sure, & I’m not going to do that just now) comes from
1) some people are talking about morality and others about legal rights. When some people are saying we are morally mandated to allow certain behaviors, they are using the word “right” to describe that situation. This is creating a language of “moral rights” that is separate from any discussion of “legal rights”. What we really mean when we say, “You have no right to tell me to shut up” is “I have a right to free speech that you must respect.” It’s not actually that the person has violated someone’s rights by saying “Shut up.” It’s that we’re heading off possible efforts to enforce such a command through actions which do violate our rights (like hitting us if we try to speak, etc.) and/or trying to dispel the sense of entitlement that the other person must have if they really believe that they have a right to shut down our speech. (They probably don’t have that entitlement, but skewering such entitlement may be a primary motivation in phrasing our response “you have no right to tell me to shut up”.)
2. While individuals have rights under the constitution, they don’t have specific powers, duties, or obligations. The government, however, does have such spelled out in the constitution. And the government only exists to the extent that people act on behalf of “the government”.
When an individual takes a job or office with the US government, while operating on behalf of that government and while using any power granted by such job or office, the individual is just as constrained by the constitution as the government is – because the delegated power upon which they rely is constrained by the constitution.
Thus a person ranting about religion on the street is free to keep ranting about religion on the street. A public school teacher, however, is using hir position to grab a captive audience that can not drive/walk/skateboard/bike/skip-rope on past. Having grabbed that audience with governmental power, you cannot use their captive time to rant about religion. Why? Because the government cannot rant about religion. 1st amendment establishment clause right there. So you might think that you’re infringing on the right of the teacher to “freely” rant about religion. But the real constitutional problem comes because you’ve used government power to grab and hold your audience. Ironically, it’s not actually the preaching that’s the problem per se. That’s why secularists frequently frame their advice to teachers who abuse their positions to rant about religion:
That sometimes backfires, because it seems as if we’re saying religious people can’t hold teaching positions. But that’s not it. NO ONE who uses governmental power to grab and hold an audience can then use that opportunity created only through governmental power to talk about religion – positively or negatively.
I say all that to set up this: When the Mizzou professor and other person whose position I don’t understand but is an actual Mizzou employee*1 were speaking to journalists, they were relying on their government granted positions to advance their argument that the journalists should leave. The government cannot evict media from an area to which they would otherwise have access*2 merely to discourage or make more difficult the act of reporting. Even if a governmental representative does not actually assault a member of the media, some speech can still violate the constitutional mandate not to abridge the “freedom of the press”.
Nothing the reporter was doing was trying to cause a fight or otherwise being outrageously provocative. You might take the reporter’s behavior to be insensitive or rude, but there was nothing in it that was outrageous, like standing on the clothing of the dead to get up close for a photo you want to take after the attacks in Beirut or something. Moreover, what was “insensitive or rude” – to the extent that that existed – was that the reporter was reporting when some would like reporters to realize that a lot of people had been asked a lot of questions and some people really wanted a break from cameras and questions, thank-you-very-much.
Thus, the reporter couldn’t be considered to be creating a situation threatening public safety or order save by the mere fact of reporting in that time and place on that issue. If individuals among the protesters were outraged at Tim Tai’s presence and those protesters were threatening public safety or order, it is the protesters that should have been subject to state power (or threat of), not the reporter. Morally we can be sympathetic with protesters tired of the media circus. But even morally we can’t use that as an excuse to mistreat someone else. We certainly can’t excuse that legally.
Protection for the reporter should have been at its height in this instance of a public space, a public action taken to influence public policy which had already become an event of identified public interest even before Tai appeared on scene. (Indeed it was the massive public interest that caused reporting to reach such exhausting levels of saturation on campus.) When government employees in that situation misinform a reporter about legal rights in an effort to drive that person off – even threatening to call the cops (presumably to arrest the reporter) should the reporter not stop reporting and leave the area – then the government employees have arguably created a governmental violation of the reporting rights of a free press.
Yes, human beings acting for the government did it, and yes, individuals have the ability to wrongly state your rights in an intimidating manner. The human beings in this case, however, were using their governmental power to achieve the misinformation and intimidation of the reporter specifically for the purpose of interrupting the journalistic activities of the reporter. While it’s obviously not been litigated, it’s quite arguable that this violated the free-press rights of Tim Tai.
So the answer to the question, “Is it legally acceptable to wrongly assert your rights (or assert limits on others’ rights), even loudly and wrongly assert such in a manner which is verbally intimidating?” is
1) yes, if you’re not a government employee or officeholder
2) possibly, if you are a government employee or officeholder when acting far outside your capacities and/or off-the-clock such that no one could reasonably believe you were speaking with any governmental authority
3) possible but unlikely in a case where the employee or officeholder is on-the-clock and not far outside their capacities
4) very unlikely (in my opinion) on the facts we have in this case.
=======================================================
*1: for “greek life” – the title she holds makes her sound like she might run an important program, governing just about all interactions between fraternities/sororities on one hand and Mizzou on the other; but she might also hold a much less powerful position, I don’t know)
*2: “to which they would otherwise have access” is key. You can get kicked off a military base or out of a prison for almost any reason – they don’t have to let you in just because ESPN thinks they’d like a picture. However, if you’re in a public place or on private property with the owner’s permission, you have a great deal more protection from exclusion. There are still restrictions that can be placed upon media – the most important being for safety reasons, another common one is setting a limit around a crime scene to ensure the integrity of evidence for any later prosecution. However the kinda-sorta-but-not-fully repudiation of the heckler’s veto makes it very difficult to exclude one person simply because others are outraged by their presence. [Eviction for being on a military base under these conditions, sure, but that isn’t because others are outraged. It’s because you have no right to be on a military base.] And when the provocative figure is present in a public place to fulfill the role of a reporter/journalist, freedom of the press adds even more barriers to governmental action to exclude such provocative figures. When the provocative figure is ***only provocative*** because such a figure is present in a public place to fulfill the role of a reporter/journalist, protection against government interference is at or near its maximum.
So, I’ve disagreed with Tony! (a man whom I greatly respect) on this thread. but one question he asked at the beginning never did get an answer, and it deserves one. The following is cut from three different comments, so that the later question gets the context Tony! intended by referencing the earlier comments.
From comment #1:
From #5:
====> side note, I just covered this issue in my #155, and Tony! is completely correct here.
From comment #6:
I think one of the reasons that Tony! never got a proper answer to this is that some of the protesters actually advanced their line to push against Tim Tai (possibly also others? but I only know about Tim Tai).
Thus some people (including me) objected to what I’ll call the “shield bash” activity*1 without commenting on the “shield wall” activity.
I actually think that the “shield wall” activity is a reasonable, legal, and morally neutral strategy to exclude media.
I’ve noted above that I don’t think it’s morally neutral when, say, excluding people with disabilities trying to cross the quad. I’ve noted that in addition to being morally discouraged or even morally prohibited, it may even be contrary to law (mostly tort, not criminal) if the shield wall was used to block a gurney with a sick person being transported to treatment.
but on the facts of this case, where the person they’re excluding is a journalist? A passive shield wall is almost certainly defensible legally, and I find it to be a morally neutral act at worst. If there were particularly vulnerable people inside the ring that would have been hurt or harmed by actions one would normally expect media members might take, I would even find it to be morally praiseworthy.
The shield wall against the media? Fine. Although Tony! asked this as a question for discussion, I believe Tony! actually supports the protesters in this. I do too.
*1: as a role-playing reference and to distinguish forward movement from passive blocking …and for lack of a better term. I wrestled with this because it may cause some to interpret this as the protesters being actually violent – which they were not. I’m hoping my meaning is plain enough (at least as clarified by this endnote) that no one thinks I’m calling non-violent people violent.
To consciousness razor
I believe I do. Thanks for working with me to allow me to come to agreement. I believe you were right the whole time, but I am still a little concerned about the wrong-headed reactions of some others in the thread.