Victory? It Takes a Council of Eggheads at Emory University to Determine That Writing "Trump 2016" in Chalk is Not a Crime and Is In Fact Protected Free Speech

Any more victories like this and we are done for.

Sophomore Jonathan Peraza reportedly led a chant and called out, "You are not listening! Come speak to us, we are in pain!"

The student's pain over the message does not trump Donald Trump supporters' rights of free speech, the committee found.

"Certainly, if the content of the chalkings threatened violence, force, or injury to persons or property, they would violate the Open Expression Policy as well as other policies, including state criminal law," the report says. "Such acts would also reasonably evoke feelings of fear--though the acts are prohibited without reference to whether anyone subjectively feels fear; and likewise, a subjective feeling of fear is insufficient, by itself, to bring an act within a prohibition in the Policy. The knowledge that someone supports Donald Trump and is willing to express his feelings in chalk is not a threat, and is not a reasonable cause for fear in this context."

Similarly, posters portraying Donald Trump as Hitler or a member of the Ku Klux Klan are also protected speech, the committee found. The committee also examined whether one of the pro-Trump messages – "Build the Wall" – constitute a threat to students who are immigrants. That is protected speech as well, the committee determined.

"One can oppose immigration on grounds unrelated to bias against any group, and thus we cannot call the statement 'Build the Wall' a bias incident without knowing the speaker's subjective intent," the report says.

Certain behaviors, like defacing the political speech of others, are not protected, the committee ruled. There were several instances of this. Someone drew a Hitler mustache on a Donald Trump poster. Another unknown person cut up a poster supporting Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

posted by Ace at 11:07 AM

| Access Comments