Josh Blackman, City University of New York School of Law

Summary

The Federalist Society at City University of New York School of Law (“CUNY”) invited Josh Blackman—an associate professor of law at the South Texas College of Law—to speak about free speech on university campuses. Once flyers announcing the event were posted, students at the law school began planning to protest the event. Chief among the students’ concerns was that Blackman had supported President Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) program. Hours before the event was scheduled to start, the Dean of CUNY Law School sent an e-mail to all students reminding them of the guidelines for protests on campus. Despite this reminder, students entered the room where Blackman was scheduled to speak and stood behind him at the podium heckling, shouting, and preventing Blackman from beginning his talk. The protest was continuous for about eight minutes, with students claiming that Blackman was a racist and was “threatening” them. A school administrator entered the room and implied that the students needed to allow Blackman to speak, but abruptly left the room. Eventually, the protestors exited and complained to the Dean while Blackman engaged in a question and answer period with the non-protestors who stayed at the event. Later, via e-mail, the Dean of the Law School claimed that the protest was reasonable because the disruptions ended relatively early in the time frame of Blackman’s event. This response seems to justify speech suppression as legitimate simply because it wasn’t successful.