Secretary McAleenan Shouted Off Stage at Georgetown Law- First Amendment Violation?

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        Homeland Security Secretary McAleenan spoke, or attempted to speak, at the annual immigration conference at Georgetown University on Monday. McAleenan repeatedly tried to discuss his current thoughts and plans in hope to spark a discussion and have a Q&A session with Georgetown law students afterward. Each time he began, pro-immigrant protesters interrupted him by screaming, yelling and not allowing McAleenan a word in.  It was evident how upset McAleenan was.
       On the last interruption McAleenan walked out of the conference with the quote, "I will try this one last time but if not I am going to get back to securing this country." 
Georgetown law students who attended the conference in hopes of setting politics aside in order to learn, were extremely disappointed in their fellow students who "robbed" them of the incredible opportunity. Georgetown University was criticized for not asking the protesters to leave the room, however they later issued a statement saying, "We do not limit speech- either on the content of the view or the person expressing the view... We share our partners' regret that the audience did not get to hear from the Secretary. Georgetown Law is committed to free speech and expression and the ability of speakers to be heard and engage in dialogue."
      Bringing this back to our class and our First Amendment discussions, I feel for Secretary McAleenan in terms of him not being able to discuss his plans to students. As much as I disagree with the actions of the protesters, their speech was solely disrespectful but it was protected. Because they are university students there may be policies and procedures that will insight some sort of consequence to those students on school grounds but otherwise the First Amendment protects their ability to speak out. I think we will be seeing a lot more of this when it comes to university speakers due to the hyper bipartisan nature of our country at this current time. I truly hope in the near future we will be able to set aside our differences and just learn to educate each other with mature conversation and informational debate. How can we talk about being progressive and accepting when we cannot even have a conversation with those of opposing views?
NY Times Article

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