EDITORIAL: More campus follies from progressive delinquents

When it comes to the First Amendment these days, what far too many people fail to understand is the difference between disagreement and flat-out disrespect. Nowhere is that lack of understanding demonstrated better and more frequently than on our nation’s college campuses.

Apparently, today’s students and outside agitators believe that the only way to ensure their message gets the respect they think it deserves is to be utterly disrespectful of everybody else’s message.

As that insurance commercial on TV states: “That’s not how it works. That’s not how any of this works.”

But that’s how protesters at the College of William &Mary think it works. Robby Soave of reason.com reported that students affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement recently crashed an event at the Virginia campus. They rushed the stage and prevented the invited guest — the American Civil Liberties Union’s Claire Gastanaga — from speaking. Mr. Soave noted the irony, as Ms. Gastanaga’s planned speech was on “Students and the First Amendment.”

Clearly, the students desperately need some education on that subject matter, but they were having none of it. Mr. Soave wrote that protesters took over the venue almost as soon as Ms. Gastanaga took the dais, blocking the stage and holding up a variety of signs. Ms. Gastanaga, a lawyer with a strong history of advocacy for numerous groups that associate with liberal causes, at first tried to be reasonable and welcomed the disruption.

“I’m going to talk to you about knowing your rights, and protests and demonstrations, which this illustrates very well,” she said. “Then I’m going to respond to questions from the moderators, and then questions from the audience.”

But she greatly underestimated the zealotry of the progressive mob and eventually had to retreat as the protesters launched into a series of chants including, “ACLU, you protect Hitler, too,” followed by the much more curious, “The revolution will not uphold the Constitution,” among others. After 20 minutes of this blather, the protest’s leader was allowed to deliver a prepared statement. Organizers then canceled the event.

Yet even that wasn’t enough. When those in attendance who wanted to hear Ms. Gastanaga speak approached the podium to have a little dialogue, protesters surrounded the distinguished guest and shouted louder in order to drive off those interested in further discussion.

It was a classic example of the heckler’s veto — free speech for me, but not for thee. William &Mary administrators should have responded with a vigorous defense of the First Amendment and with disciplinary actions against these dangerous authoritarians. Instead, they offered up what Mr. Soave rightly termed “an incredibly tepid statement.” That’s just a green light to these disrespectful and misguided delinquents.

Those in charge at William &Mary and on college campuses around the nation need to make one thing clear, in no uncertain terms: If indeed this “revolution” will not uphold the Constitution, then this revolution will not hold up. Period.