When can police arrest demonstrators?
UC Law professor discusses legal precedence and hateful speech
Ryan Thoreson, an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, spoke with CityBeat and Cincinnati Edition on WVXU about recent demonstrators rallying in Lincoln Heights and the response from local police.
Evendale Police responded to an incident on Feb. 7 at the Vision Way overpass over I-75 in which masked demonstrators lined the overpass sidewalk waving large antisemitic flags.
Nearby residents chased the demonstrators off of the overpass, and Evendale Police said they could charge the protestors with a misdemeanor traffic charge, but the response has caused tension.
Thoreson says precedent from U.S. Supreme Court rulings on hateful speech might be instructive.
Ryan Thoreson is an assistant professor at UC Law. Photo provided.
“A lot of the Supreme Court's jurisprudence has been particularly wary of what it calls a heckler's veto, this idea that if an audience strongly disagrees with a message, that they should be able to override the speaker's right to convey that message, and that applies even when the speech is particularly upsetting to the audience who hears it,” says Thoreson.
But Thoreson said there are some free speech exceptions.
Read the full story in CityBeat online.
Thoreson also spoke to WVXU's Cincinnati Edition on this issue.
Learn more about UC Law’s Ryan Thoreson online.
Image of the U.S. Supreme Court courtesy of Istock.
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