07 January 2012

CA Judge Deems Ramming Jewish Woman with Shopping Cart ‘Free Speech’

The story is peculiar to start with:

Back in June of 2010 a leader of a pro-Palestinian student group at University of Berkeley allegedly rammed a Jewish woman with a shopping cart as she staged a counter-protest to an anti-Israel “Apartheid Week” rally conducted by the Muslim Student Association and Students for Justice in Palestine. The counter-protest was dubbed “Israel Wants Peace Week.”
Now, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg has deemed that the Muslim students who harassed Jessica Felber and other Jewish students were simply engaging in protected political speech.
But the story doesn't end with the shopping cart attack:
Felber and another Jewish student claimed the University did not do enough to prevent the harassment which included the Muslim group conducting checkpoints around the campus. Students were asked if they were Jewish while passing the checkpoints.
And more:
The suit also alleged this attack was part of a pattern of behavior during Apartheid Week, during which Jewish students were spit on and Israel’s government was equated to that of Nazi Germany.
I guess that comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, vile as the act is, could be conceivably squeezed under the "protected political speech" clause of free speech rights.

But hitting somebody with a shopping cart, demanding to know whether the person is Jewish or spitting on Jewish students as examples of free speech?

Yeah, your honor, you are reaching...

8 comments:

Dick Stanley said...

Well, it is the "people's republic of California," after all. Bankrupt California.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

I would rather say it's a typical campus of a modern "progressive" university in US and elsewhere these days.

Rachel Ann Gray said...

"People's Republic of California" *snorfle* 
Seriously, though, campuses have so many students & faculty with such confidence in their beliefs they deem those who 'just don't get it' as dangerous to society. That's partly why academics can be so dangerous — they see themselves as infallible, not like the ignorant masses. DISCLAIMER: haven't finished my first cuppa yet... may not be coherent.~Rachel

SnoopyTheGoon said...

It sounds quite coherent, no worries. And right too.

KatieNorcross said...

If ramming a Jew with a shopping cart is free speech, would then ramming a Muslim with my car also be free speech?

SnoopyTheGoon said...

If you have a god lawyer and do it in California...

Dick Stanley said...

Not really typical at all, actually. California is the granddaddy of progressive irrelevance. 

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Well, let's agree that there are quite a lot of campuses (campi?) like that one in US.