Oh oh.  Eugene and I agree completely on something!  Protesters in a limited 
designated public forum are not engaging in protected activity.  There is no 
constitutional right to disrupt another’s speech in such a setting.

If the school refused to give the protesters a forum at all, that would be 
viewpoint discrimination and would violate the constitution.

Steve

> On Apr 22, 2016, at 1:43 AM, Volokh, Eugene <vol...@law.ucla.edu> wrote:
> 
>                No and no.  A content-neutral restriction forbidding the 
> disruption of speakers who have been invited by a group that has booked a 
> room, and thus gotten exclusive access to the room for that time, is 
> certainly constitutional.  And religious speakers are no more and no less 
> protected here.
>  
>                Eugene
>  
> From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu 
> <mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu> 
> [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu 
> <mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu>] On Behalf Of Alan E Brownstein
> Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2016 9:41 PM
> To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics <religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu 
> <mailto:religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu>>
> Subject: speech and religion hypothetical
>  
> I recognize this hypothetical, based very indirectly on a real incident, is 
> more speech than religion, but I hope Eugene will allow my post to go forward 
> in any case.
>  
> Suppose a LGBT student group at a public university invites a guest speaker 
> to present a scheduled lecture in a university classroom. The campus 
> administration allows student groups to invite speakers and to sign up to use 
> campus facilities with few restrictions.  It is a common practice. A group of 
> religious students strongly opposed to the speaker's message disrupt the 
> speaker's presentation after it has begun. They commandeer the front of the 
> room and chant anti-LGBT messages for 3 - 4 minutes. Then they leave. 
> (Alternatively, we can reverse the facts and have  the presentation of a 
> religious speaker invited by a religious group of students disrupted by gay 
> rights proponents to a similar extent.)
>  
> I have two questions for list members.
>  
> 1. Is the conduct of the protestors protected by the Free Speech Clause of 
> the First Amendment? Does the First Amendment prevent the university from 
> prohibiting this kind of protest through content neutral time, place and 
> manner regulations and from punishing the protestors' conduct if the 
> regulations are disobeyed? (If you think that this is or is not protected 
> speech, are there particular cases you rely on to support this conclusion?)
>  
> 2. Does the answer to the first question change in any way because religious 
> speakers, protestors, and messages are involved in these incidents.
>  
> Alan Brownstein
>  
>  
>  
>  
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-- 
Prof. Steven D. Jamar                    
Assoc. Dir. of International Programs
Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice
http://iipsj.org
http://sdjlaw.org

Two quotes from Louis Armstrong:  
"You blows who you is." 
"If ya ain't got it in ya, ya can't blow it out." 

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