We recently discussed the students who conducted a protest inside the home of Berkeley Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and his wife, law Professor Catherine Fisk. The students, including UC Berkeley law student Malak Afaneh, refused to stop disrupting the dinner as Chemerinsky and Fisk reminded them that this is their home, not a public forum. Now Afaneh is claiming a First Amendment right to enter a private home and protest and she is citing legal advisers with the National Lawyers Guild.
Chemerinsky was told to expect protests and student groups demanded that the dinners be cancelled.
Once at the dinner, Afaneh and others began their protest. She started by saying “as-salamu alaykum” — or peace and blessings to you — when Fisk took hold of her and tried to take away her microphone.
Fisk teaches civil rights and civil liberties at Berkeley.
An Instagram post by the two student groups said that Fisk was guilty of “violently assaulting” Afaneh. In the video, there is physical contact but it is not violent. It is reminiscent of the recent controversy involving Tulane Professor and former CNN CEO Walter Issacson who was accused of assault in pushing a disruptive protester out of an event.
There are already petitions to seek punishment for the “assault.”
Putting aside the lack of civility and respect in such a demonstration, the lack of legal knowledge is startling. Afaneh insisted that “the National Lawyers Guild has informed us this is our First Amendment right.”
It is unclear how the Guild or Afaneh would construe a private party on non-university grounds to be a forum permitting such protests. If protected, would Chemermisky have to just live with the protesters until they were finished with his home?
The answer is obviously no.
The NLG may be suggesting that, even if held in a private residence, this was a public forum as part of a law school activity. However, that connection alone would not convert a home into a public forum. Moreover, even in a public forum, students would not be permitted to disrupt a public forum. Students have a protected right to protest outside of classrooms and events. They do not have a right to prevent others from speaking or listening to opposing views.
These students seem to be as unburdened by knowledge as they are by civility.
National Lawyers Guild adopts Mao thinking. Mao said: “Every Communist must grasp the truth, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Not simply a microphone. Maybe they will up their game. Maybe others will (finally understanding the NLG) be prepared for that.
Jonathan: There were lot of comments in response to your column about the incident at Chemerinsky’s home. “Anonymous” wonders how Afaneh got into Berkeley Law School in the first place–“It used to demanding, but I guess no longer” (4/14@6:54am). No, Anonymous, Berkeley is still very demanding. It’s ranked among the top law schools in the country. You have to have top grades in undergraduate school and demonstrate leadership and other qualities to be admitted. It’s the creme de la creme that get admitted to Berkeley Law and other top law schools. And I would expect Afaneh is at or near the top of her graduating class. That’s what Berkeley Law demands of its students!
Then we have comments from the usual suspects–John Say–who thinks “A school classroom is NOT a forum for free speech” (4/13@11:40pm). But isn’t that what a classroom is all about–especially a law school classroom? You don’t get points in law school for being a wall flower. You are expected to vigorously debate points of law, legal theories, etc.–to express your POV even if you are in the minority. That’s what law school is all about–“free speech”. Law school professors demand it.
Now John raises extraneous issues like a law student jumping up and demanding Palestinian rights in a torts class. Of course, raising such issues when the class is discussing the elements of defamation–that would be out of place. But no serious law student would do that–not even Afaneh. But John would know that if he had attended law school–wouldn’t he?
Careful what you ask for, my dear. Clearly if she has a First Amendment right to protest within the Chemerinsky and Fisk household then they and their supporters have an equal, unrestricted right to enter her home to disrupt her home life and protest as well. Maybe the Dean won’t respond in that fashion, but some of his supporters should.
Mark: Tit for tat–that’s what you are calling for, my dear? Really? Get real! The people who support the Dean because of his strong support for 1st Amendment and other constitutional rights are not the type to go and bang on Afaneh’s door and demand entry to protest. In fact, I think some of those who do support Chemerinsky aren’t happy about Fisk’s actions. She went over the line. Instead of just listening to what Afaneh had to say and then asking her to leave, Fisk tried to grab the microphone and put her hands on Afaneh. That’s not exactly the way to encourage free expression. Why do you think tit for tat is warranted in this situation?
Ever heard of the castle doctrine? Come to my home and make a scene and then refuse to leave when I direct you to do so.
Not only will I put my hands on you and eject you from my home, but I will press charges for trespass
Are you a parody? Are you really saying that if someone comes to my home and starts yapping at me on a microphone that I am a bad guy for not listening?
There are exceptions and we both know it. There were people admitted with GPAs under 3.5 AND had LSAT’s well under 160.
My question is how did they get into law school. It used to be demanding, but I guess no longer.
Admission is still demanding– you have to be a Muslim, America-hating, female radical to get top preference. Brains, morals and ethics not required.
Yeah, I think that must be part of DEI.
NLG are cranks and shysters. They should have their licenses stripped. Instead the pathetic California bar takes away the law license of a scholar and a gentleman, John Eastman. Oh they’ve charged him in a Trump RICO case too.
Can we hear from Turley about that travesty, or is Turley cowed this travesty? Afraid they will bring him up on RPC 8.4 complaints?
Let’s hear about Eastman and his first amendment rights from Turley,. Or did i miss it?
https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/ex-trump-lawyer-eastman-california-bar-clash-over-law-license-status-2024-04-11/
Saloth Sar
She’s actually a model Berkeley student.
These students seem to be as unburdened by knowledge as they are by civility.
Same can be said about Barack Obama and his treatment of Iran. Hopefully Jews in America will remember this upcoming election that it was Obama (and Biden) who empowered Iran to bomb Israel.
Obama Should Never Have Appeased Iran
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/obama-should-never-have-appeased-iran/604744/
Now you understand why the American Founders and Framers precluded Obama from becoming president.
Obama will never be a “natural born citizen” and Obama will never be eligible for the office of president.
Obama was born with foreign allegiances.
Obama was the son of a foreign citizen at the time of birth of the candidate.
The Law of Nations, 1758, was the legal text and reference of the era, and it defined “natural born citizen” as having two “parents” (plural) who were citizens at the time of birth of the candidate and having a father who was a citizen at the time of birth of the candidate.
The Founders and Framers kept the Law of Nations constantly by their sides at the Constitutional Convention.
i think you forgot to take your medicine this morning
I think you forgot to read your Constitution.
The meaning of the constitution is changed by Amendment – read the first portion of the 14th amendment.
Separately – while we use law as a means of determining the meaning of the constitution at the time it or an amendment was ratified – Proir law is NOT binding on the constitution itself. The 1758 law serves as a GUIDE to understanding what the text of the constitution means. The US immigtation laws prior to ratifying the 14th amendment help us to determine what the 14th amendment means.
I would further note that your definition of natural born is either recursive or close to it and therefore logically absurd.
As YOU are arguing you can not be a natural born citizen unless you are born in the US of natural born citizens.
No one can meet that criteria, so the only people ever qualified by your reading of the constitution are those who were citizens at the time of the ratification of the constitution – and they are all long dead.
Absolutely Obama made the Birther mess worse. Trump famously and correctly sensed weakness and jumped in.
But there is very little doubt that Obama was born in Hawaii and that he mother was a citizen and contra your claims met the NAtural born citizen requirement. It is also highly likely that the birth certificate PDF provided by the Obama Whitehouse was altered/edited.
My guess is that Obama’s actual father was the communist in HI, not the muslim in Kenya. But that is just a guess.
You failed to understand the grandfather clause of Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 5
No, he didn’t. That clause is an alternative to a natural born citizen. Someone who was a US citizen in 1788 can be president without being an NBC. Every president until Martin van Buren was eligible under that clause; van Buren was the first NBC to become president.
But if, as John Say supposes the Vattelists claim, an NBC must be the child of two NBCs, then since George Washington was not an NBC, no child of his (had he any) would be one either, and thus no grandchild either, and thus there could never be an NBC. Once all the people who were citizens in 1788 died off, there could be no more presidents. Which is obviously wrong.
But Say misread the claim. The Vattelists are wrong, but their claim isn’t actually absurd. They don’t claim an NBC must be the child of two NBCs, but merely of two citizens. According to them, had Barack Obama Sr become a naturalized US citizen before Barack Jr’s birth, then Barack Jr would indeed have been an NBC. The problem, they say, is merely that at the time of Jr’s birth, Sr wasn’t any kind of US citizen (nor indeed did he ever become one, but that’s not relevant).
They’re wrong because Vattel was not the accepted authority they claim he was. His book was known to the framers, but they didn’t think that much of it. Their main authority was Blackstone, and their idea of a “natural born citizen” is more likely to have derived from Blackstone’s definition of a “natural born subject”. And that, he says, is someone born under a sovereign’s protection.
Had young Barack Jr been murdered in his cradle, whose police would have arrested the murderer, and under whose laws would he have been tried and punished? That would be Hawaii. It was Hawaii that protected young Barack at birth, so he is a natural born citizen of Hawaii, and thus of the USA.
John McCain was the son of an officer in the US armed services; had he been murdered at birth it would have been US military police who arrested the murderer, and a US court that tried him. Thus according to Blackstone he too was a natural born citizen.
Likewise a child born abroad to a US diplomat is a natural born citizen, because he was born with diplomatic immunity from the laws of the host country, and was subject to and protected by US law.
However Ted Cruz was protected at birth not by US law but by Canadian law. Therefore according to Blackstone he is not a natural born citizen.
The consensus of legal experts, though, is that “natural born citizen” simply means “citizen at birth”, and therefore Cruz too is an NBC.
Good ol’ George: “Americans who were born abroad to an American serving my country (and me) in uniform on a foreign NATO base, with the spouse/other parent being a foreign national just aren’t patriotic enough to be acceptable to me as a candidate for president. Besides, their American parent serving in the military was probably a commie anyways!”
You really should review DeVattel’s THE LAW OF NATIONS which covers such exceptions. Sad.
Vattel is irrelevant. The framers were NOT significantly influenced by his work, though they were familiar with it. He is not quoted in any of their discussions.
Even if a word of that was valid that ship has sailed.
Many of these people believe that donning a wimple confers magical powers upon them. That headgear she’s wearing in the photo is called a wimple. It was popular in Europe during the Middle Ages. These jihadis have already introduced their ideology into one public school system, starting with the anti-historical idea that the Jews are colonists in Israel. In phase two they will teach those American children that Jesus was a Muslim Palestinian and only one of many prophets with Mohammed being rhe greatest prophet of all. Then they will establish their blasphemy laws . . .
https://freebeacon.com/campus/under-new-social-studies-standards-minnesota-public-school-students-to-learn-palestinians-liberation-struggles/
That’s not how the law works. Obama will forevermore be listed as president with an asterisk.
We need a candidate who will file a lawsuit against an ineligible candidate like Rubio, Cruz, Rubio, Jindal and Obama (and possibly McCain).
Even if such a lawsuit made it as far as trial, it would lose unanimously.
There is a small chance that SCOTUS might adopt Blackstone’s definition and exclude Cruz (and George Romney), but there is exactly zero chance that it would ever adopt Vattel and exclude any of the others.
Far more likely it would adopt the consensus position of all legal experts, that NBC means “citizen at birth”, so Cruz and George Romney would also be NBCs.
And Obama and Biden should never have appeased Russia in their invasion of Ukraine in 2014. As former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said of VP Biden years ago, Biden has been on the wrong side of virtually every foreign policy and national security issue in the last four decades. At least we can say Biden is consistent.
This guy who names himself after the contemptible traitor Mark Felt doesn’t know history apparently. CIA engineered a coup and that’s where all the trouble started in Ukraine. Not the Russkys, it was the neocons like the contemptible Vicky Nuland who just quit because her project there has utterly failed.
We Americans in flyover demand an end to endless scheming by CIA to gin up more wars to enrich the military industrial complex. Same old same old they did in Afghanistan, Iraq, the GWOT, Urkaine, now all throwing their weight behind the current out of control government in Israel.
Israel has a right to exist and exist as a Jewish state and protect itself. But it has created the problem in Gaza in the first place and never handled it well and killing all the civilians isnt going to fix it. I wont be out there demonstrating with the freaks about it but make no mistake many legacy core population Americand dislike the whole affair as much as some of those goofballs demonstrating.
No more wars. No more taxes for the defense department to be ginned up by the stooges of Raytheon like that bloated fool Lloyd Austin. Or any of the pathetic Republicans playing a role in the same charades.
Saloth Sar
Your observations do not conflict with those of “Mark Felt”.
Anonymous writes, “no more wars. No more taxes for the defense department….” Until Iran takes over Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and then Anonymous will be saying “why aren’t we doing anything to stop China’s ally Iran?”
Fools like Anonymous, Tucker, Tulsi, Colonel MacGregor et al are just Joseph Kennedy and Charles Lindbergh of our time. Sorry that the US has to be strong, somewhat aggressive and proactive, but if not us then the Chinese will have Taiwan, the Philippines, all of the islands and all of the Pacific. We need to be a naval power, THE naval power, and if we aren’t the world will go dark, poor and cold.
I say the above as a conservative, a Reagan conservative, a Truman/JFK conservative (I know they were Democrats, but does anyone think they would be Democrats today)?
Fools like Anonymous, Tucker, Tulsi et al would have told Reagan to stay out of Europe when the USSR was putting in the missiles while RR stood up to the mobs and put in our own missiles and you know what happened? The Soviets pulled out.
Fools like Anonymous, Tucker, Tulsi et al would have told JFK to just let the Soviets put their missiles in Cuba and they would have said we just have to worry about our own border. That’s our border in 1962 context, not Biden’s border of today.
Jonathan: On Wednesday Dean Chemerinsky issued the following statement that says, in part: “My home is not a forum for free speech. But we will have security present [at future dinners]. Any student who disrupts will be reported to student conduct and a violation of the student conduct code is reported to the Bar”.
See any problems with the Dean’s statement? If the Dean is prepared to report a disruptive student to the University for disciplinary action isn’t that an admission that his home is an extension of normal law school activities–having dinner with the Dean to discuss issues and ask the Dean questions. That’s my experience. Dinner with the Dean of the law school was the capstone for 3rd year law students and it was very much part of the law school experience. It’s your home away from home.
Lost in the controversy is what Afaneh actually said before she was cut off by Fisk. She was addressing the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza and the University’s investments in manufacturers who produce weapons used by the IDF to kill over 33,000 innocent Palestinians–and drawing attention to the Law School’s complicity. Now we can argue the merits of Afaneh’s claims but it’s clear Fisk didn’t want to hear any of that.
Could Dean Chemerinsky have prevented the entire incident? He knew the position of the Berkeley “Law Students for Justice in Palestine”–and their head Afaneh. When she and her fellow protesters arrived at the front door the Dean could simply have prevented them entry. End of story. But Chemerinsky invited them in–presumably because of his commitment to 1st Amendment principles. But what happened next? His wife was so incensed she got up, grabbed the microphone, and tried to stop Afaneh from speaking. The Dean could have prevented the entire incident by allowing Afaneh to complete her statement and then asking her to leave. Personally, I think the Dean is having second thoughts about the actions of his wife. But he’s stuck now trying to defend what happened.
If his students cannot speak freely with the Dean in his own home about their concerns what is the point if you know going in “my home is not a forum for free speech”? I would suggest Chemerinsky put a sign over his entry that says: “Free speech is for me, not for thee”.
You’re an idiot
No, he makes a good point. The dean was fully aware of the students intentions and still invited them into their home.
Protests are supposed to be disruptive. It’s the nature of the act, the disruption is what brings attention to the issue. The Boston tea party was a protest that involved disruption and we celebrate it as a patriotic duty of all Americans.
Very nice nom de plume, George.
He does make a point – but the point has limits that he does not address.
While Chemrminsky was likely aware of the students VIEWS, he was NOT fully aware of their intentions – that is actually obvious.
Even if Cherminsky made his home available as a forumn for free speech, protest, even disruption – Cherrminsky retains the right to rescind that at his pleasure – which he did.
A persons home is NOT the same as the US Capitol. The owner can invite people in, and later order them to leave.
They can grant permissions to speak freely and rescind them.
It should be obvious that MUST be the case – otherwise no property rights could ever exist.
“The Boston tea party was a protest . . .”
Sure. A protest *against* tyranny is analogous to a protest for barbarism and tyranny.
When you drop the context of the protestors’ ideas and motivations, you can conclude anything or nothing about your darling protestors.
The point is not context. Once you say “my protest is valid and yours is not” we’re screwed. The point of attack was “The Tea Party was a protest? It was also violent trespass and wanton destruction of property, so to call the Tea Party a protest minimizes and ignores its full ramifications”
The Boston Tea Party was a CRIME, and everyone involved deserved to be imprisoned. The criminals’ cause did not justify it; on the contrary, their crime tarnished that cause.
The Dean is having second thoughts about his wife’s actions.
He put her in a bind, however.
The guy knows her tolerance levels & propensity to overreaction.
Maybe he should have dispatched her fora long weekend in Wine Country w/ some friends–?!!?
And he should have sat patiently in his living room, listening to Afaneh.
It is irrelevant what you or I think he SHOULD have done.
He had the same rights to ask Afenah to stop as he did to invite her into his home in the first place.
Your or my op pinions on how he SHOULD have handled the situation are irrelevant.
We are not obligated to conduct our lives subject to the whims of others especially within our own homes.
He probably invited her in because he though she would behave like a civilized adult.
He miscalculated & should have let Afaneh have her say. Obviously she was using his hospitality as an important platform for her message.
But the Dean’s wife was the unbridled Wild Card in the deck.
Why was she going all mixed-martial-arts on Afaneh–?
Like no one has a cellphone & a TikTok account–?!!?
If True irrelevant. What you or I think he SHOULD have done is unimportant.
Cherminsky and his wife had the right to ask Afenah to stop and were justified in using reasonable force if she did not.
It was their home.
There is no duty for any of us to conduct ourselves in our homes in accord with the opinions of others.
mixed martial arts? Please
Some of what you say is correct – it does not change anything.
A school classroom is NOT a forum for free speech. If you show up at a tort law class ranting about Palestine and disrupting class – you can be expelled and if you do so repeatedly you should.
Dinner with the Dean is an oportunity for Students to communicate with professors. It is NOT an oportunity to stage a protest or sit in or take over their home. Further ANYONE can extend priviledges to those in their home – such as the privildge of speaking your mind to a professor, and ANYONE can rescind those permissions in their home.
Presuming the validity of the argument that Cherminsky has converted his home to a forum for free speech – he retains the power to end that conversion. Even govenrment has SOME control over public forums for free speech – it just can not do so on the basis of viewpoint, and it can not use that control to burden speech sufficiently as to supress it.
Afaneh hijacked the Dean’s dinner party to create a splashy disruption.
Which did indeed happen.
Of course the Dean had the power to end the dinner party & Afaneh’s disruption, but he was in a No Win situation: Afaneh had baited him.
Matters could only worsen from that point.
Which did indeed happen.
You truly are an idiot. What makes you think the little Hamas supporter would have made her little speech and left? These people don’t just leave.
The Dean is an idiot for not forcibly removing the radical, having her expelled and threatened anyone else that takes such action with expulsion.
The Dean “stepped into it” by A) believing, as in the past, that students would be grateful for his invitation to join him & his wife in their home & B) in trusting that none of the agitated students would climb the escalatory ladder and use the event for their disruptive protests.
If the Dean’s only recourse was “to forcibly remove the radical” once she commandeered the microphone, then that did not leave him much operational space.
Who wants a dinner party to end w/ arm-wrestling a student for a microphone–?!!?
When push comes to shove, the “party” phase of the dinner party is over.
Besides which, who has a microphone on hand @ a dinner party–?!!?
A party with 350 guests does
Another cowardly Anonymous Nazi posted this propaganda from their Arab hajji terrorist leaders:
used by the IDF to kill over 33,000 innocent Palestinians
1. Convince everyone you didn’t get that number from the hajji Arab Nazi terrorists you’re pimping for.
2. Convince everyone that, whatever the number in reality is, most of those WEREN’T your fellow Nazis who were hajji Arab terrorists.
3. Convince everyone you have a brilliant tactic for the IDF to kill hajji Arab terrorists without harming a hair on the head of the Gaza Arab citizens those terrorists wrap themselves in as a human shield.
4. Convince everyone that the IDF inadvertently kills a higher ratio of civilians to enemy fighters than we did fighting our way through similar built up areas like Fallujah – or Normandy in the first weeks of the D-Day invasion.
And finally, do your best to convince everyone that there actually was a country called ‘Palestine’, inhabited by “Palestinians” prior to the 1960’s when the Egyptian terrorist Yasser Arafat announced to the UN that such a country and such a people had actually existed once upon a time.
Weird how Mohammad made no mention of it in his Quran that he wrote about 1,300 years ago.
“. . . dinner with the Dean to discuss issues and ask the Dean questions. That’s my experience.”
If you think those two situations are analogous, you should demand a tuition refund.
Anonymous, as soon as you claim that the IDF has killed “over 33,000 innocent Palestinians”, you are automatically identifying yourself as a Nazi f*ck who does not deserve to be heard by any decent person.
Hamas is not just morally comparable to the Nazi Party, it is an actually successor to that Party. Hamas is a part of the Moslem Brotherhood, which was literally allied with the Nazi Party in WW2, and never gave up on finishing the job that the Nazis started. If Hamas were to succeed it would not be a “second Holocaust”, it would be a continuation of the first one after an 80-year break.
And by citing its made-up numbers as if they had some resemblance to the truth, you are actively and deliberately aiding and abetting Hamas in its mission, and are therefore yourself a Nazi.
The takeaway is the UC Berkley law students do not understand the First Amendment, private property rights, trespassing, and what constitutes a physical assault. This is a damning reflection upon the quality of instruction at UC Berkley.
Only 23% are American and the students in that group are probably, in large part, communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs, AINOs).
We bump into these total misunderstandings of the first amendment all the time.
Most commonly by those on the left. They are not limited to Berkeley of even the wokest of colleges.
We see them everyday right here.
We hear left wing nuts claim that you can censor disinformation.
Failing to grasp the irony that as in Covid censorship is nearly always used to PROTECT disinformation, and to suppress the truth.
Even when by some miracle we are right about what is and is not disinformation – we STILL harm ourselves by Censoring.
Even when we are mostly right – because we are never completely right. The best arguments of those who disagree improve the quality of our own thought.
My great disappointment in this Blog is not that it leans left or right. But that the arguments of those on the left are so poor.
I do not want anyone censored. I do want them to make better arguments – even those I disagree with and are with certainty wrong.
Next, when left wing nuts are not busy censoring speech they disagree with p;retending there is a first amendment right to censor, the oppoiste is true – there is a first amendment right to hear. they are busy claiming that the right to free speech means the right to say anything anywhere at anytime – even violently so.
That is not true. The free speech rights of people protesting and petitioning government at the US capitol are at their Zenith.
That is the closest each of us right or left comes to absolute free speech.
Conversely when invited into the home of another our right to free speech is at its nadir, Anyone with the actual power to invite us (or more accurately the inverse power to exclude us) has the power to rescind that invitation at anytime for any reason, as well as likely the right to use reasonable force to compel compliance with that recision.
Karen S: The Law School at Berkeley is rated one of the best in the country. You don’t graduate Berkeley LS without knowing a lot about “the First Amendment, private property rights, trespassing and what constitutes a physical assault”!
Maybe Afaneh wont graduate then. Or maybe the NLG will become known for what it is and has been since I first learned of them after law school 40 years ago, a communist organization of American lawyers.
Rated by whom? Only by your fellow neo-Marxists. As evidenced by the ignoramus cited in this post, you evidently DO graduate Berkeley LS without knowing anything about any of those topics. At least you do if you check the intersectional boxes, and are therefore exempt from having to know anything. That is the reality; your fantasy is contradicted by the facts.