Posted on 05/07/2005 8:22:50 AM PDT by bgsugar
A student who cursed, gestured after Ann Coulter's speech is escorted out in handcuffs
AUSTIN - Note to hecklers at the University of Texas: When jeering, keep it clean or face possible arrest.
Ajai Raj, a 19-year-old English major, thought he was exercising his right to free speech when he quizzed conservative pundit Ann Coulter on her definition of marriage after a lecture she delivered at the LBJ Library.
Trouble was, he used profanity and then made obscene gestures while walking away from a microphone set up for the question-and-answer portion of Tuesday's event.
Moments later, university police were inside the library's auditorium, handcuffing Raj.
He first thought they were there to tell him to leave, Raj said. Instead, he was told he was under arrest.
"That's the scary part of it ... I asked them what for?" he said Friday. "I kind of recoiled a little bit. They said they didn't know actually. They were just following orders from I don't know who. They were just following orders."
University police say they were following the state's disorderly conduct statute, a Class C misdemeanor that prohibits abusive, profane and vulgar language and obscene gestures in public areas. But some question if Raj's behavior really violated the law.
The chief's explanation
UT Police Department interim Chief Terry McMahan said typically when people protest at events, and they stay on the subject matter, police don't get involved. But Raj didn't do that, he said.
"That's what this college is all about, being able to have that freedom of speech," McMahan said. "But when it goes beyond an issue of speech, and it meets the elements of a criminal law violation, we step in."
Robert Jensen, a UT journalism professor, said he wasn't at the speech, but he said nothing he has heard or read constitutes disorderly conduct.
"If the sole basis for the charge is that he used profanity and used gestures people found offensive, then there's no charge," Jensen said. "Because cussing in public is not a criminal offense. His speech may have been juvenile, and I think it was ... but at least from what I can tell, nothing rose to the level of criminal offense."
Jensen said it sounds like it may have been a pre-emptive arrest to get Raj out of the room.
Paul McGreal, a professor at Houston's South Texas College of Law, also is not convinced that the profanity and gestures should have led to an arrest.
While laws allow government to control forums such as the one at UT, and government entities can ban obscenity because it is not a protected class of speech, it's not that simple an issue, McGreal said.
"The graphic depiction of ... a sex act ... has to be done to serve a prurient interest," McGreal said.
Accounts of Raj's actions seem to indicate that his actions were more of a political nature, not a prurient one.
Raj, who is from Plano, said he made the decision to attend Coulter's speech at the last minute after a friend suggested they go.
"It's being construed as a liberal protest and things like that," said Raj. "I'm not necessarily liberal or conservative, really. I just did that more to point out how ludicrous the whole thing was.
"Like everyone there knew where they stood already on Ann Coulter. It was kind of pointless," Raj said. "No one there's going to change their mind on anything."
Raj was arrested about 9 p.m. Tuesday and first taken to university police offices and then the Travis County Jail, where he was booked on the misdemeanor charge. He was released about 2:45 a.m. Wednesday.
Raj is scheduled to appear before a justice of the peace on May 20. If convicted, he faces a maximum fine of $500.
The incident was not a first for Coulter.
Last March, Coulter called for help when hecklers refused to be silent during her speech at the University of Kansas. But in that instance, authorities escorted the jeering protesters out of the building.
Last fall, two men at the University of Arizona threw custard pies at her.
In an interview on Wednesday on Fox Television's Hannity & Colmes show, Coulter dismissed the UT incident.
"Oh, it's a lot of fun," she told Sean Hannity after she was asked about the heckling aspect of her college appearances. "A good time is had by all."
While the University Democrats did not formally protest the event, Emily Cadik, a spokeswoman for the group, attended and said the audience seemed stunned after Raj spoke.
The questioner before him had asked Coulter to define her view of marriage and she indicated that it was a union between a man and a woman, Raj said.
Raj's turn at the mike
When Raj took to the microphone, he confronted her about that view, lacing his question with profanity.
"They went on to the next question pretty quickly," said Cadik, a junior. "As (Raj) walked out, a lot of protesters walked out with him, they were clapping."
Cadik doesn't think Raj should have been arrested because "using expletives on campus is not a crime and he wasn't posing a threat."
People overlook the fact that Coulter's speech was offensive, too, Cadik said.
"She makes comments that I think she knows people will respond to," she said. "But she got away with it, and he got arrested."
Terri Langford reported from Houston
jeffrey.gilbert@chron.com terri.langford@chron.com
Robert Jensen is the totally anti-American journalism professor who teaches ethics in jouranlism at UT.
They have their plate full in Austin.
Reading between the lines, this guy attended the speech because he was a rich, bored punk with nothing better to do, an anger at "the system," and no moral sense to constrain it.
The good old boys that serve as regents at tu hire anti-American leftist twits like Jensen, knowing the sheeple of the state of Texas have to pay his inflated salary. He's Ward Churchill without the fake Indian hairdo.
This is a joke. I'm a bit rusty on my First Amendment law, but I do remember enough to know the campus keystone kops went too far. This kid now has a 1983 claim against the cops because he can argue that the arresting him while engaging in First Amendment activity. So I guess tuition is going up again.
BTW, the campus kops at UT are hired for their terminal stupidity. I remember when I went there, I got ticketed twice for parking in the proper zone for my parking permit (yes, you read that right).
http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=Ajai%20Raj
Kerfuffles
Tintinnabulating Out Kerfuffles With Nattering Palaver Since 2002 AD
Friday, May 06, 2005
On this day: BBC Wikipedia History Daily Bleed NY Times
I am Ajai Raj, and I am a jackass.
What is it about Ann Coulter that drives moonbats out into the broad daylight? Blinded by their moonbattery, they fly into one another again and again until they become even more batty, while fluttering unconscious into the midst of the sane.
Here is Ajai Prasad Raj, liberal hero du jour, who was arrested for his activities at a university gathering where Republican parents believed it was safe to bring young children.
The Smoking Gun has his mug shot and rap sheet, of which the other side seems so proud, that documents his arrest for "abusive, profane, and vulgar language and obscene gesture" at the LBJ Library Auditorium in Austin, Texas.
As Mr. Raj recounts his heroic acts, referring to himself as "a jackass", his fawning fellow moonbats are condeming his arrest as an assault on the First Amendment.
Kevin at WizBang writes
University of Texas student Ajai Raj who was arrested at a campus speech by Ann Coulter. Raj tells his story of juvenile vulgarity at Daily Kos, winning him adoring cheers from the denizens of the Kozosphere for his gross display of asshattery.
At Daily Kos they are breathlessly clinging to every last word of the Raj's "Open Letter to Anyone Who Gives a ..." in which he gloats upon his three minutes of fame in "The Texan", on CBS and in the "Austin-American Statesman". "The general idea is that some jackass made a scene," he writes. "I am Ajai Raj, and I am a jackass."
Oh, most honored one, you are not only Raj, but you are RIGHT!
Right Wing Nuthouse hits the nail on the head with
GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME A MOONBAT - This has to be considered one of the most riotously ridiculous, self-aggrandizing, solipsistic, and sophomoric examples of liberal buffoonery in history. ... It really does take a special kind of nitwit to be a moonbat. And judging from this discourse by Mr. Raj, he’s going to need nitwit lessons to catch up.
moonbat, Ann Coulter, Ajai Raj
The headline for this piece should have been: SHACKLES RAISE HACKLES
Disturbing the peace, which was his intention.
"But when he disrupts someone else doing those things and exercising their own First Amendment rights, then his is disorderly and got what was coming to him."
Except he didn't disrupt anyone, did he? He walked up to the microphone that was offered for questions. He asked his question (and in the process proved that there is such a thing as a dumb question), then left the microphone for the next guy. Then the campus cops arrested him. There was no disruption - just rudeness.
This sort of crap reminds me of the nonsense the campus lefties pulled back in heyday of PCdom when I attended UT. Didn't like it then, don't like it now.
"Free speech protections are all about prior restraint. That wasn;t the issue here. There is nothing in the First Amendment that exempts a speaker from consequences."
You're not up to date on the case law are you?
As one performer used to say--"This is an audience-participation number: I sing, and you listen."
Earlier reports had him doing a lot of heckling prior to his time at the microphone.
This guy is just another idiot looking for trouble and then is outraged when he finds it.
Yes, there was, and it was done intentionally.
The guy probably had a once of pot in his pocket . Oh that was his last arrest .... Not a good thing in the Great state of Texas :-)
"You say that you believe in the sanctity of marriage," said Ajai Raj, an English sophomore. "How do you feel about marriages where the man does nothing but f--- his wife up the ass?"
This is also a student who had a number of weblogs up that rediculed police and bragged of his drug use. Here are some of the posts here on the guy:
"Yes, there was, and it was done intentionally."
That's a conclusory statement. Look, I remember the brain dead campus cops up at UT. I wouldn't believe a UT campus cop any further than I could throw him or her. We are talking about losers who couldn't get a real police job. Come to think of it, maybe the heckler should apply for a position.
Indeed it is. I really doubt the kid was actually interested in Ann's opinion of anal sex in heterosexual marriage.
If I recall correctly, he wasn't arrested for his 'speech' per se, he was arrested when he refused to leave after being asked to leave.
I believe this article is misleading on that point.
Before the thread was pulled yesterday, Raj posted. I read it. He's not just liberal, but one of the loons.
IIRC, there were children in the audience. His rights of free speech serve children's public interest, let alone any adults who may have been truly offended?
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