When I mentioned laws against harassment and assault, I was referring to this part of the report: "One girl was even reported to have been pinned by protesters against a wall, who allegedly shouted 'filthy white bitch' in her face." In my geographical location, you can shoot someone for doing that. It's menacing, or terroristic threat as they say now.
Just curious -- do you recognize no limits whatsoever to speech? Slander, threats, false cries of fire in theaters, allahu akkaboom on planes, endorsing the assassination of a head of state...?
Interesting question, Buttons. :)
Surely you’ve heard of Westboro Baptist Church and the things they say to grieving families? Despicable.....and yet somehow, they are found to be acting within the Constitution and have the riot to protest and to assembly, etc, and stupidly enough, even have the right to receiving legal protection from the cities they picket in. The same applies to BLM.
All that aside....I’m do endorse limits to free speech and don’t think that BLM and other hate groups should be Constitutionally protected, nor should the others that you mentioned. The unfortunate thing is that under the Constitution, these things ARE protected, which I think is quite misguided. There is a difference between free speech and lawlessness (as in libel or slander, etc). What you’re seeing as a terroristic threat against the young lady might be viewed differently in a court of law: ugly statements, irrational anger, but there was no actual threat of violence towards her. Now, had they said, “filthy white bitch, and I’m gonna kill you because of it!!” that’s a different story. That is legally known as “communicating threats” and if those things had been said, then Dartmouth is wrong. What *I* understood was that while there was name-calling by the BLM, there were no credible actual threats of violence that could be construed as illegal.
Where it becomes difficult is knowing where to draw the line between free speech and crossing the line. Until that line is set further back, even utterly ridiculous things like BLM or Westboro unfortunately ARE protected. In that light, Dartmouth was correct and was following the letter of the law. Had there been any threats of actual physical harm, Dartmouth is wrong all the way around.
Thanks for a thought provoking question. :)