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ACLU Asks George Mason to Apologize

By TChris, Section Civil Liberties
Posted on Mon Feb 20, 2006 at 10:31:09 AM EST
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by TChris

The ACLU of Virginia wants George Mason University to make amends for its disgraceful interference with Tariq Khan's right to free expression.

Khan, a Pakistani-American and a U.S. Air Force veteran, was arrested on September 29, 2005 at a GMU student center after positioning himself several feet from a military recruiting table. He wore a small sign reading "Recruiters Tell Lies" taped to his chest and held leaflets to give to individuals who requested them.

Despite harassment from fellow students, Khan remained quiet. When told by a GMU official that he needed a permit to "table" in the area, Khan responded that he was not using a table, but merely standing quietly and expressing his opinion.

After refusing to move, Khan was handcuffed by campus police, dragged to a police vehicle, and transported to a Fairfax County police facility where he was booked for trespass and disorderly conduct.

Not surprisingly, the charges were dropped. Khan, after all, was engaging in constitutionally protected activity.

"This was a lone student standing in public space at a state university peaceably expressing his opinion against a government policy," added Willis. "If that's not protected by the First Amendment, then one has to wonder what is."

The ACLU contends that police used excessive force to deprive Khan of his constitutional right to free speech. In a letter to the University, the ACLU asked the school to apologize, to pay Khan $50,000, and to revise its free speech policy.

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    ACLU Asks George Mason to Apologize | 17 comments (17 topical)
    Re: ACLU Asks George Mason to Apologize (none / 0) (#1)
    by Edger on Mon Feb 20, 2006 at 11:08:28 AM EST
    Chain of command, chain of authority, chain of responsibility. The military, and by extension the commander-in-chief, give utterly meaningless lip service to constitutional rights to free speech, and all other constitutional rights. All their words mean absolutely nothing and are simply the words of con artists. They have made it glaringly obvious by this action and other actions like the arrest of Cindy Sheehan at the SOTU that intimidation is their favorite ploy when confronted with any type of dissent.

    Re: ACLU Asks George Mason to Apologize (none / 0) (#2)
    by eric on Mon Feb 20, 2006 at 12:47:55 PM EST
    This fellow has more guts than I do. With a name like Tariq Khan and being Pakistani-American, I would be afraid of being pegged as some threat to national security and detained without a lawyer or charges.

    Re: ACLU Asks George Mason to Apologize (none / 0) (#3)
    by Lww on Mon Feb 20, 2006 at 02:09:10 PM EST
    This reminds me of an incident on my fire dept in the late 80s. A white Captain put a political cartoon on a bulletin board which depicted black firefighters and Magic Johnson and asked the question," Who's the real hero?" It was written by a Pulitzer Prize winner. A black hierarchy in the fire dept and government overreacted, stepped on their collective ****'s and suspended the Captain when he refused to take it down. Needless to say the courts disagreed: the Captain got all his lost pay and attorneys fees. Bureautic idiocy. Same here.

    Re: ACLU Asks George Mason to Apologize (none / 0) (#4)
    by desertswine on Mon Feb 20, 2006 at 03:21:52 PM EST
    Mr. Khan is lucky that he didn't get Padilla-ed.

    Re: ACLU Asks George Mason to Apologize (none / 0) (#5)
    by Sailor on Mon Feb 20, 2006 at 03:27:11 PM EST
    Something else to mention. The fact that the charges were dropped doen't mean his arrest was. Everytime he gets stopped from here on out, the arrest and charges will pop up. Even when a judge told me the arrest was expunged (resisiting, assault on a cop, charges dropped, apologies) when I would get stopped it pops up. Really makes dealing with a 'mud on the plate' stop soooo much friendlier.

    Re: ACLU Asks George Mason to Apologize (none / 0) (#6)
    by Lww on Mon Feb 20, 2006 at 03:38:20 PM EST
    Something else to mention. The good Captain never was promoted and he was dogged by the incident until he retired. Sorta makes you wonder bout all the love on the other side.

    Re: ACLU Asks George Mason to Apologize (none / 0) (#7)
    by Strick on Mon Feb 20, 2006 at 04:11:00 PM EST
    "Khan, after all, was engaging in constitutionally protected activity." Constitutionally protected activity? On private property? He should try that in my front yard and see what happens.

    Re: ACLU Asks George Mason to Apologize (none / 0) (#8)
    by Sailor on Mon Feb 20, 2006 at 04:21:20 PM EST
    I really tried not to notice this attempted hijacking of the thread, but I gotta say:
    The [white] good Captain
    was oppressed by the "black hierarchy"? BTW, what was the name of that noble prize winner? Was he this 'captain, my captain' you speak so glowingly of? Did you provide links to this travesty of justice? Perhaps your beloved 'captain' was dragged off in chains, exiled to an execrable cell by the gendarmes? Or, back on topic, do you just feel the need to try to mitigate the fact that a person silently, and without obstruction, protested a job fair at his school? And was handcuffed, booked and jailed?

    Re: ACLU Asks George Mason to Apologize (none / 0) (#9)
    by Sailor on Mon Feb 20, 2006 at 04:33:37 PM EST
    Constitutionally protected activity? On private property?
    Sir, do you hold slaves? Or batter your wife? Perhaps you use drugs! The constitution and laws do not stop at your property. And in any case George Mason is a public university with a free speech code they violated. Please never darken this door again, else the hounds of hell will be set upon thee.

    Re: ACLU Asks George Mason to Apologize (none / 0) (#10)
    by roy on Mon Feb 20, 2006 at 04:49:09 PM EST
    Sailor, I don't want to help derail the thread, but you piqued my curiosity. Does "the constitution and laws do not stop at your property" mean you don't think private universities have, or maybe should have, the authority to ban this sort of activity?

    Re: ACLU Asks George Mason to Apologize (none / 0) (#11)
    by Lww on Mon Feb 20, 2006 at 04:52:28 PM EST
    Sailor, free speech rights are afforded to everybody, not just the people you agree with. Progressives my ass.... What a joke.

    Re: ACLU Asks George Mason to Apologize (none / 0) (#12)
    by Lww on Mon Feb 20, 2006 at 06:16:46 PM EST
    Real life is alot different than what you see on your TV. Out of all the times I was rousted or handcuffed by the cops,(as a teenager in NY) why was it that I was only abused by black cops? Never opened my mouth either. Bureacractic screw-ups I guess.

    Re: ACLU Asks George Mason to Apologize (none / 0) (#13)
    by jimcee on Mon Feb 20, 2006 at 07:09:58 PM EST
    I believe the university is a private institution and as one can stop unauthorized demonstrations on thier property. Not that that is the right thing to do...but it is thier property so it is thier rules. Me? I'd let him stay there but alas it isn't my place to tell them what they can do on thier property. Now if you want to talk about intolerance on college campuses there are many more egregious examples than this one. Speech codes on most campuses, destruction of conservative student publications at UC at Berkeley with nary a shrug from the administration and the shutting down of the student run TV station at Syracuse University by the chancelor. There are too many to list here but the FIRE site has quite a few. I'm not saying that George Mason University was right in thier treatment of Mr Khan but they were within thier rights to do so. I do find I agree with LWW that many people who demand a right to free speech have a tendency to want to limit the free speech of those they disagree with. Funny how that works.

    Re: ACLU Asks George Mason to Apologize (none / 0) (#14)
    by roy on Mon Feb 20, 2006 at 07:49:45 PM EST
    jimcee, FIRE is a great bipartisan group, but even they say GMU is public. One of their writeups of this incident is here.
    The distribution of posters, handbills, and newspapers was critical to our nation's fight for independence. It is a shame that GMU, a public university named for one of America's founders, restricts the right to do the very same thing.
    Re: ACLU Asks George Mason to Apologize (none / 0) (#15)
    by Sailor on Mon Feb 20, 2006 at 08:50:05 PM EST
    Roy, respectfully, I noted that George Mason is a public university and I also noted that the bounds of the constitution and fed and state laws do not stop at ones doorstep. Is there really any disputing that?
    Please never darken this door again, else the hounds of hell will be set upon thee.
    was in direct reply to
    "Constitutionally protected activity? On private property? He should try that in my front yard and see what happens."
    Are we so ironically impaired that my statement of such hifalutin, pseudo-edwardian prose would be so misconstrued as to be an attack on liberty of speech!? And please note from GMU's own pages:"George Mason, for whom our university is named, was one of the greatest of the founding fathers of the United States, yet he is among the least known." and "As the largest public university in the Northern Virginia area"

    Re: ACLU Asks George Mason to Apologize (none / 0) (#16)
    by jimcee on Mon Feb 20, 2006 at 10:47:00 PM EST
    Roy, Yes FIRE is bipartisan and I was wrong to believe that GMU was private although thier own site calls it an 'independent' extension of the UofV, whatever that means. I did express my dismay at thier silly suppressing of this fellow but it doesn't change the fact that other public universities engage in this kind of stuff all the time as a matter of practice with nary a peep from the supposed first amendment chorus. I can imagine what the arguement would be if a Ku Klux Klaner had stood next to the NAACP table in the same hallway. Probably some students would also treat him badly and he would be arrested or at least 'retained' by the authorities as an attractive nusance. As I said earlier they should have let him be and then let the debate begin. There seems to be a strong urge on modern campuses to try to suppress free speech of all sorts and that kind of thwarts the reason of the university system. Someone can't decide for themselves what they believe if they aren't exposed to all philosophies, vulgar or otherwise and many in the university world seem to want to define which is which. And that is sad and illiberal.

    Re: ACLU Asks George Mason to Apologize (none / 0) (#17)
    by jimcee on Tue Feb 21, 2006 at 06:50:55 AM EST
    No, Jers I can't but I can speak about a time a couple of years ago when students at Berkeley shouted down and threatened Jewish students when the Jewish students had the audacity to support Israel. The Anti Jewish students were lead by some faculty members but I refuse to do your search for you. If you think there is a big Conservative conspiracy on college campuses then you are just delusional.

    ACLU Asks George Mason to Apologize | 17 comments (17 topical)