I can’t believe how much I learned by showing up to hear Chief Justice Rehnquist speak. To begin with I learned that the JLS does not know the difference between protesting and being disrespectful. I’ve seen many speakers whom they have supported, like Justice Blackmun and a former CIA agent being protested, the only difference was that the protests were limited to outside the auditorium.

It seems the JLS has not yet learned that the right to freedom of speech ends when it interferes with the rights of others to do the same. The students I saw at the speech walked right up in front of the podium, held up their finger-painted signs and showed their disregard for the rights of the Chief Justice and all those who came to hear him speak.

The best lesson to be learned came several minutes later after these same students had moved to the back of the room, and noticed they were getting no more camera coverage or reporters inquiries, so they did the only thing that could have occurred to them to do—they marched out. Not what I would call marching on the road to enlightenment!

I don’t agree with many of the policies that the Chief Justice favors. I definitely did not agree with the things that the former CIA member had to say, nor the Sandanista that spoke last year, but at least I showed up to hear what they had to say. I let them say it and was then able to intellectually evaluate my position on these issues.

The JLS showed me they can repeat some dogmatic propaganda, steal a few headlines and then get home in time to see how they look on channel 8 news that night. Too bad they did not stay. They may have learned something. But, that’s our “Lenninist”; afraid of the freedom of ideas, unless their own.

Michael Smigiel

Law