Destroying print run of a newspaper as free expression

[Volokh, Eugene]

        Before we get into the technical details, let me just make sure that
I understand the claims on the other side:  Let's say that a conservative
student organization is outraged at the anti-American, anti-patriotic,
anti-religious material that some left-wing newspapers -- college papers or
other free papers -- are putting out, and it decides to just gather the
newspapers as soon as they're printed and throw them in the trash.

        Is the claim that (1) there's nothing improper about this, and (2)
it would be unconstitutional (or otherwise a violation of academic freedom)
for the university to prohibit this?

        Eugene

> -----Original Message-----
> From: gayle binion [SMTP:binion at ALISHAW.SSCF.UCSB.EDU]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 9:25 AM
> To:   CONLAWPROF at listserv.ucla.edu
> Subject:      Re: Brown University newspaper advertisement
>
> A long tradition in support of free speech similarly values the heckler's
> speech.  I wonder if there should not also be recognition that the conduct
> of protesting a message by openly removing the vehicle of the message
> isn't also a form of protest speech...  Had the behavior made the message
> inaudible it might be seen differently from an act of expressive protest
> that if anything has drawn more attention to the content of this ad and
> perhaps may be intended and/or have the effect of making people think more
> about the ad and its meaning for African-Americans... I am not sure that
> this kind of event inhibits free speech..
>
> gayle binion
>
>
>
        -----Original Message-----
        From:   Bill Funk [SMTP:funk at LCLARK.EDU]
        Sent:   Tuesday, March 20, 2001 9:51 AM
        To:     CONLAWPROF at listserv.ucla.edu
        Subject:        Re: Brown University newspaper advertisement

        "Volokh, Eugene" wrote:

                        But setting aside the criminal law questions, isn't
it clear that this sort of conduct is highly reprehensible -- [clip]  Surely
a respect for the marketplace of ideas means that you don't physically
destroy anothers' speech products, if you might have the legal right to do
so.

        I'm not sure why this is reprehensible.  Assume the school paper in
fact charged for each copy.  Would it be "reprehensible" for someone to buy
all the copies and then destroy them?  If not, and if the paper is free,
what is the difference?  Book publishers (and law reviews) "physically
destroy another's speech products" every day, after sending out rejection
slips, despite the earnest desires of the authors to have their works widely
read.  Nor do I see anything reprehensible with organizing economic boycotts
of stores that carry Playboy and Hustler (or Playgirl), even though the
purpose is to take certain publications out of the "marketplace of ideas."
In short, I see all the difference in the world between private censorship
and government censorship.  But then I was someone who in college would
follow the SDS members who were posting notices of rallies on telephone
poles and then would cover them with a notice publicizing a Young
Republicans rally.  However, even I would have rallied in support of the
SDS's right to post their notices.

        Bill Funk
        Lewis & Clark Law School

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