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Commencement protesters to use free speech argument in case

A hearing will be held later this month to determine whether charges against protesters arrested at Winter Commencement will be dropped.

Department of Public Safety officers arrested 12 people, including some students, as the protesters chanted "Solidarity forever ... The union makes us strong" during the presentation of an honorary University degree to Detroit Free Press Publisher Neal Shine.

The protesters were arrested in December for disturbance of a meeting.

But the protesters, with the help of five lawyers working pro bono, are fighting the charge, contending they were exercising their First Amendment rights. The hearing will be held April 25 in Washtenaw County's 15th District Court.

"They were not engaged in any type of illegal activity," said Douglas Mullkoff, an Ann Arbor attorney defending the protesters. "The conduct they engaged in is protected by the First Amendment. It is also conduct protected under U-M's Standard Practice Guide (on Freedom of Speech and Artistic Expression)."

The University guide states that "... protesters must not interfere unduly with communication between a speaker or artist and members of the audience. This prohibition against undue interference does not ... include various expressions of protest, including heckling and the display of signs (without sticks or poles), so long as such activities are consistent with the continuation of a speech or performance and the communication of its contents to the audience."

On March 25, the defendants filed a motion for summary disposition to dismiss the charges based on the demonstrators' free speech rights.

"Commencement has historically been a forum for public protests," said one of the defendants, who did not want his name used. "We were exercising our rights to free speech and free political expression."

The demonstrators, who included Graduate Employee Organization members and striking Detroit Newspapers employees, stood on the third balcony of Crisler Arena during the commencement.

Assistant prosecutor Joseph Burke said the prosecution plans to file a response to the defendants' motion for dismissal.

"You have a right to free speech, but not the right to bother people while you are doing it," Burke said yesterday.

Mullkoff said the protesters should not have been arrested.

"DPS should have been better informed of their own practice guide and standards," Mullkoff said. "It seems obvious that the real reason they were arrested was because of the content of their speech."

The University's Civil Liberties Board has denounced the arrest. They have asked the University to work to drop the charges.

"We believe that the arrests were unwarranted and excessive and that there should have been no prosecution for 'disturbing the peace,'" the board said in a written statement.

"DPSS (sic) should be especially sensitive to First Amendment issues and should err on the side of protection of speech, even when, as in the case of the commencement protest, this may be annoying or bothersome," the statement said.

The misdemeanor charge carries with it a maximum penalty of 90 days in jail and/or a $100 fine.