OPINION | This article contains commentary that reflects the author's opinion.
A British professor sparked controversy by claiming that a homeowner’s right to remove unwelcome guests from their private property for disruptive behavior is “un-American.”
This view was disputed by many Americans on social media.
The incident involved law students protesting during a private celebration at the home of a university law dean.
“The concept that the owner of the land has a right to suppress the freedom of speech of those happening to be on their property is illiberal, authoritarian, and actually remarkably ‘un-American,'” Balloux said.
When asked to leave after hijacking the microphone, one student refused and claimed a First Amendment right to remain on the private property against the homeowners’ wishes.
“Please leave. No, please leave. Please leave. This is my house. You’re my guest,” Berkeley Law School dean Erwin Chemerinsky said.
“We have attorneys. We have attorneys,” anti-Israel student Malak Afaneh said.
“This is our First Amendment right,” Afaneh said.
“No. This is my house,” Chemerinsky said.
“This clip shows the protester was asked to leave repeatedly and refused, even after the homeowners threatened to call police. She held on to the mic, risking pulling an older woman down. She said that because she was a Muslim women, she could not be touched,” X user Laura Powell wrote.
The professor argued the homeowners should have “engaged intellectually” with the disruptors instead of insisting they depart.
“The student’s annoying – students sometimes are, that’s part and parcel of being young and idealistic – but if you manhandle a student rather than letting them perform their silly antics, pretend to listen, or better engage with them intellectually and try to talk sense into them once they’re done if you disagree, you totally failed as a professor, even more so as a law professor,” Balloux said.
Many respondents affirmed that Americans have a right to control speech on their own private property and a right to peace in their homes.
“Speaking as an American, no it’s not. If my neighbor walked onto our lawn, started shouting insults at us, & refused to stop we would eventually call the police & the police would escort him/her off our lawn. Americans have a right to peace in their homes, owned or rented,” one X user wrote.
“Oh, you can come to my house and we can have a spirited discussion. But if you bring a bullhorn and refuse to leave even after I have asked you to, that is tresspassing and you deserve to be arrested. You can scream on the public sidewalk outside my house all you want,” another user wrote.
“The idea of sovereignty over your land and to rule it over it , is actually a very American and historically Anglo Saxon thing. An English man’s home is his castle. It’s a very European thing for the lines between public space and private spaces to be blurred,” another wrote.
“I made it to professor, and Institute director for my good looks, but allegedly, some academics are smart,” Balloux wrote.
