Pro-Palestine protesters shut down Dem congressman's speech, University of Maryland president calls it 'democracy' in action
'What you saw play out actually was democracy and free speech and academic freedom,' said the university president.
Pro-Palestine protesters shut down a Democratic House of Representatives speech at the University of Maryland, and the school’s president called it an example of free speech.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) spoke at the University of Maryland on March 28 and spoke about “Democracy, Autocracy and the Threat to Reason in the 21st Century,” according to Maryland Matters.
Even though Raskin is among the growing chorus of Democrats calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, pro-Palestine protesters still decided to heckle at the event. Raskin believes that a temporary ceasefire agreement would include the release of hostages being held by Hamas, according to a press release.
“Progress in history requires not just reasoning, which is certainly necessary, but it’s not sufficient, because it also requires the addition of the pro-social emotions, as the psychologists call it, of solidarity, empathy, love and the political virtues of justice and equality and freedom,” Raskin said during his speech.
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A few minutes into the speech, pro-Palestine protesters began shouting at Raskin, accusing him of being “complicit in genocide.”
Raskin responded, stating that he wished the protesters would engage with him instead of “heckling,” according to the report.
After a period of heckling, Raskin stopped speaking and attempted to conduct a Q+A session with the audience, which protesters made impossible.
“It’s very tough to solve problems in the Middle East here at the University of Maryland in the physics department,” Raskin said.
University of Maryland President Darryll Pines eventually ended the event and referred to the protest as an example of free speech playing out.
“He came here to speak about where our democracy is going in our country,” Pines told Capital News Service. “What you saw play out actually was democracy and free speech and academic freedom. From our perspective as a university, there are the difficult conversations that we should be having.”
Darryll Pines, the president of the university, later stepped in and terminated the lecture early.
“He came here to speak about where our democracy is going in our country,” Pines told Capital News Service. “What you saw play out actually was democracy and free speech and academic freedom. From our perspective as a university, there are the difficult conversations that we should be having.”
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Raskin told the outlet that he agreed with the protesters on several issues.
“I wanted to make a plea for constitutional patriotism in defense of democracy and freedom around the world,” Raskin said. “Their sentiments were perfectly consistent with a lot of what I had to say.”
“I’m not really opposed to heckling,” Raskin added. “But it seems like heckling today is all about drowning out the speaker, and that’s totally antithetical to the spirit of free expression.”
