Backlash spreads against Black Lives Matter shutting down ACLU free speech event

A campus Black Lives Matter protest against an American Civil Liberties Union speaker has provoked an internal debate over free speech on the Left.

Students shouted down an ACLU leader visiting the College of William and Mary in Virginia last week, preventing a discussion about free speech by chanting "liberalism is white supremacy" and "ACLU, you protect Hitler too!" for a full hour.

Outrage spread as video of the college Black Lives Matter chapter's disruption circulated among shocked scholars, progressive leaders, and alumni.

The demonstration — motivated by the ACLU's litigation allowing for an August rally including white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va. — reignited progressive concern about students attacking freedoms that past generations of the Left struggled to establish and expand.

Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, wrote that suspensions would be appropriate. New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg called it "embarrassing."

Claire Gastañaga, the shouted-down executive director of the Virginia ACLU, said "a public college like William and Mary has an obligation to protect the freedom of the speaker to speak," and college president Taylor Reveley wrote the action prevented "hard questions" and a "debate where the strength of ideas" prevails.

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