Rights suspended in Occupy Oakland

Last week I attended the Columbia University Society of Hip-Hop’s open mic. While at this event, I heard a poem written by a poet named Safia. Safia eloquently detailed the harsh realities of life in Egypt, her place of origin. She explained that the sharp words shooting from her tongue were not “vague political statements to make my Twitter look worldly,” but the reality her siblings and relatives left back in Egypt. When I initially heard this poem, it deeply resonated with me, because so often as I log onto Facebook, my news feed is covered with superficially politically and socially active statements that rarely produce any activism.

This morning was different.

As I logged onto my Facebook, the biting and stirring words of Safia became my reality, as I saw gut wrenching videos of my friend at home in Oakland, Calif. being gassed while participating in the Occupy Oakland protest. I felt angered, shocked, and motivated as I watched protestors screaming, crying, and flaeeing the scene for their safety. I felt saddened as I considered my father in Oakland, who struggles to put food on the table, and my younger sister, who will never experience many of the opportunities that I had the luxury to encounter while living with my mother, an attorney, because her mother struggles to make the food stamps last until the end of the month. I was able to live a life unburdened by any of these financial concerns.

I have the good fortune of being a student at Columbia in New York City and a student in President Lee Bollinger’s class, “A Free Press for A Global Society.”

In President Bollinger’s class, we largely focus on Constitutional Law as it relates to freedom of speech. At the start of each class, President Bollinger details a hypothetical case that involves some sort of infringement upon free speech, and he asks the class to explain through the use of Supreme Court cases why the hypothetical infringement would be considered unconstitutional. As I watched the removal of the peaceful protestors from the front of Oakland’s City Hall, I was no longer dealing with a hypothetical: The unconstitutionality of these actions became very real to me.

Curious as to what President Bollinger would have to say regarding the constitutionality of the removal of these peaceful protestors today in class, I raised my hand and explained how the cases that we have read and the hypothetical cases that he has presented have manifested themselves on the streets of Oakland, Calif., and I proceeded to ask where he felt the case law would stand regarding the tragedy in Oakland. President Bollinger explained that he did not have all of the facts related to what had occurred in Oakland, and turned the class’s attention to a different hypothetical situation.

In an attempt to justify the forceful removal and tear gassing of numerous peaceful protestors, Oakland City representative Karen Boyd stated, “We’re here to address the issues that have been raised in terms of public health and safety—graffiti, urination, vandalism, and making specific requests as to what the need to do as to address those issues.” Nevertheless, this defense does not amount to constitutional justice. Supreme court case Schneider v. State explicitly resolved that a city’s interest in keeping “the streets clean and of good appearance” was “insufficient” to “justify a municipal ordinance” (Stone 1269) relating to freedom of speech. Furthermore, the holding in this Supreme Court case explains that “[the] right to use the streets as a public forum [cannot] be prohibited and can be regulated only for weighty reasons” (Stone 1269). The fundamental right of freedom of speech obviously outweighs the burden on cities to clean up litter.

The United States and its democracy are based on the essential necessity of freedom of speech. Crude violations of basic civil liberties, such as the police action that occurred in Oakland, directly undermines the power of the First Amendment, the foundation on which this country is built. Depriving Americans of the right to protest undercuts the vitality of our democratic system.

The author is a Columbia College sophomore majoring in political science.