FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Nov. 21, 2011 | The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) is committed to freedom of speech and the press in the United States and abroad. AEJMC supports citizens’ and journalists’ First Amendment rights in every city and every state, including in participating in the Occupy movement. AEJMC fully supports the Occupy protesters’ freedom of speech and assembly as a whole, and urges that journalists’ right—and responsibility–to cover these important matters of public concern be respected by all law enforcement officials. This is all the more compelling because other countries are closely watching how city, state, and federal governments handle the Occupy movement across the United States.
While recognizing the need for law enforcement officers to maintain public safety, AEJMC encourages public officials and law enforcement officers to work with Occupy participants and journalists covering their protests to ensure that basic constitutional freedoms are maintained and not encroached. The rights to protest and to criticize government are core values enjoying Constitutional protection. Additionally, the press must be allowed to freely communicate to the public information about these important and powerful demonstrations and the ideas they express. AEJMC reminds public officials at every level of government that as a nation we are and should be exceptionally committed to the often tested proposition that, as the Supreme Court of the United States declared in 1964, debates on matters of public concern remain “uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.”
For further information: Contact Linda Steiner, President, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, 2011-2012
Available at lsteiner@jmail.umd.edu
973-762-6919 (Nov 21-27). After Nov 28: 301-405-2426
About PAC
The AEJMC President’s Advisory Council allows the association’s president to weigh in on important issues that are central to the association’s mission. A three-member subcommittee of the Standing Committee of Professional Freedom and Responsibility helps inform and advise the president of important issues.About AEJMC
The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication is a nonprofit, educational association of journalism and mass communication educators, students and media professionals. The Association’s mission is to advance education, foster scholarly research, cultivate better professional practice and promote the free flow of communication.
I think this is a rather misleading statement. It gives the impression that the First Amendment is absolute. No wonder many students are confused by what is going on.
While the First Amendment guarantees the right of assembly, in America’s system of “ordered liberties,” that right is subject to reasonable time, place and manner regulations. See the following recent court decisions: Occupy Sacramento v. City of Sacramento, In re Waller (Occupy Wall Street case in New York). The legal precedent that has been generally applied to the so-called “Occupy” cases is: Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence, 468 U.S. 288 (1984)(Holding that prohibitions against overnight camping in a national park is a reasonable time, place and manner restriction).
This quote is rather troubling: “This is all the more compelling because other countries are closely watching how city, state, and federal governments handle the Occupy movement across the United States.”
The AEJMC must not give the impression that if the United States enforces the reasonable limitations on speech and assembly set forth in its First Amendment jurisprudence, the country would automatically sink to the level of Egypt, Syria or Libya. Actually, if the AEJMC is concerned about the image of the United States with respect to the Occupy movement, it should perhaps explain how the system works to non-Americans.
While I appreciate and support the concept of “appropriate time, place, and manner” history suggests that Authorities will misapply this concept to repress freedom., In the past “appropriate time, place, and manner” translated to “its not appropriate for Blacks to vote in this town” and, “get the homeless out of downtown during the Olympics.”
We need to be as aggressive in promoting and preserving the First Amendment as the NRA is in promoting and preserving the Second Amendment.