A BuzzFlash News Alert: Newspaper Publisher Heckled for Speech About Threats to Civil Liberties
December 17, 2001
BuzzFlash is concerned about that state of free speech in America. When someone questions the actions of our government it is quickly labeled by many as "anti-American" and sandbagged. We don't know why this is happening -- other than some symptom of September 11th post-traumatic stress disorder -- but we wish it would stop.
Without free speech and the ability to have non-violent dissenting opinions about our government's actions and deeds, we become no better than every other repressive regime that ever inhabited our planet.
And that, indeed, is a sad thing.
Below is a report in the Sacramento Bee on the speech and the complete text of the speech by Janis Besler Heaphy, president and publisher of The Sacramento Bee.
BuzzFlash.
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Graduation
speech cut short by hecklers
By Nancy Weaver Teichert -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 5:15 a.m. PST Sunday, Dec. 16, 2001
The commencement address for mid-year graduates at California State University, Sacramento, was halted Saturday after audience members in the packed house at Arco Arena drowned out the speech with heckling.
Janis Besler Heaphy, president and publisher of The Sacramento Bee, was speaking before the largest crowd ever for a CSUS graduation ceremony about the threats to civil liberties posed by the federal government's investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks. Her comments were drowned out about five minutes into the eight-minute speech when a segment of the audience began to stomp and clap in protest to her words.
The
full article is here:
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/1335122p-1404788c.html
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Text from Saturday's Winter 2001 Commencement address
Janis Besler Heaphy, Publisher and President of The Sacramento Bee commencement address
Thank you, Dr. Gerth.
Honored guests, faculty, parents, graduates:
It's challenging to give a commencement address. Understandably, the parents would like a speech that is somewhat sentimental. The faculty would prefer a speech that is substantive. And the graduates want a speech that is, well short .
I'll do my best to strike a balance among all those demands.
The
full text of the speech is here:
http://www.csus.edu/commence/addresses.html
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