Univ. of Maryland Drops Charges Against Cheney's Hecklers; Student Still Wants Apology
by Jim Brown
April 15, 2004
(AgapePress) - A University of Maryland student is criticizing the school's handling of a free speech incident on campus involving Lynne Cheney, wife of vice President Dick Cheney.
Ryan Grim and two other Maryland students were recently charged with disorderly conduct and disrupting a campus event after they shouted questions and comments to Mrs. Cheney during a public policy forum. Grim asked Mrs. Cheney a question about her lesbian daughter and the issue of homosexual marriage.
The university has since dropped the charges against the three students, citing a policy that permits booing or heckling that falls short of a major disruption. However, Grim is hoping the school will issue an apology to the entire student body -- not only for what happened, but for the way the school officials have since characterized the events.
"What they have done is release a statement that's available on their website that's just chock full of lies and distortions. One of the most blatant lies [in the statement] says that the three students, myself included, were never charged," Grim says, "but we have a letter [stating otherwise], so it's unclear how they thought they could get away with this lie."
Even though he is no longer facing penalties for speaking out at the forum, the University of Maryland student remains suspicious of the school's motives. He suspects the decision to drop the charges was a public relations move, not a sincere effort to uphold the First Amendment.
"If they were trying to do the right thing, they would've done it a month ago. Their behavior makes it so obvious what their intentions were -- they wanted to intimidate us," Grim says.
However, he believes the University of Maryland officials failed to anticipate the amount of press attention the incident would generate. Grim says they only "backed off" after they realized the issue -- and the school -- were getting more publicity than they had expected.
