Aaron Okin Columnist

On Feb. 29, Lynne Cheney, Vice President Dick Cheney's wife, spoke at the University of Maryland, College Park. The speech itself was not as controversial as the storm that emerged a little over a month after it was delivered.

One might assume that college students would have learned basic skills of polite human interaction at least 10 years prior to enrolling, but there's a reason that assessing things based on assumptions is generally accepted as bad policy.

Her speech was not totally lacking in audience participation ÷ there was an arrangement that individuals wishing to inquire could submit written questions. Nevertheless, three Maryland students felt they were somehow above the rules of the institution and the accepted norms of society, and exhibited this by yelling questions and, in one case, profanity at the speaker. Now they are facing disciplinary action from their university, a prospect that upsets them and many others on the grounds that their First Amendment rights were violated.

The American Civil Liberties Union in the state has jumped in to say the students' rights were violated, the American Council of Education has sided with the school, and the absurdity of the situation seems to be increasingly intense.

It may seem counterintuitive that a situation where three students questioned Mrs. Cheney on controversial issues ÷ one of which, pertaining to slave reparations, she answered ÷ could turn into an issue of such magnitude, but it is far from overkill. The fact is, the students did cause a disturbance, and when the speaker responded that she opposed the idea of slave reparations, she had something apparently so profane shouted back at her that neither The Washington Post nor The Diamondback (Maryland's college paper) published it in their reports on the incident.

The first way of looking at things is to see whether First Amendment rights are being violated because of the punishment. I am not a constitutional lawyer, but there seems to be an idea that, at least in practice, a reasonable freedom of speech is defined by the situational circumstances. For example, if a student on more than one occasion speaks out of turn to a professor during a lecture and the professor asks the student to leave the room, does the student really have recourse against the professor under the First Amendment?

When the portion of the student's grade determined by class participation drops because of the incident, it's probably a safe bet that the ACLU is not going to send one of its agents to campus to cause a stir with the media. Standards of public behavior do exist, and the expectation is that individuals will follow them.

Beyond that, the students were there voluntarily and knew the expectations and limitations of the forum going into it. Whatever they think the justifications are for disregarding those clearly delineated boundaries, the students ultimately did decide to violate them and should be prepared to deal with the consequences of such actions.

The disciplinary action can also be viewed through the lens of potential positives that can come from it, assuming there is no illegality in the original action. When these individuals are punished by their school, it sends an example to students in College Park and perhaps even around the country that being in college does not give them license to be obnoxious, disrespectful and totally tactless.

These traits are common among students all over the place, and if you pay attention to how students deal with professors and others, it's blatantly obvious. Disrespect oftentimes may not be dealt with in the classroom, but it is left to the instructor's discretion. When a speaker is invited to the university and something of this nature happens, someone has to deal with it.

It seems that the University of Maryland is dealing with it. Hopefully other universities will also start dealing with unruly students who not only undercut the value of others' educations but negatively affect perceptions of the entire college-aged group.

Aaron Okin is a regional development and political science junior. He can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.