It’s probably safe to assume the students doing the disrupting are leftists. Even though Napolitano is a liberal, she’s not liberal enough for many college students.

Susan Kruth of The FIRE reports.

Protesters at Laney College Disrupt Commencement Speech by Janet Napolitano

Yesterday, FIRE released an extensive report on “disinvitation” trends since 2000, but we aren’t done reporting on this “disinvitation season” just yet. On Saturday, students at Laney College in California heckled University of California System President and former Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano as she attempted to address the graduating class. The Associated Students of Laney College, a student government organization, had called for Napolitano to be disinvited, but those opposed to her visit settled for a mix of silent and disruptive protests during the speech.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, some audience members booed, while others turned their backs on Napolitano or “pumped their fists as a gesture of defiance.” The latter two actions are examples of non-disruptive actions students can take to express their disapproval of a speaker without denying their peers the opportunity to hear him or her speak. But to the extent that the audience could not hear what Napolitano was saying, protesters were committing a “heckler’s veto”—a form of censorship that is worthy of criticism despite the fact that it is exercised by private actors not legally bound by the First Amendment.

So where’s the line between an appropriate counter-protest and a heckler’s veto? That depends on the situation, but a useful way to look at it is whether the protesters intend to express their own viewpoints in a way that allows those who want to hear the speaker to do so, or whether they intend to prevent the speaker’s viewpoint from being heard at all.