Supplement to discussion about school tasing - A learning...

A learning experience at UF - Columnists - GainesvilleSun.com http://www.gainesvillesun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070919/...
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The Gainesville Sun
www.GainesvilleSun.com
Sep 19, 2007
A learning experience at UF
Monday, as it happened, was Constitution Day. Faculty at the University of Florida's law school postponed a
public forum about the state of the constitution in the Era of W. so as not to distract from the appearance on
campus that day of U.S. Sen. John Kerry.
As it turned out, Sen. Kerry's "town hall" meeting was itself a lively constitutional workshop in which all
manner of relevant issues, from contesting elections to presidential impeachment to free speech rights to the
use (or, rather, abuse) of police powers, played out.
"In 37 years" of public appearances, Sen. Kerry would later say in a ruefully worded statement . . . "I have
never had a dialogue end this way."
By now the whole world knows about the subduing and Tasering of obstreperous UF journalism student
Andrew Meyer at the hands of half a dozen University Police Department officers. Videos of the sequence of
events have been aired, and continue to air, ad nauseam, on CNN, The Today Show, Fox News and all across
the 24-hour news spectrum.