Students' arrest over slur prompts review of ridicule law

Students' arrest over slur prompts review of ridicule law

These 2019 file booking photos provided by the University of Connecticut Police Department show UConn students Jarred Mitchell Karal, left, and Ryan Mucaj, who were arrested in 2019 for shouting a racial slur outside a campus apartment complex. They were charged under a 1917 law that makes it a misdemeanor for anyone who ridicules or holds up to contempt certain classes of people. Professors and groups including the American Civil Liberties Union raised free speech concerns after the arrests. A public hearing is scheduled for Friday, Feb. 21, 2020, on a bill before the state legislature's Judiciary Committee that would repeal the law. (UConn Police Department via AP, File)
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Free speech concerns that were raised following the arrests of two University of Connecticut students accused of saying a racial slur have led state legislators to consider repealing a century-old law that bans ridicule based on race, religion or nationality.
The episode on campus involving two white students in October was recorded on video and sparked protests against racism. Many people applauded their arrests, but civil liberties groups condemned them as an affront to First Amendment rights.
Police said the students, Jarred Karal and Ryan Mucaj, uttered the racial slur several times while walking through the parking lot of a campus apartment complex and were recorded by a black student. They said that they were playing a game that involved saying offensive words and that it was not directed at anyone in particular.
They were charged under a 1917 law that makes it a misdemeanor for anyone who “ridicules or holds up to contempt any person or class of persons, on account of the creed, religion, color, denomination, nationality or race of such person or class of persons.”
A bill before the Legislature's Judiciary Committee would repeal the law, which has been criticized by law professors around the country and other groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, which said the students' conduct was offensive but not criminal.
A public hearing was held Friday on the bill — whose full title is "An Act Repealing the Prohibition Against Ridicule of Another Person on Account of Creed, Religion, Color, Denomination, Nationality or Race."
“I know the title sort of sounds like, whoa, what are they doing,” said state Sen. John Kissel, an Enfield Republican and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. “But ... the issue as to whether someone can really face criminal charges for something that has some real questionable constitutionality, I think, is at least worth discussing at this point in time.”

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