The New Yorker:

An online argument erupted after a video of a law professor grabbing a microphone from a student went viral. But the debate has obscured some fairly basic truths.

By Jay Caspian Kang

Viral videos demand context, but sometimes the stories behind the clips seem to obscure what we can already see. Last week, footage circulated of a dispute in a back yard. A young woman wearing a red hijab stands in a garden stairway with a microphone in her hand. “Assalmualikum wa rahma tallahi wa barakatu,” she says. “Peace and blessings upon you all.” A moment later, off camera, a man’s voice pleads, “Please leave. No. Please leave. Please leave. This is my house.” An older man in a gray sweater appears in front of the speaker, his arms crossed; the speaker ignores him. “Tonight is also the last night of the holy month of Ramadan,” she continues.

Then a woman in a white blouse and a black skirt arrives on the stairs, grabs the microphone, and puts her arm around the speaker’s shoulder. “Leave. This is not your house,” the woman in the black skirt says. “It is my house.” She tugs at the microphone with her left hand and grabs the speaker’s shoulder with her right. “Please do not touch me,” the speaker says. “This is my First Amendment right.” The two women have some back and forth about the First Amendment before the woman in the black skirt tries, again, to wrestle the microphone away. They struggle awkwardly, moving up the stairs, then the speaker agrees to leave if the woman in the skirt will return the microphone.

Go to link