A 2002 Jefferson Muzzle Award was bestowed upon hecklers who prevented Janis Heaphy from completing her speech at Sacramento State?s December 2001 commencement ceremony.

Awarded by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the protection of free expression, Jefferson Muzzles are given out in order to draw national attention to violations of free speech and press.

On Dec. 15, Sacramento Bee publisher Janis Heaphy was unable to finish her commencement address, in which she asked the audience to consider how much of their civil liberties they were willing to compromise in the name of security after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.

“This was a message about civil liberties and our acceptance of differing points of view in American society,” Heaphy said. “It?s a message that needs to be heard.”

According to a press release put out by the Thomas Jefferson Center, listeners have a first amendment right to express their disagreement with particular comments of a speaker, but it is an abuse of that right to prevent others from hearing that message.

University President Donald Gerth noted that the heckling had not come from the graduating students but from others in the audience who were never identified.

Other Muzzle award winners this year included the Kanawha County Board of Eduacation and Sissonville High School Principal Forest Mann for refusing to allow a 15-year-old student to form a club opposed to the United States? actions in Afghanistan.

The United States Department of Defense and Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were awarded the Muzzle for barring journalists? access to military activities and operations, especially in Afghanistan, to an unprecedented degree.

“It was not a good year for free speech,” said Robert O?Neal, Thomas Jefferson Center director. “The tragic events of Sept. 11 created new pressures on free expression and have also made it harder to arouse public concern about those pressures.”

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