From WNYC in New York, this is on the media.

I'm Brooke Gladstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield.

In the wake of last week's Palestinian bid for statehood, an 18-month-old domestic dust-up rears its head.

In February of last year at the University of California, Irvine, a group of Muslim students protested a speech

by Israel's ambassador to the U.S., Michael Orin.

Michael Orrin, propagating murder is not an expression of free speech.

The Irvine 11, eight students from UC Irvine and three from UC Riverside were charged with conspiracy and disturbance of a meeting.

Last Friday, a jury found ten of them guilty.

Tony Rukakis is the Orange County District Attorney.

He said his office prosecuted the students because of overwhelming evidence in emails on video and from eyewitnesses.

It was very clear that this was not just some kind of a shoutdown or some sort of a spontaneous,

heartfelt display. This was a conspiracy developed over time to shut down the Israeli ambassador

from speaking. So this was a serious challenge to freedom of speech.

All right, fair enough, but there is no law that stops a citizen from depriving another citizen of

freedom of speech. The Constitution protects us as citizens from the government repressing our

right of expression. Well, if there is a California law that says that it's unlawful to disrupt a lawful meeting,

in this case, sir, it was a freedom of speech issue because here it was a case of this group

saying that the speaker would not be allowed to speak.

You know, I get that.

But there's nothing in the Constitution that says an individual has a responsibility to let other people talk.

It's annoying and it's obnoxious, but we're not talking about censorship in the strict legal sense, are we?

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