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GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- People in the Jewish community are reacting negatively to the man spotted wearing a swastika on his arm.

They are saying the symbol itself could be hate speech. The man seen on UF campus said he is exercising his first amendment right.

"Nazi's are an extremely organized, focused, distinguished organization that saved the world," said Michael Dewitz, who was spotted riding his bike through Gainesville wearing the homemade armband with a swastika on it.

"The swastika is to invoke fear, to invoke hate, it's the symbol of the Nazi's. Students are scared, people are scared," said Rabbi Goldman at UF's Lubavitch-Chabad Jewish Student Center. "How could you not be concerned?"

Dewitz said he did it as a social experiment. "It was partially performance art, just to see people's reaction, like a social study of some sort, a sociological study."

Dewitz also questions whether the Holocaust happened. "Disinformation was huge in World War II, so how can we know that any of that stuff can be verified? You don't know that your grandparents were necessarily in a concentration camp and if the Nazi's were evil how can they remember being in one because they're not dead. Actually all that genetic nonsense, and Aryan stuff. That's ridiculous. That's disinformation," Dewitz said.

Gainesville Police said they cannot do anything about it because Dewitz has not committed a crime, but Rabbi Goldman thinks this could escalate into something further. "God forbid that this shouldn't trigger an actual incident of violence or anything else," he said.

Dewitz said he was the victim of assault. "Everyone was filming me like it was illegal to have free speech. I was being yelled at, called names, criticized, and I wasn't doing anything to these people cause I was part of the experiment," he said.

Rabbi Goldman said he is advising his students not to engage people like Dewitz, who was surprised to see so much backlash in the community. Dewitz said he is not sure if he will do something like this again.

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Man spotted wearing swastika defends 1st Amendment - WCJB

White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Monday responded to the Womens March on Washington, saying President Trump respects Americans rights to protest and freedom of speech.

I think he has a healthy respect for the First Amendment, Spicer told reporters. This is what makes our country so beautiful is that on one day you can inaugurate a president. On the next day, people can occupy the same space to protest something.

On Saturday, the day after Trump was sworn into office, an estimated 500,000 people attendeda march on the National Mall and around Washington, D.C., to protest the new administration and advocate for womens issues.

Hes also cognizant to the fact that a lot of these people were there to protest an issue of concern to them and not against anything, Spicer said.

I think the president shared Debbie Dingells views: that there were people who came to the Mall like they do all the time.

When asked how the president can reach out to protesters and unite the country, Spicer said Trump would be able to accomplish that through action and success.

I think he reaches out to them on the way he started the night he won the election, the way he did on Inauguration Day that sends a message that hes fighting for them, Spicer said.

But more importantly, the presidents going to show through action and success that hes fighting for them and every American.

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Spicer on protests: Trump has 'healthy respect for the First Amendment' - The Hill

More than half a million people, including hundreds from Lancaster County, took part Saturday in the Womens March on Washington. Millions more participated in so-called sister marches across the United States including here in Lancaster city and in some 80 countries around the world. The marches were spurred by concerns over how President Donald Trumps agenda might impact women.

We will leave to others the arguments over whether the Womens March on Washington and the sister marches were necessary, inclusive or productive.

Will this be a one-time thing or, with the march organizers promise of action over 100 days, the beginning of a movement a kind of tea party for progressives in the age of Trump?

Whether you marched here or in the nations capital, whether you were appalled or thrilled by the marches, we invite your thoughts on these questions via letters to the editor.

For now, a couple of things seem to us to be clear.

The marches were a vivid reminder of how fortunate we are to live in a country in which the very first amendment to the Constitution enshrined freedom of speech and the freedom to peaceably assemble.

You may have disagreed with the content of that speech and the reasons for those assemblies, but thats another great thing about America: Were allowed to hold different opinions and to express them.

Its not always easy to live with one another when were noisily expressing different points of view. But the Founding Fathers deemed freedom of expression to be essential. Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech, Benjamin Franklin wrote.

Another thing seems clear today: Aside from Madonna and her expletive-laced remarks (did anyone expect anything else from the desperately seeking headlines singer?), the marches were well-organized and incredibly well-attended.

Just as Trumps election held a message for Democratic leaders, Saturdays marches held a message for Republican leaders, Trump included. Democrats, Republicans, theyd all do well to listen.

The larger-than-anticipated marches might have led to mayhem, but there were no arrests made in connection with the D.C. march. Or in Los Angeles, where more than half a million people marched. Or in New York City, where some 400,000 marched. Or in Lancaster city, where hundreds of people packed the northeast quadrant of Penn Square.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich penned the line, Well-behaved women seldom make history, but Saturdays marches were nothing if not well-behaved.

Maybe it was because women were in charge (that also worked out pretty well for the Trump presidential campaign). Maybe it was because the police kept the riot gear stowed. Maybe it was because there were a great many mothers and grandmothers in attendance, and who steps out of line when theyre around? Were just glad the marches were peaceful.

At both the inauguration Friday and the Womens March on Washington on Saturday, people stacked trash as near as possible to the full trash cans, making the job of the cleanup crew easier, National Park Service spokespeople told news organizations.

So, even in this divided country of ours, it appears that both Trump supporters and feminist marchers have neatness in common.

Its not much, but its something.

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Agree or disagree with the women marchers' cause, but the First Amendment is a great thing - LancasterOnline

We are here, and we will be heard, said Warren Murphy, one of several speakers Saturday at the Wyoming Women and Allies March Park County.

He called for protecting the dignity of women, ethnic minorities and those with disabilities.

Lets become the solid nation we all want, he said.

The gathering was organized in part to support the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that guarantees freedom of speech and assembly, said Christine Garceau of Powell. The amendment ensures a marketplace of ideas, facilitates majority rule and consensus, and provides a means to participate and deliberate.

Its imperative that people protect their rights, said Amy McKinney, a professor of history at Northwest College in Powell. In the past, women couldnt control their paychecks or vote and faced discrimination in the work place.

Now women can run in the Boston Marathon and serve on juries and apply for credit in their own names, she said. Now they cant be fired for being pregnant

A womens right to vote is enshrined in the Wyoming Constitution, along with another significant value public education as a basic right, two firsts among the states, said Steve Thulin, also a history professor at NWC. Education preserves the republic and advances democracy, he added.

Our children are the future, he said.

Many children of the past came from families who immigrated here from foreign lands, creating a diversity that formed this country, said Mary Ellen Ibarra-Robinson of Powell. They were seeking better lives, as todays immigrants do.

Lets acknowledge that all individuals in our country are due the opportunity to live in peace with the hope of achieving their dreams, she said.

The developmentally disabled should also be able to reach their dreams, said Marion Morrison of Powell. They learn differently, cope with life differently, and deserve a chance to continue learning after 21.

They need our support and voice so they can blossom and enrich our lives with their gifts, she said.

All people deserve access to medical services, said Valerie Lengfelder of Powell. She noted that 20 million citizens gained coverage through the Affordable Care Act, which may not be perfect, but is a start, in her opinion. If its repealed, there should be a simultaneous replacement program.

One reason Im marching is for universal health coverage for all, she said.

The urgency of dealing with climate change was addressed by Lynn Horton of Powell. She cited carbon dioxide at record high levels and 2016 as the hottest year on record. Locally, the effects are seen in receding glaciers and devastated forests. Globally, the impacts will hit the minorities and the poor hardest.

Climate change is our nations greatest security threat, Horton said.

Buzzy Hassrick

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Preserving First Amendment rights motivates marchers - Cody Enterprise

If UW President Ana Mari Cauce were to disinvite Milo Yiannopoulos, the provocative editor at the conservative news site Breitbart, she would subject the university to legal liability for abridging First Amendment rights.

IN 1997, Eleanor Holmes Norton stated: You seldom get to defend the First Amendment by defending people you like You dont know whether the First Amendment is alive and well until it is tested by people with despicable ideas.

Both the character of the speaker and the content of her message speak to the controversy surrounding the scheduled arrival of Milo Yiannopoulos to the University of Washington on Friday. Yiannopoulos is the provocative British journalist and Breitbart editor who incenses many with his abrasive attacks (sometimes personal and cruel) on liberals and the PC-culture.

Norton, a woman of color and a Democrat, represents the District of Columbia in Congress. She is a person with a long and honorable history of commitment to the struggle for racial and gender justice. When lives were on the line in 1964, she ventured off to Mississippi for the Freedom Summer to register African-American voters. The young activist also worked with the likes of Medgar Evers, the civil rights activist who was murdered. And in the 1970s and thereafter, Holmes was a key figure in the campaign for womens rights.

Ronald K.L. Collins is the Harold S. Shefelman Scholar at the University of Washington School of Law where he specializes in constitutional and First Amendment law.

It is against that backdrop that her words take on special meaning. It is against that backdrop that her willingness to defend the free-speech principle in supporting the rights of segregationists to speak (and she did just that!) demands our attention and respect.

Let us be clear: Hate speech is abhorrent; it is an affront to the dignity of every person and to all persons. But that said, let us not speak falsely: It is also protected under the First Amendment. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall affirmed that idea in 1969 when he signed onto the courts unanimous opinion in Brandenburg v. Ohio (upholding the rights of KKK members to engage in racist expression). Justice William Brennan, a stalwart defender of equal justice, agreed with that idea when in 1977 he signed onto the courts opinion in National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie. And in 1992, liberals and conservatives alike voted unanimously to affirm the right to engage in race-hate speech in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (the ACLU defended the First Amendment right).

Of course, hate speech plus certain forms of conduct can and should be punished. For example, hate speech that is tantamount to a true threat, as defined by the Supreme Court, is not protected. Washington law tracks this prohibition against threats by way of our malicious harassment statute and likewise criminalizes injury to person or property if done with animus based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or with reference to other specified groups. Fighting words and incitement intended to and likely to produce imminent illegal conduct, again all properly defined, can also be regulated.

For UW President Ana Mari Cauce to dismiss the law and disinvite Yiannopoulos would subject the university to legal liability for abridging First Amendment rights.

Equally important, such rash action would contravene the long-held principle of our democracy that all ideas are entitled to have their say in order that they might be tested and even rejected. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis put it well in a 1927 opinion: Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, [our founders] eschewed silence coerced by law If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.

Today, some progressives celebrate the silencing of Yiannopoulos at the UC Davis campus his event last Friday was canceled after rowdy protesters created an unsafe environment for students. So, too, some now call on President Cauce to disinvite him. By that measure, conservative students, who are firmly opposed to abortion, should be able to act in kind i.e., to call on Cauce to disinvite Planned Parenthoods Cecile Richards should she be asked to speak by some progressive students group.

As the late Nat Hentoff once declared, free speech for me but not for thee is anathema to our system of constitutional government. It turns our freedom on its head.

Let us learn from Nortons example: Confront injustice, speak out against bigotry, protest peacefully, and use the First Amendment to make the case for an America that takes its cue from our collective humanity rather than from the divisive invectives of a flamboyant British provocateur.

Information in this article, originally published Jan. 19, 2017 was corrected Jan. 20, 2017. A previous version of this story incorrectly misidentified Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards as Cecile Roberts.

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Hate speech is vile and protected - The Seattle Times