2024 Brown University Encampment, Courtesy of Kenneth C. Zirkel, CC BY 4.0
Since the October 7, 2023 attacks that caused the conflict between Hamas and Israel to escalate, protests on college campuses across the United States have raised questions about free speech on college campuses. On December 5, 2023, the presidents of Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Pennsylvania were called before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. The presidents faced accusations that the universities were failing to protect Jewish students from rising antisemitism.
Columbia University’s President, Minouche Shafik, was absent from the December hearing, as she was attending the United Nations’ COP28 conference in Dubai. However, she appeared before the Committee on April 17. Her differing responses to the questions that tripped up university presidents in December seemed to represent that she learned from their missteps, and drew comments from representatives. After Shafik affirmed that “calling for the genocide of Jews” violated Columbia’s code of conduct, Rep. Aaron Bean (R-FL) said that, “Columbia beats Harvard and UPenn. Y’all have done something that they weren’t able to do. You’ve been able to condemn antisemitism without using the phrase: ‘It depends on the context.’” Harvard President Claudine Gay and UPenn President Liz Magill both resigned after facing criticism after the hearing.
During the hearing, Shafik also promised to take a harder stance against on-campus protests, and called in the New York Police Department to clear out an encampment in support of Palestine on April 18, 2024. This decision to authorize the NYPD to clear the encampment occurred despite the University Senate unanimously rejecting that request. This move played a role in the vote of no confidence passed against President Shafik passed on May 16. Although this move is symbolic, it speaks to the tension between the school’s administration and academic faculty.
The tensions regarding police actions are not limited to Columbia University. On May 22, the University of California, Los Angeles removed the campus police chief from his post. This move came after the police chief faced intense criticism for the police department’s delayed response to an attack on a Pro-Palestinian encampment on April 30. On the next night, May 1, police officers in riot gear faced off with protestors at the encampment, making over 200 arrests. The arrests speak to a larger trend across the country; more than 2,900 pro-Palestinian protestors have been arrested or detained on colleges campuses across the US.
The impact of campus protests are not limited to university officials and lawmakers. Many Jewish students on college campuses described feeling, “forced to choose between their belief in the right of the Jewish state to exist and full participation in campus social life,” due to charged campus environments surrounding the war in Gaza. Others highlight the implications for free speech on college campuses stemming from the administrative and governmental responses.
The battle playing out on college campuses has drawn comparisons to the protests on campuses during the Vietnam War. However, President Shafik drew a distinction between the protests of the past and those of late: “In the past, demonstrations were basically students protesting against the establishment, and that was unidirectional. In this crisis, students are opposed to other students, faculty opposed to other faculty. And those internal dynamics and tensions have made this much more difficult than past episodes.” Adding to the difficulty of the issue is the omnipresence of government officials in the college administrators’ responses to protests.
Irene Mulvey, the president of the American Association of University Professors, warned that we are “witnessing a new era of McCarthyism where a House Committee is using college presidents and professors for political theater. They are pushing an agenda that will ultimately damage higher education and the robust exchange of ideas it is founded upon.” The shift in rhetoric used by President Shafik after the first Senate Hearing with university presidents resulted in the resignation of two of the three presidents testifying is notable. This shift speaks to the chilling effect of government involvement in the actions of universities described by Mulvey. Not only is the free speech of people on both sides of the issue at risk, but so is the freedom and independence of US universities from governmental involvement.
Despite the onset of summer break, protests on college campuses show no signs of stopping. Some protests have moved off campus while others, such as the encampment at Columbia University, continue to be based on campus. As put by one UCLA grad student, “This isn’t just a fad movement. It’s not going to stop over the summer.” As the summer goes on, another factor to consider is the outcomes for protestors who were arrested during on-campus protests. The First Amendment restrictions on student protestors differ between public and private universities. At public universities, the First Amendment regulates what the institution can do to respond to student protests. Private universities, on the other hand, are able to establish their own regulations around permissible speech. Whether arrested students attend public or private universities will have some bearing on how these students are treated. However, some civil liberties advocates have pointed out that actions taken against student protests represent examples of the government shutting down content-based speech, something that is not permitted under the First Amendment. The summer months and the advent of the 2024-2025 school year fall in a time of uncertainty not only for students, but for colleges and universities themselves as well. In the meantime, questions of the limits of free speech on college campuses remain.
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