Campus protests test the limits of free speech

As pro-Palestinian protests continue to roil Columbia University a week after university president Minouche Shafik called in the police to remove a protest encampment, and spread to other schools around the country, questions about freedom of speech versus safety — and, in particular, the safety of Jewish students — have emerged as paramount. Many commentators who usually decry the suppression of offensive speech on campus on the grounds that it makes minorities feel “unsafe” have been criticized for failing to take a stand in defense of the pro-Palestinian protesters. Are they hypocrites who defend only speech they agree with, or do these protests often cross the lines of what even committed defenders of free expression can and should support?

There is no question that some campus policing tactics have been heavy-handed. In particular, at the University of Texas at Austin, the administration preemptively banned virtually all pro-Palestinian protests on campus grounds, citing disruptive behavior at other schools. The footage of police officers in riot gear arresting apparently peaceful protesters and manhandling a cameraman appalled even many people with little sympathy for the protests.

Yet it is also clear that protesters at Columbia and elsewhere have not only expressed their views but engaged in disruptive and harassing conduct — disturbingly, often directed at Jews.

One video shows an activist at the protest encampment on campus grounds urging peers to form a “human chain” to block “Zionists who have entered the camp.” The “Zionists” — two female Jewish students who apparently wanted to observe the protest — say they were mobbed and threatened.

This is unacceptable behavior toward anyone. When it involves “Zionists” as a slur, it’s not unreasonable to see antisemitic overtones, since “Zionist” means someone who supports a Jewish homeland in Israel — a view shared, campus surveys show, by the overwhelming majority of Jewish students even if many disagree with current Israeli policies.

Obviously, this doesn’t mean that critiques of Zionism or of Israel should not be permitted on campuses. But one may legitimately ask when anti-Israel sentiment, particularly when pervasively and aggressively expressed, creates a hostile environment for most Jewish students. An Anti-Defamation League survey released in November showed that the share of Jewish students who said they felt “very” or “extremely” physically safe on campus had dropped from 66% to 45%.

As an analogy, it would certainly be repressive to ban or curb critiques of feminism because they make some female students uncomfortable. But imagine ongoing right-wing protests at a conservative-leaning university with slogans denouncing feminism as evil and chants telling feminists to get off the campus — and with incidents in which women accused of being feminists were mobbed, jeered, and even told to “go back to the kitchen.” In that scenario, progressives would probably be demanding intervention by the National Guard.

Amid flaring tensions, finding a balance between the rights of protesters and the rights of other students is a tough challenge. Over-the-top claims about Jews on American campuses today facing a plight similar to Jews in Germany in the 1930s, made by some people critical of the protesters, don’t help anyone — least of all Jewish students. But looking past such melodramatic rhetoric, one can also agree that disruptive and intimidating behavior on campuses must be stopped — by administrators, by school disciplinary action, and if necessary by a proportionate police response. 

Opinions expressed by Cathy Young, a writer for The Bulwark, are her own.

By Cathy Young

Cathy Young is a writer for The Bulwark.