New Threats to Campus Protest

Abstract

This symposium Essay focuses on how universities responded, both initially and after the fact, to campus protests concerning the Hamas-Israel war. During those protests students and others erected encampments, held demonstrations, displayed signs, vandalized university property, and occupied buildings. Some protesters communicated antisemitic tropes and slogans. Although a few university leaders responded to the protests with forbearance and negotiated with protest leaders, most relied on law enforcement and security to clear encampments and restore order. Since the initial protests, universities have adopted a spate of new policies that threaten the right to protest on campus. These measures include cancellation of already-permitted demonstrations, content-based speech restrictions, bans on encampments and temporary structures, masking bans, additional regulations concerning when, where, and how protests can occur, limits on who is allowed to organize and participate in campus demonstrations, and regulations addressing whether and where signage, displays, and sound amplification can be used. The Essay critically examines university responses to campus unrest considering First Amendment requirements and universities' general commitment to the free exchange of ideas. It argues that the recent backlash against campus protest poses a significant threat to a venerable and valuable tradition of campus activism.

Keywords: campus protest, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, palestine, antisemitism, unrest, activism, first amendment, universities