Getting It Under Control
Yesterday, I suggested we should not be surprised by the shameful anti-Israel protests on some college campuses. But we also should not let it continue.
First, let’s remember that the First Amendment only applies to government or public entities. Therefore, protests at all hours of the day and night on a private college campus can be shut down immediately. Even in places where the First Amendment free speech provisions do apply, it’s not an absolute. Speech can be limited by public entities if it is based on time, place, and manner restrictions—not on the content or message being said, but how it is being said.
For example, you cannot block sidewalks or buildings, and cannot physically intimidate or assault people. You may be allowed to protest and speak with a so-called common area, during daylight; but for safety reasons and to ensure no one else’s rights to travel are impeded, you are not allowed to interrupt classes with a bullhorn, or chant throughout the night while people are sleeping, or cause fear or intimidation to others. Those are legal restrictions, again not because of what is being said, but because of how and when it is being said.
Those very simple points make it clear that these extended sit-ins and protests on college campuses this week don’t have to be allowed. Private colleges can and do routinely keep order by not allowing protests in favor of safety and allowing other students the chance to get the education they are overpaying for. Public universities have these rules in place, as well; they’ve been litigated for decades, and it’s well settled what’s legal and what’s not.
So no, college students do not have an absolute right to speak. They have no right to destroy property or harm or intimidate others. And that’s no matter how meritorious they think their cause is.
Which then leads us to presume that any place where these anti-Jewish, pro-Hamas protests are allowed to continue must agree with and be in solidarity with the protestors. And the meaning of that speaks far louder than a few college students pretending they’re living in the 1960s…emulating those who have been running these campuses now for the past two generations, turning them away from being venues for free-thinking learning and into single-viewpoint indoctrination camps.
I know. I used to work at them.
