‘A police state’: US universities impose rules to avoid repeat of Gaza protests
Students, faculty and advocates warn of chilling effect on free speech as schools across US introduce restrictions
Alice Speri
Sat 17 Aug 2024Universities across the US are planning tougher rules to restrict protests when students return from summer vacation, an effort to avoid the chaos of last semester when demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza led to police crackdowns on campuses nationwide.
Columbia
University students, who were at the vanguard of the movement, may
encounter the most changes. The university president, Minouche Shafik, resigned
this week in the wake of criticism for her handling of the protests,
but not before overseeing the installation of fencing around the lawns
of the school’s quad – the heart of campus life and the site of large
protest encampments.
The
barriers are not the only novelty the university introduced as it seeks
to avoid a repeat of last spring’s showdown with protesters, which
culminated in 109 arrests when Shafik called in the NYPD for a second time
in April. In an email sent to students last month, the administration
also announced a “color-coded campus status” system, with varying levels
of access restrictions “based upon the potential disruption to our
academic mission and/or campus operations”.
University
administrators are also considering bringing in “peace officers” with
the authority to arrest students – something Columbia’s current 290
security personnel cannot do, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
“They’re
sacrificing all their public space to crack down [on students],” said
Jonathan Ben-Menachem, a sociology PhD student who participated in last
year’s protests. He compared the color-coded system to the threat level advisories implemented by the US Department of Homeland Security after the 9/11 attacks.
A
spokesperson for Columbia did not answer a list of questions from the
Guardian but pointed to a statement issued by Shafik before her
resignation in which she detailed measures
the administration was undertaking to prepare for the year, including
faculty and student engagement and a review of university rules.
Columbia
is not unique in its preparations. As they plan for a new academic year
and the prospect of more protests, university administrations
nationwide have issued a flurry of new policies and proposals seeking to
limit protests. Students, faculty and advocates warn that the policies
endanger free speech, run counter to educational institutions’ mission
to foster debate, risk deepening tensions on campuses, and – in the case
of public universities – may run foul of schools’ constitutional
obligations.
Fencing
has been installed around the lawns of Columbia’s quad – the heart of
campus life and the site of large protest encampments. Photograph: Courtesy Layla Saliba
The American Association of University Professors issued a statement
this week condemning the wave of anti-protest measures. The policies
“impose severe limits on speech and assembly that discourage or shut
down freedom of _expression_”, wrote the group, which represents more than
44,000 faculty members nationwide. “Those who care about higher
education and democracy should be alarmed.”
Pro-Palestinian student activists have been taking “summer school” with seasoned organizers and pledging to resume fierce protests.
Universities
across the country have been rocked by protests since the beginning of
Israel’s war on Gaza, following the Hamas attacks on 7 October, as
students and faculty pressed their administrations to divest from Israel, among other demands. As dozens of solidarity camps
sprang up on campuses nationwide, several schools called in police,
leading to more than 3,100 arrests. Scores of students faced criminal
charges and disciplinary measures, and several schools scaled back
graduation ceremonies.
A police bus leaves Columbia University after arrests were made in New York in April. Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/AP
Administrators scrambled to respond to the protests in the face of growing pressure from donors, lawsuits from Jewish students alleging antisemitism, and Republican-led congressional hearings
grilling university presidents – three of whom have since resigned,
including Shafik. Campus leaders who called in law enforcement were
widely condemned by students and faculty for escalating tensions.
Shafik’s
decision, which she attributed to the “considerable toll” the tensions
took on her family, took students and faculty by surprise – with some
fearing it signaled more uncertainty and conflict ahead. Katrina
Armstrong, the dean of Columbia’s medical school who was appointed
interim president, called for unity and dialogue in an email to the
student body. “The habit of critical thinking and humility that gives
birth to tolerance of contrary points of view is the most essential
lesson taught in Columbia’s classrooms.”
‘A dangerous precedent’
In the aftermath of last spring’s protests, many universities moved to amend their policies,
with several introducing bans and restrictions on camping, overnight
protests and the use of banners and signs. Over the summer, the
University of Pennsylvania introduced a new prohibition on camping and banned any speech that “advocates violence”. Critics note that such speech is constitutionally protected
– as long as it doesn’t entail a clear threat. As a private school,
UPenn is not bound by the US constitution’s first amendment protections,
but like many private universities it claims to uphold free speech values .
Elsewhere, the University of Illinois imposed restrictions
on the use of “event tents, tables, walls, outdoor displays,
inflatables, freestanding signs, huts, sculptures, booths, facilities,
flashing or rotating lights, illuminated signs, or similar objects and
structures”. The University of Louisville, in Kentucky, proposed
bans on chalking and yard signs and a requirement that other signage
“align with the university mission”. (A spokesperson for the university
told the Guardian that the policy “has not been enacted”.) Other
schools, like Case Western Reserve University, in Ohio, introduced a seven-day notice requirement for any demonstrations. The University of Michigan introduced a new “disruptive activity policy” that speech advocates criticized as overly broad and punitive.
A spokesperson for the university said the draft policy had come on the heels of “a serious disruption” to an honors convocation
last March and that following feedback from the university community
the policy had not been implemented. “Disrupting speakers and events is
not protected speech under the law and is a violation of university
policy,” the spokesperson added.
Police officers face pro-Palestinian protesters on UCLA’s campus in Los Angeles in June. Photograph: Étienne Laurent/AFP/Getty Images
The University of California, a 10-campus system that saw some of the worst violence in response to pro-Palestinian protests, is set to announce
a system-wide new policy, probably including a ban on encampments, in
the coming days. California state legislators are also debating a new bill against conduct that “creates a hostile environment on campus”, which advocates warn would “set a dangerous precedent”.
“I’m
concerned that students are going to show up on campus [nationwide]
looking to participate in protests that they heard about when they were
in high school and to engage in _expression_ and to share ideas with their
fellow students, and I think that if they hear the message that those
sorts of things are inherently disruptive, that you need to plan them
seven days in advance, they’ll be very discouraged,” said Laura Beltz,
director of policy reform at the Foundation for Individual Rights and
_expression_.
The Guardian reached out to all
the schools named here for comment about the new policies and their free
speech implications, and has included the responses received.
Political pressures
As
they prepare for the return of students and protests to campus,
universities are also grappling with mounting accusations of
antisemitism – many leveled by lawmakers and in two dozen lawsuits.
Earlier this month, a federal judge cleared the way
for a lawsuit brought by Jewish students alleging that Harvard failed
to protect them from harassment as fellow students called them
“murderers’ and “colonizers” or chanted “from the river to the sea” – a popular slogan in support of Palestinian liberation that some claim has genocidal connotations. Other universities settled similar lawsuits, while a federal judge in California this week ruled
that UCLA cannot allow student protesters to block Jewish students from
accessing parts of campus. The ruling – the first issued against a
university over the demonstrations – came after protesters in the spring
denied entry to a pro-Palestinian encampment to students they
identified as “Zionist”.
Since October, the education department has opened more than 100 investigations of alleged discrimination, including antisemitism – and sent a 20-page letter
to more than 5,000 campus leaders detailing schools’ obligations, in
response to “recent increases in complaints filed with the department’s
office for civil rights”, the letter noted. A spokesperson for the
department did not offer more detail about the investigations but wrote
in a statement to the Guardian: “Schools have a number of tools for
responding to a hostile environment – including tools that do not
restrict any rights protected by the first amendment.”.
Police pepper spray demonstrators at George Washington University in Washington DC in May. Photograph: Sage Russell/AP
Universities are also coming under pressure from local and elected officials. In California, state legislators are withholding $25m in state funding until the administration clarifies its policy on protest. In Texas, the governor, Greg Abbott, issued an executive order in March that prompted schools across the state to rush to write into their speech code a sweeping definition of antisemitism aimed at silencing some criticism of Israel. In Florida, the state university system administration ordered its 12 universities to essentially “keyword search”
syllabuses and course descriptions for terms like Israel, Palestine and
Zionism and report any materials containing those words to the system’s
board of governors for review. In a follow-up email sent to the
universities, and shared with the Guardian by a spokesperson for the
system, the chancellor, Ray Rodrigues, wrote that the directive was
intended to “flag all instances of either antisemitism or anti-Israeli
bias”.
Other legislators have proposed bringing third-party “antisemitism monitors” on to campuses receiving federal funding.
Dueling pressures have put university administrations in a difficult position.
“We
understand that as leaders of your campus communities, it can be
extraordinarily difficult to navigate the pressures you face from
politicians, donors, and faculty and students alike,” the American Civil
Liberties Union wrote in an open letter
to campus leaders in April, noting their legal obligations to combat
discrimination and responsibility to maintain order. “But as you fashion
responses to the activism of your students (and faculty and staff), it
is essential that you not sacrifice principles of academic freedom and
free speech that are core to the educational mission of your respected
institution.”
Pro-Palestinian students rally outside the office of George Washington University president in May. Photograph: Allison Bailey/NurPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock
As tensions over the war in Gaza have escalated, several schools have introduced mediated conversations, antisemitism training and initiatives aimed at fostering dialogue. Before resigning, Shafik had promised a “vigorous” program of antisemitism training for faculty, staff and students in the fall.
Students are already planning ways to get around new protest restrictions.
“It’s
going to be more of a police state than it was, but I don’t think that
means no one’s going to do anything,” said Ben-Menachem, the Columbia
graduate student. “The war is still there … nothing has changed in
Palestine.”