U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday characterized a wave of pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses as a threat to Jewish students and a form of speech that is not protected under the U.S. Constitution, our D.C. bureau reported.
Demonstrators barricade themselves in Hamilton Hall at Columbia University Tuesday. (Photo by Alex Kent/Getty Images)
“The university is intended to be the free marketplace of ideas. It’s where you should have vigorous debate, thoughtful debate, consideration of weighty issues — and often you’ll have very different opinions, vigorous disagreement,” Johnson said. “That’s all great. That’s what the First Amendment protects. This is not that.”
The remarks came amid escalating demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war at schools across the country, where students have erected tent encampments and taken over buildings to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and force universities to divest from companies seeking to profit from the conflict. More than 1,200 students had been arrested as of Tuesday afternoon, including dozens on campuses in North Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Virginia. At the University of New Mexico, police clad in riot gear destroyed tents and sprayed chemical agents before arresting at least three people.
The House is expected to convene Wednesday for a vote on a bipartisan proposal to codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Schools that receive federal funding are required to comply with Title VI, but most have been unsure how to separate antisemitism from protected free speech, particularly since the provision does not shield students from discrimination solely on the basis of religion. Those complaints are currently handled by the Department of Justice, per the Department of Education.
Police attempting to end a protest Tuesday inside the student union at the University of New Mexico. (Photo by Shaun Griswold/Source New Mexico)
Republicans have framed the bill as a much-needed clarification for agencies attempting to enforce anti-discrimination policies, but Democrats said the proposal’s overly broad language could chill other forms of free speech, including those protected under the First amendment. Those lawmakers are part of a bipartisan group urging a vote on an alternate bill, which would create a White House position to combat antisemitism and call on a coalition of federal law enforcement agencies to create an annual threat assessment of antisemitic violent extremism, among other things.
“The effort to crush antisemitism and hatred in any form is not a Democratic or Republican issue,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) wrote Monday in a letter to Johnson. “It’s an American issue that must be addressed in a bipartisan manner with the fierce urgency of now.”
Or maybe with the fierce urgency of a sprinkler system? That’s the method of choice in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday praised state universities for activating their sprayer systems to soak protesters standing in solidarity with demonstrators being placed under arrest, per the Florida Phoenix. This, according to DeSantis, is the “right way to go.”
“Look, there haven’t been that many [protests] in Florida,” DeSantis said during a press conference in Naples. “It’s much smaller compared to these others, but when you go and you’re bringing a tent or something on like a campus lawn, you know what they did at Florida State and University of Florida, they turn the sprinklers on. So that’s just how it’s gonna be. But it’s about conduct, and it’s about making sure you’re doing the code of conduct.
In dryer times. (Photo by Jackie Llanos/Florida Phoenix)
DeSantis, who is possibly not very tall, was ostensibly in Naples to announce the cancellation of state park fees on Memorial Day weekend, but pivoted quickly to the topic of campus unrest following arrests at the University of Florida and South Florida University on Monday night. Charges ranged from felony battery (allegedly for spitting in a police officer’s face) to misdemeanor trespassing and resisting arrest. Until those incidents, the protests had consisted mostly of rallies, prayer and tent encampments.
Neither of those schools appeared to have weaponized its sprinkler system, a tactic first deployed last week at Florida State University to clear around 40 protesters who had gathered in a greenway to demand that the school divest from companies with ties to Israel. A spokesperson for the university said the system had been pre-programmed and was not intended to disperse the demonstration. But participants were skeptical.
“It’s suppression,” said Jayci Qassis, a Palestinian American student who attended the protest. “But it’s so cowardly that they can’t even just directly say that that’s what it is.”
Actually, it’s super brave and authoritative, according to DeSantis. In fact, Columbia could learn a few things from Florida, he added.
“Need a sprinkler system? Call me.” (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
“What you’re seeing at Columbia and some of these places, that is toxic,” he said. “And I think that people are looking at Florida’s universities and saying, ‘Why can’t this happen at other places?’ And you know why it doesn’t happen there.”
(Uh, because the location of Columbia’s campus does not require a vast network of year-round sprinklers?) (Rude, no, it’s because Florida is a stern taskmaster, like duh.)
“Because there’s never any consequences for any of the malcontents,” DeSantis continued. “They can do whatever they want, and basically they get a slap on the wrist. Well, of course you’re not going to see a change in behavior. In Florida, if you are violating appropriate conduct, especially if you’re warned, you can be expelled.”
This is quite the about-face for Republicans, who have spent years whining about “safe spaces” and suppressed speech on college campuses only to instantly backtrack when the free speech turns to a topic they don’t enjoy. Nowhere is this more evident than Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott in 2019 enacted protections for free speech on campus amid allegations that universities were somehow “stifling” conservative thoughts. Administrators at the state’s flagship university touted those protections as recently as six months ago, telling audience members at a Free Speech Week event that state and federal authorities lack jurisdiction to regulate even sentiments that might be construed as hate speech, the Texas Tribune reported.
Pro-Palestinian demonstraters in Austin, where Republcians care deeply about protecting (certain kinds of) free speech. (Photo by Julius Shieh for The Texas Tribune)
“Hate speech is not a category of speech the government can restrict,” said Amanda Cochran-McCall, vice president for legal affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.“Imagine if the government at the whim of a political party could just decide at any time what constitutes hate speech, and then just start arresting people for engaging in it.”
Insert record-scratch sound effect here. The free speech champions vanished into the ether last week, when Abbott dispatched the Department of Public Safety to crack down on multiple protests in Austin that he, personally, disagreed with. Separately, campus leaders issued — and then defended — their own orders, warning students to disperse or face criminal trespassing charges. As state troopers pushed students to the ground with black batons, Abbott took to social media to celebrate.
“Students joining in hate-filled, antisemitic protests at any public college or university in Texas should be expelled,” he said Wednesday.
School officials at least offered a semi-plausible reason for their own crackdown, saying they feared that protest organizers planned to take over university property as demonstrators have done on other campuses. Still, the response prompted questions, experts said. For example: When, exactly, is speech protected at Texas universities? And who, exactly, gets to enjoy those safeguards?
“The big irony here is that the political right has been for years and years and years criticizing campuses for not enabling enough free speech,” said Kevin McClure, a professor of higher education at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. “And now they are vociferously arguing in favor of repressing students’ free speech rights.”
