9 Fall 2024 Palestinian” demonstrations would require an entire conference to discern and try to understand. Much has been written about the influence of Marx, Fanon, Freire, and Said on the ideological foundations that have shaped an intellectual movement that has dominated the humanities and humanistic social sciences over the past 40 to 45 years. The result is an easy-to-digest, but overly simplistic “oppressor vs. oppressed,” “neo-Marxist,” and “intersectional” paradigm that now shapes so many syllabi in American university courses. Critics lament how too many courses in these disciplines have become less about teaching students how to think and more about indoctrination. History based on facts, the engagement in real debate, and looking for nuance in studying the human condition seem no longer to be the core of higher education, all of which has fueled the uncritical and ignorant acceptance of new definitions of genocide and settler colonialism, and an inability to acknowledge the relationship between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. Unlike past student protest movements that were focused on the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, or Women’s liberation, two things stand out from the activism of the past eight months. First, the focus of the protests is on Israel and, by extension for many of the protesters, Jews, rather than on the American government or segments of American society. And second, at virtually every university where these protests and encampments have seen intimidation, harassment, and physical altercations aimed at Jews and pro-Zionists, institutional codes of conduct have been largely ignored, trumped by the claim that such activism is a form of free speech and is protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. For those less familiar with free speech rights and the First Amendment in the U.S., this claim is a red herring. The First Amendment states: Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to ... assemble. In what is a common misunderstanding, the First Amendment extends only to the government as far as protection from the prohibition of free speech is concerned. Private property owners, which includes many of the colleges and universities that had the most visible activism and encampments, are not limited in their actions by the First Amendment. And even public institutions, which are under the jurisdiction of and funded by their respective state governments and therefore must abide by the First Amendment, are permitted to apply “time, place, and manner” restrictions on speech and all forms of free expression. One cannot, even according to the University of Chicago’s gold standard of free speech principles, say whatever you want, whenever you want, and wherever you want to. Beyond these established limits to unfettered free speech, Title VI of the United States Civil Rights Act of 1964 places restrictions on the content and manner of one’s speech. Title VI protects all students, at all levels of education in the United States, including Jewish students, from discrimination based on race, color, and national origin (including language and actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics). Schools must take immediate and appropriate action to respond to complaints of discrimination, which include harassment or bullying based on race, color, or national origin. Failure to comply can result in investigations and the loss of federal funding, which is significant for all research universities. Freedom of speech is the foundation to higher education and the pursuit of new knowledge and truth. It is something that should be limited only in very narrow circumstances, yet some of the current wave of pro-Palestinian activism, or what often looks more like pro-Hamas activism, should not be protected by free speech principles or the law. Many of the protests have violated both the time, place, and manner restrictions written into their universities’ codes of conduct and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which is why investigations of 64 colleges and universities have been initiated by the Office of Civil Rights since October 7, the overwhelming majority of them having to do with antisemitic incidents on campus. What is most puzzling, of course, has been the failure of many universities to intervene in the campus protests since October 7 when they have been willing and even eager in the past to prosecute the most minor of verbal slights, sometimes with punishment of suspension for students and dismissal for offending faculty. The hypocrisy is undeniable and it forces one to ask: “why, when Jews are the target, are the judicial processes on campus less frequently engaged and there is such a visible double standard?” Though this hypocrisy or double standard has been ongoing for some time, the aftermath of October 7 and the protests against Israel make the connection undeniable: Jews have been treated differently on our campuses, with Israel and anti-Zionism together serving as a convenient camouflage for antisemitism. I should note that not all
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