US colleges revise rules on free speech in hopes of containing anti-war demonstrations
US colleges revise rules on free speech in hopes of containing anti-war demonstrations
As students return to college campuses across the United States, administrators are bracing for a resurgence in activism against the war in Gaza.
As students return to college campuses across the United States, administrators are bracing for a resurgence in activism against the war in Gaza.
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Elsewhere on Lemmy I have been pilloried for being a free-speech absolutist, but I don't think that most of these restrictions impede the free exchange of ideas (as opposed to deliberate disruption, which is not speech).
The University of Pennsylvania has outlined new “temporary guidelines” for student protests that include bans on encampments, overnight demonstrations, and the use of bullhorns and speakers until after 5 p.m. on class days. Penn also requires that posters and banners be removed within two weeks of going up. The university says it remains committed to freedom of speech and lawful assembly.
This seems entirely reasonable.
At Indiana University, protests after 11 p.m. are forbidden under a new “expressive activities policy” that took effect Aug 1. The policy says “camping” and erecting any type of shelter are prohibited on campus, and signs cannot be displayed on university property without prior approval.
This seems reasonable too. Note that the rule about signs applies only to attaching them to publicly-accessible university property. People are free to carry signs or display them in their dorms and on-campus offices.
The University of South Florida now requires approval for tents, canopies, banners, signs and amplifiers. The school’s “speech, expression and assembly” rules stipulate that no “activity,” including protests or demonstrations, is allowed after 5 p.m. on weekdays or during weekends and not allowed at all during the last two weeks of a semester.
I do disagree with this one. Allowing protests only on weekdays before 5:00 PM is not reasonable.
Protests don't really work if they're not disruptive.
Protests don’t really work if they’re not disruptive.
At the same time, any legitimate authority has a vested interest in minimizing disruption.
It's one of those things where I think neither side is inherently in the wrong, at least insofar as the question of "Protest vs. Disruption" is concerned. One must protest for what one believes is right, even if that protest must be disruptive to achieve its goals, and one must be prepared for a response from the authorities if that protest is sufficiently disruptive. You have to break rules, and you have to accept that the authorities are not necessarily wrong in trying to enforce the rules.
Short of saying "Only people I like are allowed to protest" or "Republicans can shut down the interstate highway indefinitely because they hate gay marriage", neither of which are particularly appealing, I don't really think that there's another option.
That this is all done by universities in the defense of a genocidal apartheid state, though? Not very morally ambiguous. This isn't a minor policy disagreement, or even a major one. This is support of corruption in US politics, the blatant sabotage of US interests abroad, and apartheid and genocide in Israel. Fuck these places trying to run interference for Israel.
The dynamic still holds as valid. It's just that the universities are shitty fucking authorities for taking the side that many of them have.
I would be very interested in seeing any example of a case where minorly disruptive protest was successful at accomplishing its goal. Large scale disruption that paralyzes the flow of goods or services is one thing, like a strike for instance. But I think back to Occupy Wall St, and it was just absurd how poorly it all worked. Then on top of that, the expectations were so high that the failure set our movement for economic reform back instead of forward, by demoralizing the whole movement for years. It didn't really recover until Bernie started running for President.
That was about as big and disruptive as you can go, too, and fresh off of a major economic fuck up that actually hurt many Americans.
It's literally just a waste of energy, when people should be composing compelling arguments, compiling their evidence, and actually spreading it to new people via newsletters, flyers, pamphlets, conversations, speeches etc etc etc. Grassroots outreach.
Frankly I think that's all too difficult though, and it's easier for people to just pitch a tent somewhere and chant, even if it accomplishes nothing or even harm for your cause. It lets people feel like they're helping, even if no strong evidence for the success of the method can be presented. Just theory.
Then on the flip side, you have BLM, which was able to actually create some change by getting some people elected through mass civic engagement. Some few places actually got some police reform, since the BLM protestors were mostly all peaceful and lawful, and you could sympathize with their cause. And there was a metric shitload of them, that always helps.
iirc, ows was infiltrated by business interests?
Let's assume it absolutely was. Could it have gone better if we had done something differently?
At the end of the day, there was no mechanism for results. If the plan was:
- Get together
- Shut shit down
- ?????
- profit
Then the ????? part wound up being "no solutions through this point". That's the problem. There is literally no step there, it's a dead end that prevents you from ever advancing.
I can't say for sure, but I thought the purpose was that the public would then take up the flight and begin boycotting and suing?
An idea, for sure. It never materialized, though. People didn't seem eager to just jump up and drop their day-to-day stuff to join a movement, even after it had recently directly fucked them all over.
That's not really ows fault. They did their part. That the people failed to step up is on them. And I get the reasons. I have been there and I know them. I had a job, new marriage, elderly dying and teenager to care for. Three of those could have been permanently relinquished, the other not so much. I wasn't willing to sacrifice the new marriage and the unexpected care responsibility thrust upon me. Since then, they're both gone, teen is grown. I wasn't willing to sacrifice anything personal for that, then. That's my fault.
That's the thing though, we somewhat were at fault for choosing a method that was unlikely to work within the realities of people's real lives. We didn't know it at the time, and it was certainly something worth trying, but now that we have that experience we should learn from it and adapt our tactics accordingly instead of repeating the mistakes of the past.
Disruption alone simply doesn't do enough. It's predicated on this idea that people need to be "woken up" without acknowledging that they're choosing to live the way they do for their own reasons.
So what we need to do instead, imo at least, is pivot to more groundwork, grassroots outreach. Building the base up with communication, which I think will have a much likelier chance of long-term success than seemingly bolder, short-term actions that risk not only being ineffective, but even potentially counterproductive.
This is a common idea, but its misguided. It requires that you can pressure leadership to change their behaviors by inconveniencing people and/or costing the leadership money, otherwise it has no mechanism for success. This has never really proven to be the case when they have the cheaper alternative of using the law to remove you.
What actually needs to be done is rallying support among the masses themselves for either a paralyzing general strike, or at least a show of voting force that threatens politicians with removal in the next election cycle. Neither of these goals is furthered by simple disruptive protest. A small minority cannot impose their will without first gaining a significant amount of support from the majority, so ultimately, behaviors that are sympathetic to those less politically-engaged will see better success than behaviors that are not.
What actually needs to be done is rallying support among the masses themselves for either a paralyzing general strike, or at least a show of voting force that threatens politicians with removal in the next election cycle. Neither of these goals is furthered by simple disruptive protest.
Protests rally support.
They can, or they can erode it. I've never met a person won over by road blockade. It more like a call to rally people who already agree. If the classes you are going into debt paying for keep getting canceled or your graduation gets delayed because of protests, it's not gonna endear you to protesters. You may agree with the message, but if you didn't it would only further entrench you on the other end.
Wild how these protests erodes support for Palestine while also hurting Kamala because it garners support for Palestine.
Do they? Like I said, I haven't seen anyone change their minds because of the road blocking protests. I have seen people change their minds because of reporting.
Closest I've seen to people change stances is literally supporters of Palestine go "fuck these kids are annoying." But are still anti-genocide.
No, every protest does not rally support. Some do, some do not. Which is which is extremely important.
The right to a free exchange of ideas includes the right to disagree with protestors without being harmed.
You say this but if I saw someone punch a Nazi, I would cheer and forget who it was if asked by the police.
I believe that you would, but it would make you an enemy of free speech. Either a society allows the expression of ideas widely perceived as harmful, or it only permits people to express those ideas which the powers that be approve of. Throughout history, the powers that be always claimed that they were suppressing just the harmful ideas, and they were almost always lying. I don't trust them with that authority.
That's a false dilemma. There's a middle ground between allowing only approved speech and allowing any speech whatsoever. And we already make that distinction. Fascists don't believe in free speech and threaten the rights of others through threats of violence, which isn't protected speech. Likewise fraud, libel, slander, blackmail, false advertising, and CSAM aren't protected and are considered harmful.
There's a difference between expressing an idea and making a speech act. Harmful speech acts, including "true threats" in the legal sense (e.g. credible threats of imminent harm, as opposed to expressions of support for policies that would be harmful) and all the other things that you mention* may be regulated without impinging on the free exchange of ideas (although one must watch out for attempts to suppress ideas by claiming that they're speech acts).
I'm not talking about a mob of fascists threatening to attack someone there and then (illegal) or actually attacking (illegal, and cause for justified violence in self-defense). I'm talking about a peaceful march of fascists carrying signs expressing support for national socialism. They get to march.
*I do find it odd that simply possessing images of children being raped is illegal whereas possessing images of, for example, children being murdered is not (even if those images of murder also used for the purpose of sexual gratification).
I do find it odd that simply possessing images of children being raped is illegal
😬
Promoting the systematic genocide of minorities immediately disqualifies you from meaningful conversation. You deserve a punch in the face for being a Nazi and defending Nazis.
Fuck off, Nazi
I don't see how that has any relevance to the argument. Harming people is already illegal and isn't being addressed here.
I am responding to this comment:
Protests don’t really work if they’re not disruptive.
I consider disruption to be a form of harm. It's not as serious as, for example, physical injury, but it's still harm. The main form of disruption that the recent protests have engaged in involved trespassing and so it was illegal, but many colleges preferred to address the problem internally rather than calling the police. These new rules are part of the process of addressing the problem internally, and we're discussing whether or not they do so without infringing on the students' free speech rights. My point is that preventing the protesters from being disruptive is not an infringement.
("Illegal" wouldn't be the end of the discussion even where the police were called to remove trespassers, because a university's policy of having the police remove some trespassers but not others could also infringe on free speech rights.)
Disruption is not a form of harm.
Disruption is impossible without causing harm. If you're not harming me then I can just ignore you and so you have failed to be disruptive.
Edit: The word "disruption" can be used in other contexts to describe acts that aren't harmful. For example, a new discovery might be said to disrupt the existing paradigm. My claim is about "disruption" used to describe protest-associated actions like blocking roads, making a lot of noise, or preventing students from going to class.
Being unable to ignore something is not a form of harm.
Gotta love a "free speech absolutist" who thinks that it doesn't count as free speech if it stops you from walking to the other side of the quad without taking the long way around.
What material harm do you experience from those things?
And, if there is any material harm, is that worse than what people are experiencing in Gaza?
Loss of personal income and denial or service come to mind with like 5 seconds of thought.
Any non-salary employee who's late to work probably doesn't just get to make it up later. The business that employs then may lose business as a result of the shortage/delay. Their products being shipped to them could be delayed resulting in loss of sales. The ripple goes on and on but most pockets getting hit are commuting workers, more than big businesses.
As for if it's worse than what others in Gaza are experiencing? A pointless exercise. As my parents told us growing up "there are children starving in Africa", yet it doesn't make me like the taste of steamed green beans any more or less. Their suffering doesn't impact my suffering, no matter how extreme the difference.
Come now, I don't believe for an instant that anyone is as fragile as that. Even my nephew who is a young cancer survivor and weathered people who refused to wear masks during the pandemic by wearing his own.
Except these restrictions prevent speech, not harm.
How so? I think they're content-neutral and designed to prevent disruption (such as blocking off parts of the campus that should be publicly accessible or making a lot of noise at night) without preventing people from peacefully gathering and expressing their ideas.
I have been pilloried for being a free-speech absolutist
deliberate disruption, which is not speech
Do you even know what the words "absolute", and "speech" mean?
bans on encampments, overnight demonstrations, and the use of bullhorns and speakers until after 5 p.m. on class days. Penn also requires that posters and banners be removed within two weeks of going up. The university says it remains committed to freedom of speech and lawful assembly.
This seems entirely reasonable.
No, seriously. What do the words "absolute", and "speech" mean to you? For that matter, do you even know what "free" means??
Note that the rule about signs applies only to attaching them to publicly-accessible university property. People are free to carry signs or display them in their dorms and on-campus offices.
So people are allowed to protest as long as nobody from the outside world sees it? That's gonna be super effective! 🤦
For a supposed "free speech absolutist", you seem to be VERY opposed to people voicing dissent in ways that inconveniences anyone in the slightest.
Allowing protests only on weekdays before 5:00 PM is not reasonable.
But allowing them only AFTER that same time is?
Sounds like you're exactly as much of a "free speech absolutist" as Elon Musk and everyone else who claim to be one: not at all.
At least your username is (unintentionally?) accurate about you..
Your right to free speech is not infringed if people choose not to listen to you, or if they listen but remain unconvinced. On the contrary, you're infringing on their rights if you force them to listen, and especially if you attempt to extort them. (I consider "extortion" the right word to describe the behavior of protesters who deliberately cause serious disruptions unless their demands are met.)
Allowing protests only after 5:00 PM is reasonable because protests that take place after courses have ended for the day are less disruptive to the university's primary goal of educating students. Protesters are still left with plenty of time to express their ideas. Many protesters are going to be upset about this because they want to be disruptive, but that is not their right.
Your right to free speech is not infringed if people choose not to listen to you, or if they listen but remain unconvinced
Nobody claimed anything even close to that. Can you please TRY to argue in good faith rather than immediately trot out the strawmen?
On the contrary, you're infringing on their rights if you force them to listen
Another strawman, as nobody has said anyone should be forced to listen to anything.
(I consider "extortion" the right word to describe the behavior of protesters who deliberately cause serious disruptions unless their demands are met.)
Wow. Just wow. You REALLY don't have a fucking clue what extortion OR protest is! 🤦
reasonable because (...) less disruptive
Protests without disruption accomplish nothing. Which is the ACTUAL reason why people who are against protesting want to minimize disruption.
primary goal of educating students
By keeping them and others from hearing anything but the official version about a genocide that they themselves are contributing to economically by refusing to divest?
To paraphrase Nick Fury: you SAY education, but I think you mean the other thing.
Protesters are still left with plenty of time to express their ideas.
As long as they do so at a time and place where aa few people as possible will see or hear them 🙄
Many protesters are going to be upset about this because they want to be disruptive
Because they don't get noticed without being disruptive and a protest that nobody notices is as useful as tits on a tractor.
but that is not their right.
Their right to express grievances is explicitly addressed in the first amendment of the US constitution. Nowhere does it say "unless it's inconvenient to people who claim to be for free speech but are more interested in what Martín Luther King referred to as negative peace and Nazis being treated courteously than the rights of protesters and the lives of Palestinians"
Protests are largely only effective if they’re disruptive. That’s kind of the point… a protest you can easily ignore isn’t going to change anything.
And the point isn’t really to gain support, it’s to force change.
Edit: To expand on this, there are much more effective ways to gain support; mainly through community interaction, conversation and education. Which should be seen as separate action vs. protesting.
Edit 2: Upon re-reading my comment I would like to amend my statement that the point is to force “change”. While change is the desired outcome, the point of protests is to force awareness.
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but my objection is to the following argument that some people are making:
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I have the right to protest.
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My protest isn't going to be effective unless I am disruptive.
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Therefore, I have the right to be disruptive.
I'm saying that (3) doesn't follow from (1) and (2). The right to speak does not imply the right to be heard and obeyed.
While I feel we mostly are in agreement, I have a problem with the verbiage you use. Specifically the idea that the desired outcome is to force the population at large to “obey” protesters.
While no one should be forced to “obey” a protest, the disruption itself is often necessary to make the issues visible and impossible to ignore. It’s not about the right to be heard and obeyed, but about ensuring that the issues at hand cannot be easily dismissed or overlooked. Disruption, when done with purpose, has historically been a critical tool for marginalized groups to bring about the changes that polite appeals often fail to achieve.
Yes, but the point is that being disruptive is often going against the rules. So, having rules to control when protests can happen is a bit of a misnomer.
The question is whether the punishment will match the crime. Protesting before 5pm, youre at risk of a $50 fine and an apology letter to the class you disrupted. Or, you will be kicked out of university costing you your chosen career and the amount you've paid thus far.
Protests should be disruptive. The university has to try and minimise the disruption to normal activity. At the same time, the univeraity shoukd want to foster free tjought and dissemination of ideas, peacefully, even if taboo or against current accepted norms of thought. The protestors need to disrupt normal activity. The protestors are also students that pay the university, so pay their bils. The university also has other educational, financial and hr responsibility. Its a balance for both.
While universities have a duty to maintain order and educate, they also have a responsibility to be spaces where free thought can challenge existing norms. Disruption, though uncomfortable, often serves as the catalyst for meaningful dialogue and progress. If protests were only allowed to occur within strict confines, they might lose their power to inspire the kind of reflection and change that has historically made educational institutions breeding grounds for progress.
Balancing the need for order with the need for protest is tricky, but history shows that sometimes, it’s the disruptions that push us all forward. In my opinion, those (often powerful) institutions should be tempering their response to these disruptions; rather than asking their student body to temper their actions.
There is no greater opportunity for the exploration and development of radical thought than by allowing students to be a part of that future history (should they choose to).
I think you make a good point. I approach things from my libertarian-leaning background, so my focus is usually on negative rights and "don't tread on me". However, the real world is complicated and so local application of the non-aggression principle is in practice often insufficient. I still insist that preventing disruption does not infringe on the right to free speech, but I will concede that sometimes a reasonable level of disruption is necessary to achieve just ends.
Of course as soon as a non-zero limit is considered acceptable, the limit becomes a matter of opinion and pushing the limit is incentivized. I prefer absolutes, but I guess there's no escape from the need for good judgement.
Edit: I also want to say that I really appreciate your thoughtful comments.
You’ve made some really good points and I’ll be thinking on them in the days to come.
I don’t have much else to add, but I do want to say that I really appreciate the honest and nuanced discussion here.
At the end of the day, we don’t always have to always agree on every specific detail and these kinds of discussions allow us to explore our biases and will shape our collective responses. And that is good for the community as a whole…
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As if these temporary rules will just not be permanent when the storm has blown over.
The office of sign approval is conveniently indisposed, sorry no signs on your demonstration :(
Stop eating L's as if it's reasonable.
Like most "free speech absolutists," you find all kinds of exceptions.
I seriously doubt you would be so "absolutist" if someone knocked on all of your neighbors' doors to tell them that you're a pedophile. Suddenly that whole "everyone has a right to free speech" thing goes away when their lies threaten your livelihood.