Schools must respect rights to protest

College campuses across the country, like Columbia and Princeton, have become the sites of protests against Israel’s War in Gaza, U.S. backing of Israel and college investments in Israel. Pro-Palestine walkouts, marches and encampments put university administrators between a rock and a hard place. Either they let the protests that some criticize as being antisemitic continue on campus, or they instead force the shutdown of said protests in a stark break from most colleges’ historic respect for political speech.

Many universities are unfortunately choosing the latter. Local and State police are coming onto campus at the request of the schools and clashing with student protesters. Colleges should instead respect their students’ right to protest.

The First Amendment clauses for freedom of speech and assembly have been protected to speech on school campuses, as in the Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines, where the court wrote that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” American college students should not be forced by universities and police to give up their constitutional rights to speech, peaceful assembly and petition of the government. Encampments on the Quad waving Palestinian flags denouncing “genocide” should not be met with rubber bullets and tear gas. Colleges are and have always been laboratories for experimental and dissenting political speech and thought.

Schools need to respect the grievances of the young students protesting on campus and they need to listen to their calls.

Aedan Hogan

Mundelein