As a Democrat, I do not have great faith in Trump’s ability to enforce a consistent distinction between “legal” and “illegal” protest. (Breaking: Trump threatens to arrest, imprison American students who engage in ‘illegal protests’ on college campuses)

It is clear, however, that the protests which have erupted on U.S. campuses fall well outside any reasonable definition of free speech, open debate or peaceful dissent. 

They are exercises in:

• Harassing, threatening, and even assaulting Jewish students, physically blocking them from attending classes for which they paid tuition, circulating lists of “known Zionists” and “wanted” posters of Jewish students and faculty, vandalizing Jewish spaces and displays, and promoting racist anti-Jewish tropes; 
• Disseminating antisemitic and anti-Israel propaganda that originates directly from designated foreign terror organizations, including Hamas and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC);
• Disrupting campus spaces, including classrooms, cafeterias and study areas, in a manner that destroys any sense of a safe environment conducive to learning or civil discourse.

Schools have the responsibility to enforce their own policies that would sanction such behavior. They have spectacularly failed to do so. Many have demonstrated a pattern of retaliation against Jewish students and faculty who report antisemitic harassment. It’s hard to have faith in administrators’ ability to render due process when they join crowds chanting for “intifada,” or text each other puke emojis during campus antisemitism hearings.

When Southern schools refused to enforce Brown v. Board of Education, the federal government had to intervene. The Department of Justice has the legal and moral duty to enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) established that speech may be suppressed when it advocates “imminent lawless action.” When protest becomes violent and/or encroaches on the rights and freedoms of others, the protection of the 1A is forfeit. 

Only extremists want a one-state solution. The foundations of American democracy require us to enforce the rule of law against dangerous extremism. 

— Val Rendel, MFA candidate in Creative Writing 

Copy edited by Patience Hurston

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