Civil rights groups and progressive organizations are monitoring university and police response to pro-Palestine student-led demonstrations organized at college campuses across the country in recent weeks.
Nearly 35,000 Palestinians have been killed since the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7. In the last several months, demonstrations have been widespread. In recent weeks, students have responded by organizing encampments at colleges and universities. Many have faced arrest, including more than one hundred students at Columbia University, who were charged with trespassing on April 17.
“When the government tries to crush a social movement, usually it comes back stronger,” Xavier T. de Janon, the director of mass defense at the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), the oldest progressive bar association in the U.S., said. “In Columbia, police tried to clear the encampment and arrested a bunch of people. So as a result, more people showed up the next day — and this is happening across the country with students and organizers shifting and multiplying.”
Student groups and protestors have been calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and for their universities to cut ties with Israeli companies and educational partnerships, in addition to amnesty for the demonstrations. Groups have also called for the complete liberation of Palestine beyond Gaza. Detractors claim these demonstrations are anti-Semitic, though others have noted that anti-Zionism does not equal Jewish hatred, and some Jewish groups have rallied against genocide.
Student protesters at various colleges are facing police confrontations and threats from university administration, with financial interests and upcoming graduations seemingly the reason for heightened responses, de Janon said.
Violent attacks at UCLA by counter-protesters and mass arrests of students at universities like USC, George Washington University and the University of Texas, Austin have advocates questioning whether public officials are upholding First Amendment rights and keeping students safe on campus.
NLG and the American Civil Liberties Union said they’d be monitoring student-led protests and the use of force ordered by local authorities against them. NLG on Tuesday said some colleges like Columbia have arrested and blocked Legal Observers from entering campus.
“Legal Observers exist because people at protests know that police violate their rights all the time, that police use excessive force, unlawful techniques and violent devices,” de Janon said. “When you don’t have Legal Observers, there isn’t an objective person to report out the violence that is happening.”
NLG said it’s heard injury reports of students’ arms being dislocated, lacerations to their bodies and other injuries that required hospitalization following confrontations with local law enforcement or counter-protesters.
The recent demonstrations on college campuses have also called into question what forms of protest are protected by the First Amendment. According to the ACLU, the right to assemble and protest are granted in the Constitution, but public officials can legally place certain restrictions, such as reasonable time, place and manner rules that limit free expression.
“On public universities and public campuses, it is totally legal and constitutionally protected to protest and express dissent and to use different tactics to do so,” de Janon said. “An encampment at a university is a form of protest, just like someone would hold banners or signs.”
Although private institutions are not bound by constitutional rights to free speech, most of these universities promise to uphold the First Amendment on their campuses, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). Other rules include: protesters cannot interfere with a property’s daily operations, and police must treat all protesting parties equally.
According to FIRE, occupying a campus building or participating in a “die-in” could be considered civil disobedience — non-violent unlawful conduct used as a form of protest. These tactics are as old as the U.S., with revolutionaries practicing these actions during the Boston Tea Party, to abolish slavery and during the Women’s Suffrage and Civil Rights Movements.
Advocates say these techniques may be “powerful,” but students are risking legal or university retaliation — and sometimes violence.
On Tuesday night, pro-Israel counter-protesters attacked UCLA students peacefully protesting in a Gaza solidarity encampment. Harrowing videos captured people shooting pepper spray and fireworks at the tents and injuring several people. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) LA said other attacks included shouting racial slurs and releasing mice.
“We strongly condemn this mob of pro-Israel extremists for violently attacking students and we call on political leaders to do to the same,” CAIR-LA Director Hussam Ayloush said in a statement. “Across our nation, students who have launched peaceful marches, sit-ins, and encampments to protest their institution’s financial investments in the Israeli government have been met with a campaign of disinformation, discrimination and now disturbing violence. This must end.”
CAIR-LA called on California Attorney General Rob Bonta to investigate the lack of Los Angeles city and university police response to the violence. The Los Angeles Times reported that UC President Michael Drake ordered an independent review of UCLA’s actions.
“(That) was the scariest thing that ever happened to me. Counter-protesters attacked our peaceful protest using dangerous weapons,” fourth-year student Hasan Mirza, president of the UCLA Muslim Student Union, said over the rumbling sound of a helicopter overhead during a CAIR-LA press conference Wednesday afternoon.
Civil rights advocates have stressed universities’ obligations to keep their students safe. Last Friday, the ACLU wrote an open letter to colleges and universities to provide guidance for their response to student demonstrations. The organization said schools must protect students from harassment and violence. It also reiterated that “merely expressing impassioned views about Israel or Palestine” does not constitute discrimination and should be protected speech.
“One can criticize Israel’s actions, even in vituperative terms, without being anti-Semitic. And by the same token, one can support Israel’s actions in Gaza and condemn Hamas without being anti-Muslim,” the letter said. “Administrators must resist the tendency to equate criticism with discrimination.”
The letter also said armed police should be a last resort measure and urged college administrators to consider the history of law enforcement using excessive force against communities of color. The ACLU called on universities to resist pressures placed on them by politicians seeking to advance their agendas.
But protesters have been threatened, doxxed and censored by school officials, other students and outside groups, according to NLG.
In other colleges across the country like New York University, Emory University, and Cal Poly Humboldt, police in riot gear have marched on campuses and confronted students in solidarity encampments. According to an Associated Press tally, about 2,000 have been arrested at anti-genocide demonstrations so far.
De Janon said litigation against universities is starting quickly because of the blatant violations witnessed on campuses. He said, however, that it will take a while for legal proceedings to happen.
In April, George Washington University dropped most of the charges it filed against organizers for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Last week, the nonprofit Palestine Legal filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to investigate potentially discriminatory treatment by Columbia University against Palestinian students and their allies.
Later that month, the OCR announced that it opened a formal investigation of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst after Palestine Legal filed a complaint alleging that the school created a hostile environment for Palestinian and Arab students. In March, Palestine Legal and NYCLU sued Columbia for suspending SJP and Jewish Voice for Peace after a protest.
“Universities are supposed to be the marketplace of ideas, a forum for public discussion,” de Janon said. “But it’s concerning that the guns are pointed towards the pro-Palestine encampments and not towards anyone else.”