Wondering why Columbia protests devolved into chaos? Because the students have no idea what free speech is.
Hint: Tents are not it.
It’s time for Columbia, and every school around the country, to roll out a free-speech orientation.
The lesson plan is simple. Posters, chanting, protesting? Good. Heckling, damaging property, camping on the quad? Bad. And those tactics can result in suspension, expulsion, or even arrest.
Considering Columbia’s new-student orientation harps on how not to misgender your classmates or accidentally offend them with jokes, a session on free expression is surely overdue.
For the past few weeks, pro-Palestinian student activists have seemed completely oblivious to what rights they do and don’t have as protesters.
First, they indignantly set up an encampment of tents on the campus quad, often evoking their “free speech rights” to do so.
In reality, they were in violation of long-standing, viewpoint-neutral policies at Columbia which expressly prohibit erecting tents without permission.
Free speech is a powerful principle, but it does have its limits when it comes to time, place and manner.
You can’t pull out your bullhorn and go shouting through a heavily-populated Manhattan street at 3 a.m., nor can you barge in on classroom instruction to protest, according to the rules of most colleges.
Similarly, as a private university, Columbia had every right to say unauthorized tents are not allowed on its property. And President Minouche Shafik had every right to call in the NYPD to clear out trespassing students, even if their camp was peaceful.
When US Speaker of the House Mike Johnson visited Columbia on April 24 to condemn the protests, on-campus activists screamed and shouted over him — interrupting with cries of “free Palestine” and “we can’t hear you” — to the point that he stumbled over his words, seemingly unable to hear his own thoughts over the jeers.
Students had every right to counter-protest and to call him names, but heckling and disrupting him was fundamentally illiberal, and actually curtailed Johnson’s expressive rights. Free speech is not a one-way street.
And the protesters’ grand finale — a forcible takeover of Hamilton Hall, complete with broken windows, trashed school furniture that they turned into makeshift barricades, and altercations with campus security — goes to show that, where free speech isn’t respected, violence is inevitable.
Students need to be taught how to express themselves with their words, not their fists or their tents.
The free exchange of ideas is the lifeblood of a university. Everyone on campus needs to be informed of the social contract and buy into it.
It’s a university’s responsibility to cultivate a community where everyone understands what free speech is, why it’s important — and where its protections end.
Every college kid should know that. But they don’t.
According to survey data from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, 60% of Columbia students believe that it’s acceptable to shout down a speaker in certain contexts, and 27% think it’s at least sometimes okay to commit violence to stop speech.
Barnard — the women’s college at Columbia — had nearly the highest percentage of students of any college in the country (36%) who agree violence is acceptable as a response to speech.
No wonder they’re out there barricading themselves inside of campus buildings, destroying property and wreaking havoc.
An ultra-selective Ivy League school should be a model for effective activism. Instead, the Columbia campers set an example in how to break the rules — and be self-righteous brats while at it. Unfortunately, students around the country took note and followed suit.
It’s time for their schools to teach them how to be effective activists, not disruptive agitators.
