Radhika Sainath in Inside Higher Ed: New Policies Suppress Pro-Palestinian Speech
/The rewriting of policies to restrict protests over Gaza will have dire consequences for campus speech, argues Radhika Sainath, Senior Staff Attorney at Palestine Legal, in a new article in Inside Higher Ed.
In the article, Sainath details and analyzes many examples of how “universities, public and private, are bombarding students with reminders on time, place and manner restrictions—First Amendment parlance that is typically used to ensure that the state only restrict speech in a viewpoint-neutral manner, but that has instead been wielded like sledgehammers to limit protest activity and punish deviance after colleges have supposedly neutrally amended their policies to limit the exact type of speech activity used by pro-Palestinian activists.”
She discusses the harrowing implications of these new restrictions, the pro-Israel donors and lobby groups behind them, and the alternative path universities can take in this critical moment to protect the future of freedom of speech and academic inquiry on U.S. campuses. “This year, administrators must choose: Do they want their legacy to be one of kowtowing to donors and Congress or standing up for academic freedom, freedom of expression and an antiwar protest movement that future generations will no doubt view as a righteous one?”