The protests in support of Gaza are testing the bounds of students’ rights to free speech
This was not the viewpoint that led to the creation of the first amendment and all. The actual viewpoint of the founding fathers was that certain things are just inseparable parts of being human -- you're going to talk with people around you, if you're so inclined.
It's not for a government to "regulate" what people are and aren't allowed to say to one another, any more than they could regulate how many bones are in the body. A lot of those foundational documents weren't meant to lay out what the government would and wouldn't allow people to do and the boundaries of government's permissible control -- they were simple acknowledgements of the reality that they were outside the possible control of any government, and that a government that tried to tell people they could say certain things to each other but not other things, was engaged in an impossibility (as well as betraying its own illegitimacy to govern).
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While semesters at other schools speed toward a violent close – complete with canceled classes and commencement celebrations, scenes of brutal yet unsuccessful attempts at quelling the protests, and aggression from opposing groups that has heightened already inflamed tensions – Brown is one of several universities that have sought a more amicable solution.
The protests in support of Gaza are testing the bounds of students’ rights to free speech and shining a spotlight on the deepening political divides over the culture on college campuses.
It’s an issue the GOP-led House has pursued with vigor, launching an investigation into federal funding for schools where protests have lingered, and scrutinizing presidents of some of America’s most prestigious universities whom they allege have allowed an escalation in antisemitism.
In an interview with the Guardian late last year, Roth – who is Jewish and a critic of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement largely driving these protests – championed debate and disagreement.
Even with a more open approach, discussions of a divisive issue firmly rooted in identity, religion and ethnicity have at times devolved into rhetoric that has left some students and members of the broader campus communities feeling targeted or unsafe at some schools.
The Evergreen State College agreed on Tuesday to set up a taskforce that will map out its “divestment from companies that profit from gross human rights violations and/or the occupation of Palestinian territories”.
