Navigating the complexities of free speech: Reflections on a difficult year

I love college campuses when they are bustling with students, but I also love the beauty and calm of campuses following commencement. This year, I feel that more acutely after the storm that was this past year.

This past academic year was a very difficult time in the world, and as I always say, “Our campuses are microcosms of the world”; hence it was a difficult time on college campuses. After October 7, our world and our campus communities were in shock following the horrific Hamas attack on Israel. Many mourned the deaths of loved ones and worried about those taken hostage. Then when Israel launched their offensive against Hamas in Gaza, Palestinian students and faculty began to hear about the injuries and deaths of loved ones. Members of our campus communities have been in deep distress and often looked to the administrators to validate their distress.

How should university presidents handle such a situation, and what have we learned from this year? What should we do when the protest by one group evokes pain among other members of the university community? Where does the right of freedom of expression intersect or conflict with the rights of other members of our campus community to study, teach and learn?

This essay focuses on my reflections on the protests we experienced on US campuses this past year and during my lifetime — and what we presidents can do going forward. I believe universities must protect the free expression of ideas but also emphasize the importance of civil discourse and the fact that although our constitution protects freedom of expression, that freedom cannot be completely unfettered.

The limits to freedom of expression

The First Amendment opens in new tab/window of our country’s Bill of Rights protects freedom of speech. However, this freedom does have its limits, often referred to as “time, place and manner” restrictions. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) opens in new tab/window, all types of expression are constitutionally protected in traditional “public forums,” such as public streets and parks. However, those protections of speech are not extended to private property, such as private colleges and universities.

All universities, public or private, may restrict speech in terms of time, place and manner: For example, they may restrict where protests can take place to assure that the protests are the least disruptive for operations of the university. They also have the freedom, for safety and security reasons, to decide where invited speakers’ talks can be held. In addition, private colleges and universities can restrict who can protest on their property. They have the right to ask people who are not part of the university community to leave campuses, and those who do not comply can be arrested for trespassing.

My life’s experience with campus protests

As a child, I grew up on the campus of Swarthmore College opens in new tab/window, where my father was a professor. As a college student, I attended Oberlin opens in new tab/window, a college known for its social activism. And as an adult, I have worked at five universities: three public and two private. Thus, I have witnessed protests on many campuses.

When I was in elementary school, the students at Swarthmore were protesting in support of civil rights. In February of 1969, Black students staged a weeklong sit-in at the president’s office. During that time, the president, Courtney Smith, suffered a heart attack at 52 and died in his office. I was very upset about this; at a small college in a small town, everyone knows the president. I said to my mother, “Being a college president must be really hard!” It turns out my elementary school self was right — it is really hard.

Then there were the anti-Vietnam War protests at Swarthmore and elsewhere around the country. I well remember the Kent State shootings opens in new tab/window in May 1970, when four unarmed colleges students were shot and killed by the National Guard and nine others were wounded. The shootings took place during a rally opposing the expanding involvement of the Vietnam War into Cambodia opens in new tab/window. The images of fellow students weeping over their dead classmates’ bodies, captured by photographers and published in Life magazine, will always be with me. In August of that same year, anti-war protestors bombed Sterling Hall, a building at the University of Wisconsin–Madison opens in new tab/window, where years later I would serve as Provost. That bombing did severe damage to a building, killed a researcher and injured three others. The image of that bombed building was shown on national TV — another image I will never forget.

I was brought up a Quaker, and my family were anti-war activists; indeed, my older sister and brother were both arrested in Washington, DC, in 1971 while participating in the May Day Vietnam War protests. They engaged in civil disobedience against the war; they were non-violent. I have always found violence of all kinds to be deeply disturbing, including excessive force used against student protestors.

When I was a student at Oberlin in the late 1970s, the protests were against apartheid and focused on divesting from holdings in South African companies. In April of 1979, during a large student protest outside a meeting of the Board of Trustees, 105 students (including several friends) were brought up on disciplinary charges for “disrupting the essential operations of the college.” Students continued to engage in anti-apartheid protests on many campuses until 1990, when Mandela was released from prison. The protests were still going on when I became an assistant professor at the University of Michigan opens in new tab/window in the late 1980s, and my office looked right out on the “Diag” in front of Harlan Hatcher Library, which was the scene of regular protests.

A distinct difference from past protests

As I look back on these campus protests and compare them with what we experienced this academic year, I find one facet to be distinctive. This year, our students were not only protesting governmental actions and inactions but also against each other. On our campus, the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Students for Israel had diametrically opposing views, and the protests were often targeted and heated. There seemed to be little room for civil discourse in this emotionally charged context; I feared that violence would break out among our own students.

During the Vietnam War, there were many students who felt uncomfortable about the anti-war protests, especially if they were in ROTC or had family members in the military. But as far as I remember, there were few personal attacks directed at fellow students. The same was true in the anti-apartheid movement. Some students were activists and some were not, but few if any students could be labeled as being pro-apartheid.

However, this year — with chants like, “Brick by brick, wall by wall, Israel is going to fall” or “Death to Zionists” — many of our Israeli students, faculty and staff — and Jewish members of our community — found such protests deeply distressing.

Our own campus experience

At the University of Rochester, we had 16 unauthorized protests, including three sit-ins in the administration building and an encampment that lasted three weeks. We have rules about protests on our campus about time, place and manner. Our guidelines specify that our student groups must register to protest on campus, and these protests cannot use amplification and occur at certain times (e.g., final exams) or in certain locations (e.g., inside the library). Almost all these rules and restrictions were violated during the recent protests. Deciding how to respond and how to minimize the possibility of violent confrontations between students — and between students and our public safety officers — was very difficult. This was made more challenging because local community members also engaged in the protests, both Palestinian and Israeli supporters. Some even joined the encampment.

Ever since October, we presidents have struggled mightily in balancing free speech rights, the rights to protest, and the rights of members of our campus community to feel safe and welcome. We have struggled with what it means for a student to say that they feel unsafe. Are they expressing fear for their physical safety or are they experiencing emotional distress, and does this fear and distress make them feel unwelcome on campus?

When I was young, we were always told to say when we were taunted on the playground, “Bricks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” Alas, we know that old phrase isn’t true; names, slogans and verbal threats can indeed hurt and scare us — especially when they’re made by individuals whose faces are covered and identities hidden.

The protests on our campus never became physically violent, although some contained clearly violent rhetoric. Compared to what occurred on some campuses, our campus experienced relatively little property damage. The removal of the encampment (that included tents, bricks, cinderblocks, stakes and fencing) required our staff to take time away from their usual duties. All of this came at a cost — but these costs are nothing like the cost of lives lost at Kent State.

From the beginning of the protests until the encampment was removed before our graduation, only one of our students was arrested. This occurred during a scuffle with one of our public safety officers when the officer asked for the student’s ID at an event and she refused to share it.

We carefully planned for the removal of the encampment to minimize the possibility of violence. It was broken down by our grounds people at my request — not byour public safety officers. When the protestors were given a 10-minute warning to gather up their belongings and disperse, they did so. So compared to the violence seen on some campuses, what we experienced was highly disruptive but benign.

Throughout this past year, I and other university presidents were barraged with emails, letters and hundreds of phone calls from our students, faculty, staff, parents, alumni, community members and national organizations condemning us for allowing hate speech on our campus (e.g., the Anti-Defamation League) or for trying to limit speech on our campus, (e.g., FIRE opens in new tab/window, ACLU). Everyone had an opinion about what presidents should do. We received death threats from both sides. We struggled to determine the right thing to do. We now struggle with how to respond to future protests. How do we encourage our students to learn to speak across differences without yelling?

As Carol Christ, out-going Chancellor of UC Berkeley, said in a recent interview with The New York Times: “… just because you have the right to say something doesn’t mean it’s right to say. … If you value your community, you have to find ways of sharing your views that are not vitriolic, that are not needlessly hurtful to other people.”

I completely agree with Carol. Thus this summer and fall, we are holding multiple workshops on freedom of speech and civil discourse. We must find ways to engage our communities and learn to talk across our differences. Higher education is meant to be a context where such discussions can happen, a “marketplace of ideas.” I think this ideal is often met, but the events of this past year made that ideal harder to achieve.

I believe in free speech and the right to protest. But unlike some of our students and faculty, I also believe there should be some[AB1] limits on speech and protests — and consequences for breaking university regulations. I believe that if students are told they can’t protest using a bullhorn and march through the library and don’t disperse when they are asked to, the students should be disciplined. If the same protestors come back again in the same place after being told it is not an appropriate place for protest, there should be consequences. But, when at all possible, I believe those consequences should be come from our campus disciplinary systems — not from police arresting our students.

Looking ahead

As we look toward the coming year, we must strive to encourage civil discourse, teach students about the First Amendment, and be clear about protest guidelines in our student code of conduct. We must be willing to enforce our own rules. This past year, my leadership team often struggled with enforcement issues, and some members never wanted to enforce any of our own rules. As a result, the protests continued and escalated. As a developmental psychologist, I know very well the literature that shows the effects of inconsistent discipline and empty threats. This approach is not good for children, and it is not good for our students. If one tells a child when they misbehave, “Next time you do that we will put you in time out” and you never enforce this rule, the child’s bad behavior will escalate. In some ways, that is what appears to have happened with the student protestors.

Thus, this summer we are revisiting our protest policies and disciplinary procedures to assure that we are consistent in our approach. We are also working on our emergency preparedness so our whole leadership team won’t be thrown into chaos every time a protest erupts. Protests are a part of campus life and of democracy. They can be an important catalyst for change, but they should not paralyze our campuses, interfering with the basic goals of the university to engage in teaching, learning and scholarly and creative work.