Jagaul.com Legal Law Columbia Suspends Student Who Disrupted Israeli History Class – JONATHAN TURLEY

Columbia Suspends Student Who Disrupted Israeli History Class – JONATHAN TURLEY


Last week, we witnessed yet another case of student activists interrupting a class or event. This type of action has become all too familiar on our campuses as students and faculty shout down speakers or cancel events. However, this time, something different happened: Columbia actually suspended a student for the protest. It has also identified two other students associated with Barnard, Union Theological Seminary, and Teachers College. Those referrals will raise a novel question for their respective schools.

The scene at Columbia unfolded as a professor tried to teach his History of Modern Israel class.

A suspension is a good start. That is more than schools like Northwestern have done in similar circumstances.

Northwestern students succeeded in cancelling a speech by former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Student Zachery Novicoff embodied the rising intolerance to free speech on campus. He is quoted as saying “There’s a limitation to free speech. That ends at overtly racist old white dudes.”

I criticized former Northwestern University President Morton Schapiro for his lack of support for free speech on campus. Schapiro denounced what he called “absolute” free speech positions and endorsed speech sanctions, including treating speech as a form of assault.

During his tenure, the university often seemed a mere pedestrian to mob action taken against dissenting voices. For example, we previously discussed a Sociology 201 class by Professor Beth Redbird that examined “inequality in American society with an emphasis on race, class and gender.”  To that end, Redbird invited both an undocumented person and a spokesperson for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  It is the type of balance that is now considered verboten on campuses.

Members of MEChA de Northwestern, Black Lives Matter NU, the Immigrant Justice Project, the Asian Pacific American Coalition, NU Queer Trans Intersex People of Color and Rainbow Alliance organized to stop other students from hearing from the ICE representative.  However, they could not have succeeded without the help of Northwestern administrators (including  Dean of Students Todd Adams).  The protesters were screaming “F**k ICE” outside of the hall.  Adams and the other administrators then said that the protesters screaming profanities would be allowed into the class if they promised not to disrupt the class.  Really?  They were screaming profanities and seeking to stop the class but would just sit nicely as the speaker answered questions?

Of course, that did not happen. As soon as the protesters were allowed into the classroom, they prevented the ICE representative from speaking.  The ICE official eventually left and Redbird canceled the class to discuss the issue with the protesters that just prevented her students from hearing an opposing view.

The comments of the Northwestern students were predictable after being told by people like Schapiro that some offensive speech should be treated as a form of assault.  SESP sophomore April Navarro rejected that faculty should be allowed to invite such speakers to their classrooms for a “good, nice conversation with ICE.” She insisted such speakers needed to be silenced because they “terrorize communities” and profit from detainee labor. Here is the face of the new generation of censors being shaped by speech-intolerant academics like Schapiro:

“We’re not interested in having those types of conversations that would be like, ‘Oh, let’s listen to their side of it’ because that’s making them passive rule-followers rather than active proponents of violence. We’re not engaging in those kinds of things; it legitimizes ICE’s violence, it makes Northwestern complicit in this. There’s an unequal power balance that happens when you deal with state apparatuses.”

It is the same sense of license that we saw at Stanford Law School where students shouted down a federal judge. No students (who were not masked) were punished and faculty even defended their conduct.

The Columbia incident raises a new and novel issue. The students at Barnard, Union Theological Seminary, and Teachers College are being referred to their own administrators. Even if the schools were inclined to punish such conduct, how does that question change when the conduct occurs at another school?

Many of us would generally oppose schools disciplining students for exercising their free speech rights off campus. Even being arrested for a protest outside of school is not considered a violation of most school codes. The question is whether this changes when the students conduct unlawful protests at other universities.

It is a tricky question. Universities have a unique relationship to each other as institutions of higher education. If schools treat these disruptions as “off the books” for student conduct, activists could simply agree to disrupt each other’s schools, creating a de facto license for such misconduct.

Schools could combat such circumvention by seeking trespass charges. While the Columbia student may claim the right to enter any classroom (which could be debatable), non-Columbia students cannot.

Alternatively, the schools could extend student codes to misconduct at other universities in a type of reciprosity policy. However, this would require, in my view, notice and an amending of student codes.

Take the Barnard student code. In its jurisdictional statement, the school takes a broad approach (and would notably include a charge of trespass at another school):

“The Code of Conduct applies to any program, activity or event that occurs on or off-campus. In cases where a student is involved in a non-Barnard College proceeding (such as law enforcement investigation) that student may also be subject to the Code of Conduct, which is an independent process.”

However, it refers to disruption or misconduct of the College or its operations. There is a reference to off-campus activities, but those are authorized Barnard events:

“Disruption or obstruction of teaching, research, administration, disciplinary proceedings; other College or University activities, including its public service functions on or off campus; or of other authorized non-College activities when the conduct occurs on College premises, such that others are deprived of access to such scheduled activities.”

So far this isn’t working out too well for the activists. One was identified last week and suspended immediately pending a full investigation.

In connection with Tuesday’s disruption of a History of Modern Israel class, Columbia University has identified and suspended a Columbia participant, pending a full investigation and disciplinary process. The investigation of the disruption, including the identification of additional participants, remains active. Disruptions to our classrooms and our academic mission and efforts to intimidate or harass our students are not acceptable, are an affront to every member of our University community, and will not be tolerated.

I think that the school would need to amend the language before enforcing such a policy covering the disruption of other educational institutions.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

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