The war on Gaza gives rise to free speech limits at home.
In 1966 when I graduated high school and became a college freshman at Los Angeles City College, calling for the right of students and faculty to freely engage in political activism was a very controversial idea.
At the time, institutions of higher ed liked to portray themselves as a free and open marketplace of ideas.
It was rarely true.
Just to set up a literature table on campus in 1966 was seen as a challenge to campus order.
It was only a few years earlier that the Free Speech Movement at the University of California at Berkeley was born and led to student protests involving thousands and confrontation with the police.
Is it time for a new Free Speech Movement?
The Israeli invasion and the resulting deaths of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza has led to campus protests the likes of which we haven’t seen in years.
The push back by officials and the media has been intense.
Defenders of the Israeli assault have tried to frame the protests as antisemitic and all those calling for a ceasefire as anti-semitic.
Yet they have a problem with making the case when thousands of progressive Jewish students and Jewish young people are joining groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and breaking with Israel in huge numbers.
Progressive Jewish students have always been in the forefront on campuses fighting for social justice.
In response to the protests and pressure from pro-Israel groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), college administration has returned to the practice of making some campus speech illegal.
I say “some” because universities like Columbia, while banning Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace chapters, allow racist pro-Trump and other right-wing student organizations to continue to freely organize without restrictions.
The presidents of Penn and Harvard can be called before a congressional committee and scolded for permitting anti-war and pro-Palestinian protests, but the chief inquisitor is MAGA congresswoman Elise Stefanik.