US campus protests: The custodian of free speech is criminalising it at home

On Thursday (25 April), an American professor was violently flipped onto the ground on the Emory University campus grounds in Atlanta, Georgia, while a CNN camera crew captured the incident on video. 

Economics Professor Caroline Fohlin consequently spent 11 hours in jail while court documents show she was charged with "battery against a police officer," reports The Daily Beast. The video footage would have you think otherwise. 

Seconds prior to the arrest, Fohlin shouted "to get away from the student" at several police officers wrestling one student to the ground. 

Fohlin was one of the two Emory University professors arrested on the day, along with several students, as the campus joined a growing list of US academic institutions joining protests. 

The student protests are primarily centred on their demand for their academic institutions to divest from companies that have Israeli ties. Starting with Columbia University in New York on 19 April, "in solidarity with Gaza" encampments have spread across US campuses. 

In the following week, the latest Israel-Gaza "war" marked 200 days, with an increasing and unprecedented Palestinian death toll. 

While the peaceful student protests across the US are not entirely free of problematic or anti-semitic sentiment, a lot of the media coverage and commentary in the US skew towards labelling the student protestors as terrorists or terrorist sympathisers.

Jude Taha, a Palestinian Columbia Journalism School student recently explained to Al Jazeera that there are bad actors, instigators or those with extreme views, but those are far and few between, "it does not represent the encampment [at Columbia] where I have spent nearly all the days reporting. There have been no incidents of anti-semitism," she said. 

Beyond the extremities lies a genuine question: Where is the student's constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of speech and expression? 

By organising and conducting "peaceful" protests on campus, many argue that the students are only exercising their rights.  For instance, the president of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Irene Mulvey recently explained to Vox that in the balancing act between freedom of speech and student safety, "You don't have to suppress speech to keep students safe… I know all of these campuses where these things are happening — Columbia, NYU, Yale — these campuses and these presidents will espouse academic freedom and free speech at the drop of a hat." 

"But if you're not standing up for those principles at times like these, then those words are completely meaningless." 

Before these student protests started, the University of Southern California cancelled biomedical engineering major and valedictorian Asna Tabassum's speech. The university reportedly said "it has nothing to do with freedom of speech" but a decision that was taken to protect campus security. 

Now this is the same university which sparked debate in 2018 allowing conservative commentator American Ben Shapiro to come to campus to speak as part of his tour. "Freedom of speech" was cited as a reason by the university. 

The question then becomes what kind of speech is allowed on these campuses under the banner of "free speech." 

Manhandling students' right to free speech

The latest spate of tension in the US protesting the Israel-Gaza "war" also saw a rapid — and in many cases violent — response by the universities. 

In the Vox interview, Mulvey vehemently opposed Columbia President Nemat Shafik's decision to call in the NYPD to counter the student protestors. Meanwhile, "Emory University's response was likely the quickest show of police force in response to a divestment protest among the dozens nationwide that have occurred in recent weeks," according to The Guardian. 

Several campuses called in the state police, and hundreds of student arrests had been made with many being released and/or with charges dropped. Faculty members have also been reportedly arrested. 

But there seems to be no slowing down in the students' vigour to speak up. This wave of intense and widespread protests on US college campuses might be the first of its kind in the 21st century. 

Lest we forget, US students have made history in the last century. They united and rose up against the Vietnam War. In the 1960s and 1970s, there were massive demonstrations on campuses. Columbia 1968 is one of the more famous instances. 

Then there was 1970 Kent State University in Ohio, when National Guard troops killed four unarmed students during a protest — perhaps a sobering reminder for university administrations and the US government of how not to respond to student movements. 

In the 1970s-1980s, students played a vital role in the movement to end apartheid in South Africa. Many colleges and universities divested from companies doing business in South Africa and students organised protests and demonstrations to raise awareness of apartheid and pressure the government to take action – part of the Anti-Apartheid Movement. 

Earlier, originating at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1960s, the Free Speech Movement protested restrictions on political activities on college campuses. It became a symbol of student activism and helped catalyse broader social and political movements of the era.

Students in the US also advocated for desegregation, equal rights, and an end to racial discrimination during the Civil Rights Movement. One notable event was the Greensboro sit-in in 1960, where four African American college students staged a sit-in at a segregated lunch counter in North Carolina, sparking a wave of similar protests across the country.

In all these movements across US campuses, yes, the use of force had been recorded against the demonstrators in the hands of law enforcement. 

A troubled preacher 

The unequivocal US support of Israel in the face of Israel's latest assault and a staggering Palestinian death toll has become a problem in the world court of opinion. It has sparked or added to several discourses that speak on the US' role on the global stage, transparency of foreign policy, values it upholds — and double standards. 

For instance, one of the more popular arguments is how can the US airdrop food aid in Gaza whilst it continues to send billions in arms aid to Israel. The discord is clear. 

Now with students on US academic campuses speaking in favour of the Palestinians by exercising their right to free speech, things have become problematic. Other countries are taking note. 

Breaking away from maintaining "no comment", India's Ministry of External Affairs had some advice for the White House, according to local media, "Democracies should display understanding in regard to other democracies. After all, we are all judged by what we do at home and not what we say abroad."

On the world stage, the US is the self-styled custodian of free speech, who has time and again told other countries and sovereign states to protect and restore people's freedom of speech. The US has advocated for establishing democratic values in other countries, a lot of which centre on freedom of speech and expression. 

Annual country reports for Bangladesh published by the US government agency point out how freedom of speech and expression are under duress in the country. In 2021, the US Department of State in a report said Bangladesh's constitution provides for freedom of speech, including for the press, but the government sometimes fails to respect this right. 

"There are significant limitations on freedom of speech. Many journalists self-censored their criticism of the government due to harassment and fear of reprisal," said the report titled 'Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2020'. 

It is, of course, good to call out other regimes to protect their people's human rights, but it is also important to ensure your own house is in order before doing that.  

If the US fails to protect students' right to free speech on American campuses, then in the global arena, where will it stand when it tells other governments to uphold freedom of speech?