[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 75 (Wednesday, May 1, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H2776-H2777]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  REPRESSION OF FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Michigan (Ms. Tlaib) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. TLAIB. Mr. Speaker, I am deeply concerned about the escalating 
repression of First Amendment protected speech and assembly on college 
campuses across our country.
  To all the elected university boards and appointed presidents, it 
needs to be very clear: Your students' constitutional rights don't end 
when they enter your campus grounds.
  Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record statements from the ACLU and 
from Bend the Arc.

                            [April 26, 2024]

 ACLU Urges College and University Leaders to Protect Free Speech and 
                            Academic Freedom

       New York.--In response to the anti-war protests happening 
     at colleges across the country, and the disturbing arrests 
     that have followed, the American Civil Liberties Union sent a 
     letter to leaders at both public and private universities. 
     The letter states:
       ``As you fashion responses to the activism of your students 
     (and faculty and staff), it is essential that you not 
     sacrifice principles of academic freedom and free speech that 
     are core to the educational mission of your respected 
     Institution.''
       Authored by ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero and 
     National Legal Director David Cole, the letter offers 
     university leaders five basic guardrails to ensure freedom of 
     speech and academic freedom are protected on campus:
       1. They must not single out particular viewpoints for 
     censorship, discipline, or disproportionate punishment.
       2. They must protect students from targeted discriminatory 
     harassment and violence, but may not penalize people for 
     taking sides on the war in Gaza, even if expressed in deeply 
     offensive terms.
       3. They can announce and enforce reasonable content-neutral 
     time, place, or manner policies on protesting activity, but 
     they must leave ample room for students to express 
     themselves. These rules must be applied consistently and 
     without regard to viewpoint.
       4. They must recognize that armed police on campus can 
     endanger students and are a measure of last resort.
       5. They must resist the pressures placed on them by 
     politicians seeking to exploit campus tensions.
       The letter also informs university leaders of relevant 
     Supreme Court precedent:
       ``The Supreme Court has forcefully rejected the premise 
     that, `because of the acknowledged need for order, First 
     Amendment protections should apply with less force on college 
     campuses than in the community at large.' ''
       The letter strongly advises university leaders to be 
     ``cognizant of the history of law enforcement using 
     inappropriate and excessive force in responding to protests, 
     particularly against communities of color,'' and that--as 
     events of the past week have made abundantly clear--arresting 
     peaceful protestors is likely to escalate, not calm, tensions 
     on campus.
       The letter also reiterates that violence is never an 
     acceptable protest tactic and that ``physically intimidating 
     students by blocking their movements or pursuing them 
     aggressively is unprotected conduct, not protected speech.''
                                  ____


                            [April 25, 2024]

               Bend the Arc Statement on Campus Protests

       As we celebrate Passover this week, we are seeing Jewish 
     students and faculty showing up Jewishly, joining and helping 
     to lead protests on college campuses across the nation. And 
     we have been watching with increasing concern. Concern for 
     Jewish safety, but also concern for our democracy. [Protest 
     is essential to our movement work and must be protected, and 
     we firmly stand against antisemitism being used as an excuse 
     to threaten free speech and criticism of university and U.S. 
     policy. To be clear, criticism of American policy towards 
     Israel is not inherently antisemitic.]
       When protests become popular movements, they bring everyone 
     from everywhere, with all their experiences and talents. They 
     can also bring what afflicts our society, such as 
     antisemitism, anti-Black racism, sexism, and homophobia. 
     These oppressions are not reflective of the movements 
     themselves, though critics would have you believe that they 
     define them. Many have used accusations of antisemitism, real 
     and perceived, to attempt to discredit these protests.
       The ability of Jewish students to express their Judaism, 
     their values, and their beliefs across a full range of 
     political views is essential and must be protected. We must 
     not erase them from this story. They are hosting Shabbat 
     services in tents, holding Seder, and are showing up not just 
     for Jewish safety, but for the safety of all people.
       Jewish people have long played a role in practicing free 
     speech and protest on campus. These protests are part of our 
     democracy. We proudly remember the movements for Civil 
     Rights, against the Vietnam and Iraq Wars, Occupy, Black 
     Lives Matter, and fights against sexual violence on campus. 
     Unfortunately, these moments also recall the 
     unconstitutional, dangerous, and unnecessary policing of 
     these protests. We recall the images from Kent State in 1970, 
     when the National Guard killed four peaceful, anti-war 
     student protesters (three of whom were Jewish). Today, 
     college administrations are bowing to McCarthy-esque 
     congressional hearings; evicting, suspending, and arresting 
     Jewish and other students; and barring access to places of 
     worship and freedom to partake in Jewish ceremony--all in an 
     obvious attempt to appease the Right.
       Many Jews, on campus and otherwise, are experiencing 
     Passover feeling a heightened fear about antisemitism. And we 
     see how student organizers, Jewish and non-Jewish, have 
     powerfully shown up against occurrences of antisemitism, 
     creating safety for Jewish students. Their values and 
     discipline in opposing antisemitism remain in stark contrast 
     to those who claim to fight antisemitism but instead use it 
     to sow division between Jews and our communities, undermine 
     democracy, and fulfill the goals of white nationalism.
       And in this critical dialogue about the safety of Jews and 
     everyone in our nation, we must not allow political interests 
     to obscure the meaning we take away from these protests: that 
     U.S. policy must support safety and self-determination for 
     all Palestinians and Israelis, and that next year, we make 
     Seder in peace.
       Chag Sameach.

  Ms. TLAIB. Mr. Speaker, the ACLU statement says: ``As you fashion 
responses to the activism of your students (and faculty and staff), it 
is essential that you not sacrifice principles of academic freedom and 
free speech that are core to the educational mission of your respected 
institution.''
  From Bend the Arc's statement: ``Protest is essential to our movement 
work and must be protected, and we firmly stand against anti-Semitism 
being used as an excuse to threaten free speech and criticism of 
university and U.S. policy. To be clear, criticism of American policy 
towards Israel is not inherently anti-Semitic.''
  Mr. Speaker, dissent is a fundamental American value, from the civil 
rights movement to antiwar protests to the movement for Black lives, 
immigrant rights, our country has a long history of students leading 
movements for change and challenging the status

[[Page H2777]]

quo that oppresses and normalizes genocide across the world.
  I am deeply moved by the courageous young people in more than 100 
encampments at colleges across our Nation that are demanding divestment 
in support of a genocide in Gaza and apartheid Government of Israel.
  I had the opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to visit an encampment at the 
University of Michigan that has public programming. They put it online 
for families on various issues. The day I went, they were recognizing 
the anniversary of the Armenian genocide and having someone also speak 
about the connectivity to the Palestinian Nakba. It was inspiring to 
see these brave students across races, of all faiths and backgrounds, 
standing side by side in solidarity to protest for peace. From Jummah 
prayer to Shabbat, they are coming together in a way I wish my 
colleagues would welcome.
  Sending in militarized police forces and even snipers to stop these 
students from exercising their First Amendment rights is truly 
disgusting.
  My colleagues are so outraged by students opposing genocide and 
apartheid, but many of these same Members were completely silent last 
year when we saw the dramatic increase of threats, literally death 
threats on historical Black colleges and universities across the 
country.

                              {time}  1030

  This state-sanctioned violence, including the arrests and threatened 
felony prosecutions of students, can only be seen as an explicit effort 
to silence students and take away their First Amendment rights.
  Mr. Speaker, no student--not one--should be met with academic 
repercussions or police brutality on their own campuses for exercising, 
peacefully, their rights to free speech and assembly.
  Why is it, Mr. Speaker, that my colleagues and every headline from 
mainstream media are more concerned and outraged about these protests 
than they are about the over 35,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza? 
Seventy percent of them are women and children.
  There are no universities left in Gaza, but no outrage. Multiple mass 
graves have been uncovered at several locations that Israeli forces 
have recently withdrawn from. Two hundred bodies were found at al-Shifa 
Hospital, literally fresh bodies found with their hands tied behind 
their backs, naked.
  Where is the outrage for these war crimes? This is not just me. This 
is the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
  Our government isn't just complicit in this genocide. We are actively 
participating.
  Students are occupying their campuses to peacefully protest for an 
end to these atrocities and for divestment in this genocide and 
apartheid. They are even renaming some of the buildings after 
Palestinian children who have been killed. These students should be 
praised for standing up for what they believe in, not vilified, smeared 
with misinformation campaigns and silence.
  I call on these universities to end the repressive tactics, exercise 
restraint, denounce ongoing police brutality, and stop suppressing the 
very activism, academic freedom, and thoughtful debate that they seek 
to inspire in their students.
  Mr. Speaker, we don't want to see an apology years later. No. We want 
to see action today to protect these students. We don't want to have 
you all, in 10 years, praise the same students for doing what was 
right. We don't want to see it. We need it now. They deserve it now.

                          ____________________