Colleges try to manage Gaza war protests without stifling free speech

As college students head back to campus for the new academic year, universities are rolling out new rules as they prepare for more protests over the Israel-Hamas war. In many cases, there’s a wide range of new restrictions. Jeffrey Brown looks at how college leaders and students are navigating the moment.
Amna Nawaz:
As college students head back to campus for the new academic year, universities are rolling out new rules as they prepare for more protests over the Israel-Hamas war. In many cases, there’s a wide range of new restrictions.
Jeffrey Brown has our look at how college leaders and some students are navigating this moment.
Jeffrey Brown:
At Columbia University in New York, one flash point for last spring’s campus turmoil, long lines formed outside the gates as classes began.
Students and staff presented a campus I.D. to enter, guests had to register ahead of time, and access was limited to a handful of entry points.
Senior Isabella Ramirez is editor in chief of The Columbia Daily Spectator.
Isabella Ramirez, Editor in Chief, The Columbia Daily Spectator: It’s a really interesting atmosphere to sort of enter campus with gates locked sort of screenings at every single entry point that you’re entering.
Jeffrey Brown:
Amid protests last spring, at least 200 people were arrested or detained here. And in August, President Minouche Shafik resigned following months of pressure and criticism from Congress as well as Jewish and pro-Palestinian student groups and faculty.
For now, interim president Dr. Katrina Armstrong, seeking to calm the waters and rebuild trust, has been visible on campus, meeting with different constituent groups.
Isabella Ramirez:
She has the ability to do something very different and possibly very new in terms of how she decides to handle this, who she decides to see input from, how she balances the many, many voices that are kind of demanding different things from her. I’m curious how protesters will receive Armstrong.
Jeffrey Brown:
It’s a dynamic at play around the country, as administrators seek to avoid a repeat of the spring, when more than 3,000 people were arrested or detained on campuses, including students and protesters not affiliated with universities.
Many charges were never filed or have since been dropped, though not all. And some students have brought lawsuits in response to punishments handed down.
So far this semester, a relative calm, though, at the University of Michigan, four were arrested for attempting to disrupt a student event. And as classes began at Cornell, some 150 pro-Palestinians protested. With a summer to take stock, colleges have implemented a variety of policies, tighter security, limiting the duration of and designated areas for protests, and notably banning encampments, a step taken by the entire University of California system.
Richard Lyons, Chancellor, University of California, Berkeley: Encampments on campus are not allowed. Erecting structures that haven’t been permitted on the front end is not allowed.
Jeffrey Brown:
Rich Lyons must now implement the policy as the new head of U.C. Berkeley.
Richard Lyons:
And we’re going to be much firmer about this is completely supported free speech. And when you go into this category, it is in fact either sometimes unlawful and sometimes against our rules. And we need to manage that more effectively than we did last year.
Jeffrey Brown:
You need to manage it more effectively, meaning better understanding of the rules, more compliance with the rules? What do you mean?
Richard Lyons:
I think better understanding of the rules is part of it. Do our students really understand the difference between free speech and civil disobedience? Have you crossed a line? Historically, people think of civil disobedience as I civilly disobeyed and I accept the consequences.
And that’s not always clear on our campuses in our students’ minds. I think that needs to be clearer.
Jeffrey Brown:
Lyons and others stress to us the need for better communications and more consistency, while making room for free debate.
In Washington, D.C., American University President Jonathan Alger, also in his first year on the job, is in the process of updating campus policies. No final decision has been made on encampments.
Jonathan Alger, President, American University:
We wanted to wait until our students and faculty and staff were back on campus so that they could have the opportunity and forums to share their thoughts and ideas. We have had a very open and transparent process. We have shared our policies, draft policies publicly to get feedback and insights from the university community.
At Harvard, which saw the resignation of President Claudine Gay last January, new university rules include stricter limits on unapproved signs, writing on university property and noise levels, angering some students.
Mahmoud Al-Thabata, College Student:
Harvard has retaliated with draconian measures.
Jeffrey Brown:
Sophomore Mahmoud Al-Thabata, an organizer with Harvard’s Out of Occupied Palestine coalition, says protests and other actions will continue.
Mahmoud Al-Thabata:
You will see strategic measures in order for one to escalate to a measure that is appropriate and to escalate to a measure that does have the most effectiveness on campus, but as well as escalate to make sure that our community is safe and organizers are safe.
Jeffrey Brown:
Jewish students too are seeking new ways to organize. University of Michigan sophomore Dan Viderman started a Students Supporting Israel chapter and is heavily involved in Jewish life on campus.
Dan Viderman, College Student:
We held a Nova Music Festival survivor on campus just last week. And after the event, a lot of the feedback that we had all received was like, wow, like, we knew kind of what happened, but we didn’t realize the atrocities and the real damage of what was done there in Israel on October 7.
I think this year our strategy is just engage in those conversations and just talk to those people.
Jeffrey Brown:
As students navigate how best to use their voices, some institutions like Washington University in St. Louis, which saw roughly 100 people arrested in April, are sticking to rules already in place.
Chancellor Andrew Martin:

Andrew Martin, Chancellor, Washington University in St. Louis: We were one of the few universities in the country that said very early on in the spring that there’d be no encampments on our campus. And when folks started with the encampments, as we chose to use our police force to ensure that those encampments weren’t set up on our campus.
If someone were to try to come and do the same thing today, we would respond in the same fashion. So we really haven’t changed our policy approach.
Jeffrey Brown:
One hope we heard expressed, to make this a learning and teaching moment, one that goes to the heart of what colleges are for.
Richard Lyons:
Our goal is not to make ideas safe for students. It’s to make students safe for ideas. We are platforms for difficult ideas to match up against each other and have it out in an ideas sense, but not in a personal violence sense.
So we need to manage those things. I think universities across the country and world have got better over the last year at that.
Jonathan Alger:
We are obligated to protect students from discrimination, from facing a hostile environment. And so there are some limitations associated with that.
Having said all that, free expression is a bedrock of American higher education. And we know we have got to underscore the importance of that, even when it’s difficult.
Jeffrey Brown:
A goal and ideal that will no doubt be further tested, especially as the anniversary of the October 7 attack approaches and the war continues.
For the “PBS News Hour,” I’m Jeffrey Brown.