With banging drums and chants of "Palestine will be free," rallies and sit-ins at universities in spring 2024 harked back to the tumultuous days of the Vietnam War protests, when students defied administrations and protests sometimes ended in fierce police crackdowns.
Tensions teemed across campuses as pro-Palestinian protesters launched "Gaza Solidarity Encampments," refusing to leave until their schools agreed to divest from companies tied to Israel's military operations.
This fall, universities and colleges -- hoping to prevent a repeat of last spring's contentious demonstrations -- rolled out new restrictions on protests and heightened security measures.
At many universities, protests are corralled into low-traffic areas of campuses. They are quieter, amid bans or limits on sound equipment. They are less frequent, as administrations demand advance notice and levels of approval. Deviations from rules have been met with swift -- and some say excessive -- punishment.
"If a university says you cannot do a protest that disrupts in any way, shape or form -- that's the point of protest," said Carissa Cunningham, a Rutgers doctoral student and lecturer in political science at SUNY Purchase in Westchester. "It's clearly an attack on what makes protests effective."
The universities' actions have ignited a fierce debate over the balance between free speech and campus security.
Civil liberties organizations argue that the restrictions and fear of reprisals quell free speech and that open discourse, even on divisive issues, is essential in an academic setting. Advocates say the policies promote a campus environment that is safe and free of hostilities and disruptions to learning.
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"Student Affairs staff and the Rutgers University Police Department work closely with students who apply to hold public expression events, including protests in the vicinity of a scheduled speaker, to ensure safe, peaceful, and nondisruptive events," said Dory Devlin, a Rutgers spokesman.
Students feel stifled at at time when many are grappling with distress over the Israel-Hamas war, Cunningham said.
"There is a deep level of intense grief that people are experiencing," she said. "Then you combine that with an administration that seems to be actively investing in harassing these young student activists for just trying to use their First Amendment right."
Protests surged on campuses in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, triggered on Oct. 7 when Hamas forces attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages. At least 43,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, while nearly all of the 2.3 million Gazans have been displaced.
Limits on protest
In new and updated policies, colleges and universities have designated times and specific areas for protests, often away from high-traffic areas. Some schools, such as Princeton and Rutgers, say student groups can ask for alternative locations for counterdemonstrations, subject to their approval.
They have also limited types of signs, materials and audio systems that can be used during protests, and locations where students can put up flyers on campus. They ask student groups to file for permits for events at least a few days ahead of time.
While specific rules vary from campus to campus, one rule has been uniform: No encampments are allowed. Last year, protest encampments took place at nearly 150 colleges and universities to call for a cease-fire and for divestment.
Most actions have taken the form of rallies, vigils, teach-ins and interfaith programs. But activists also occupied administrative offices and protested at graduation ceremonies and career fairs -- actions that administrators called disruptive to schools' operations.
Administrators say their policies simply update or clarify existing rules and that any changes are minimal.
"The university's free expression guidelines are designed to provide clear and consistent guidance to students, faculty, staff and visitors across all Rutgers locations and designate public forum areas at each campus," Devlin said. "Each event application is carefully considered as the university works collaboratively with organizers to ensure their right to free speech as well as the safety of the entire university community."
Announcing guidelines, Princeton officials said, "In a few areas, we have clarified policies to provide additional detail that will help all members of our community understand expectations," but the policies "remain substantively unchanged."
Some students and faculty members disagree that the impact is nil or minimal. Aditi Rao, a doctoral student, believes Princeton is being "intentionally ambiguous" in its policies.
"They are trying to make it seem they haven't changed anything at all," she said. "When they really, really have overhauled protest policy ... They are suspending students, putting students on disciplinary academic probation. They are punishing students in their own domain, where there is no oversight, if they find the manner in which you are protesting is somehow a violation of school policy."
On campuses this fall, students said they had also seen more police and security officers monitoring their events. They have seen barricades and been visited by administrators to make sure they are complying with any rules.
Montclair State University also revised its policy, with one rule in particular prompting backlash. The rule requires at least five days' notice not just for demonstrations, speeches and leafletting - but also for "silent or symbolic expressive activity." That includes silent protest, displaying signs, wearing symbolic clothing (such as wearing armbands), gesturing, standing, sitting, walking or other noiseless activity that convey a specific message, according to the policy.
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A college's obligations
Administrators did not mention pro-Palestinian protests when announcing the new policies. They said that updating policies was part of their routine practice.
Colleges and universities are allowed, within reason, to pass content-neutral rules about when, where and how students protest, according to civil liberties groups. They cannot discriminate based on point of view. Rules are supposed to be applied evenly, no matter who is holding an event and what the cause is.
The changes come as administrators face intense pressure to rein in pro-Palestinian protests. Critics said protesters disrupted learning and harassed and intimidated Jewish students while using anti-Israel rhetoric; some have filed lawsuits and civil rights complaints alleging schools did not do enough to protect students against antisemitism.
Lawmakers pressed university presidents about their efforts to fight antisemitism and urged them to take stronger action in dealing with protesters. They have called for yanking federal funding and research grants for universities that they believed have mishandled protests and antisemitism.
Pro-Palestinian activists say their protests are against Israel and its policies and reject accusations of antisemitism. They note that Jewish students are also organizing and participating in these protests.
Universities must also use caution to uphold students' rights. At a public university, that means complying with the First Amendment. Private universities have more latitude, but they are obliged to honor their own policies that guarantee freedom of expression and that often reflect First Amendment principles, said Ryan Ansloan, senior program officer of policy reform for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
"A lot of the policies are very broad, so they are trying to apply one-size-fits-all restrictions or really just trying to provide themselves with latitude to only permit the types of demonstrations they would prefer," Ansloan said. "Those are things we take issue with and find potentially concerning. I think any time schools revise broad swaths of policies that implicate expressive activity, you risk having a chilling effect."
Faculty members have also pushed back. The American Association of University Professors noted that many of the policies are "overly restrictive" and were imposed "with little to no faculty input, which is essential to developing policies that affect academic freedom of faculty and students."
Rutgers faculty union members wrote a letter to university President Jonathan Holloway urging him to work with the campus community to gather input and create a more appropriate policy. Under the administration's new rules, most major protests in Rutgers history would be disallowed, they wrote, adding, "Our university would be the poorer for it."
Alya Nassrallah, a Rutgers senior and an activist, said students would keep up protesting, despite new and more onerous rules.
"We're advocating for a Palestine where people aren't dying, where people aren't starving," she said. "It takes more time. Of course, it's annoying. It's unfair. But no matter what, we are going to make sure that we are able to stand firm in what we want to do."