1st Amendment Isn’t A Ticket to Ri(ot)de

Some go to college & learn how to be dumb. But anti-Israel protesters give new meaning to the sad fact by demanding a free speech right to take over private campuses when the 1st Amendment applies only to gov’t rules restricting what folks can say or do.

We are reminded in a recent WSJ op ed of the long-standing precedent & all but suggests the professional activists haunting our campuses now might want to think twice about their rights if a Jewish person demanded the similar right to urinate on one of the tents they are pitching on campuses across America. Recall how the progressives during the Trump presidency insisted conservatives had no right to speak on college campuses because their expressed views would somehow trigger rioting by … progressives? Now, ironically, the progressives are claiming that any restriction on the pro-Hamas protesters is a violation of free speech. “That isn’t true,” the WSJ editorial board points out, “and it’s important to understand why.”

Explains the editors: “As University of California, Berkeley law school dean & ardent liberal Erwin Chemerinsky [told] anti-Israel students who wanted to protest on his lawn, his property is “not a forum for free speech.” That’s because the Supreme Court has long ago ruled that the 1st Amendment applies to government actions towards citizens, “it doesn’t apply to private citizens or institutions, except in rare instances when they are acting as government agents.” It follows then that, as a private university, Columbia & all the other besieged campuses, have the right to set down their own rules on speech as part of a contract to teach or study at the school. Indeed, those schools have an obligation to tuition paying students who want to study not riot, i.e., to ensure a safe & sane environment. So, call in the cops, why don't you?

Davd Soul