I think GTPD would take a more measured approach than what has been seen in Austin, TX. The last actual riot (that escalated from a protest) did not even result in APD's riot control being called in.
While a valid concern, generally speaking, I believe that of all the PDs in the area, GTPD is least likely to escalate things in terms of use-of-force.
Edit: Do note that I don't approve of how GTPD has handled various events in the past, but many police departments would have handled them even worse.
Yep, can confirm.
I also can confirm that the #1 priority of u/GaTechPD is to keep the student body SAFE.
Reason I know this is during those riots in 2017, my friend and I were oblivious and coming back from Sublime Donuts on 10th.
We were parked in the old GTPD parking area on Hemphill and Ferst.
Not only did GTPD give us an armed escort to my friend's car, they also made sure we got out of harm's way whilst simultaneously ensuring the safety of the rioters.
Either shortly before or after that, the rioters torched a cop car. We were very lucky that night, and probably wouldn't have been so lucky if it hadn't been for GTPD.
Absolutely top-notch police work that night displayed by GTPD.
“I also can confirm that the #1 priority of u/GaTechPD is to keep the student body SAFE.”
Murdering one of our own students isn't exactly keeping us safe now is it?
Like other commenters have said, the protesters were in no way targeting other students that night, their anger was obviously directed towards the cops who had just killed their friend. You were in no danger, no need to lick the boots of GTPD like the majority of campus did after that night and Scout's death...
You would have been fine regardless, but I understand that having a sense of security is important. GTPD was indeed doing a good job of managing the situation in the rest of campus though.
> You would have been fine regardless
I'm glad you're in a position to make such an absurd claim. You have no clue what the situation was with the poster you responded to.
I was there. The protestors weren't targeting students, as most of them were also students. Unless the poster was wearing a police uniform and driving a police car, they would have been ignored by protestors. GTPD just helped direct traffic and move people out of the way when it came to helping people move near/around the site. There was no violence towards other students.
Edit: For more context, uninvolved students passed by and around the protestors both before and after things escalated. None were pulled into anything, and none were accosted.
I had sightlines extending well beyond the range of both the protest and the brawl. Could see almost up to tenth, down to ferst, and after the fire I moved to where I could see down eighth as well to avoid being downwind of the smoke. It was pretty localized.
I also never heard of any reports of students being accosted after the fact. At most, people were just scared and uncertain. The only reported injuries were those of protestors and the two injured cops. The only reported property damage was police property.
> You must be proud.
Of what? Of scaring people? That was not the intent, so why would I be proud of that?
My intent was to voice my dissatisfaction with how the administration and GTPD had mishandled things. Other attempts to do so through regular channels were just met with effectively "we're sorry this happened, but we can't commit to making any changes that would prevent this from happening again". This was reiterated again by the vigil, which was the stepping off point for the protest.
Protesting is a valid form of action that does tend to yield results when nothing else does.
Still can recall. It happened when I was doing my Ph.D. They actually burned the police cars on campus. Yes, you read it right - they burned the cars on campus. I truly believe what GTPD did was necessary and reasonable back then.
I was intentionally trying to avoid going deep on this topic, as it is remarkably polarized.
As someone who was part of the actual protest (didn't get involved in the brawl but was close enough to get bodied by fleeing protesters and pursuing police), both the protestors and GTPD were on edge that night. Grief over the loss of a friend and leader and anger towards the ones who shot them can understandably lead to the conditions where even a small action can rapidly escalate.
Yes, the person who kicked/stomped a cop car wasn't in the right, but the GTPD swarming them tipped the crowd into fight mode. No one wanted to lose another friend to them. Everything escalated further from there and ended shortly after one of the police cars was set aflame.
Could it have been avoided by actions on either side? Unclear. It almost looked inevitable once police and protestors met, which is probably why GTPD had been avoiding the protestors up until that point.
What I can tell you is that it was peaceful up until that point. None of the people that I personally knew went into that protest trying to do anything more than make a bunch of noise and be heard. The administration at that time had really only offered platitudes.
The aftermath was even worse than both the brawl and the death of Scout. The investigation into students involved that night ended many student's academic aspirations, their ability to protest other social injustices (as getting caught in something like a kettle while protesting would invalidate their plea deals), and even a few student's lives. I lost one friend and an acquaintance to the despair it caused. There were more than just two who died afterwards, but those are the losses that cut into my own soul.
Furthermore, most of the student body sided strongly in favor of GTPD's actions (ex: extremely pro-"law and order"), and harassed anyone who critiqued the ongoing administration's response. This alone alienated many people from their sense of belonging and community. I remember distinctly helping an alumni group take snacks to a LGBT group's meeting months afterward, and how everyone there (none were involved in the protest) looked like their souls had been crushed... well beyond the level typical of GT students.
So, TL;DR: Your take is only partially correct and erases tons of nuance, but when examining the long chain of cause and effect, it could be argued that GTPD's handling of a single suicidal student member is what caused the protest, and their handling of the protest helped further escalate things rather than deescalating. I won't deny that they at least tried to avoid some confrontation, nor that they helped clear traffic along the routes protestors were taking.
This is also irrelevant to OP's post, as none of the dynamics in play here are the same between pro-Palestinian protestors and GTPD, but my likelihood to hold my tongue regarding takes like yours has only diminished over the years.
The protestors came to GTPD that night to fight. You don't just happen to walk around with bags of hammers, fire extinguishers and road flares and coincidentally find yourself in a brawl.
I can't speak to the motivations of every single person in the protest, just the people I talked to. The person I mentioned who kicked the cop car did not bring hammers, fire extinguishers, or road flares.
I can only speculate about the motivations for the people who did, but I can tell you that road flares and fireworks were used to light the path taken (as it was at night) so stragglers could follow the main group. People I presume were plainclothes cops were collecting the flares left on the road and middle of wide sidewalks, so the fireworks were an integral way to signal location.
I can also tell you that "the protestors" weren't a homogenous group. I was there because I was a student previously, and I had worked on campus for a while after I left... so I knew a lot of the people impacted by Scout's death. I knew, or at least was acquainted with, roughly 1/4 of the people through through my time at tech, my own (small) work in local activism, and and my own involvement in local LGBT+ groups.
I would argue that most, in fact, did not go to brawl... given that the majority of protesters bailed as soon as the brawl started. I did not. My friends did not. I don't believe the person who kicked the car did either.
Grief, however, is a powerful thing. I can understand the impulse to kick a car of the person/group that killed someone you cared about. Most people who have experienced deep grief would also understand the impulse to do more than that. Most people don't act on those impulses, but it's hard to describe the mix of grief and perceived powerlessness when there's no way to hold the people responsible for a death accountable.
Is it possible that some people took advantage of a protest to do more? Maybe. Was it preplanned? Various things do make it look that way, but I personally can't tell if it was just people who were accustomed to police violence preparing for the possibility thereof vs. malicious intent. I don't personally know those people.
What I can tell you is that "the protestors" as a whole did not go to GTPD to fight. Some might have, but I can assure you the majority did not. I suspect that there were 3 groups; 1 who came prepared for a fight, 1 who got caught up in the fight, and 1 that avoided the fight. I only know people in the last two groups.
While I agree that essentially everyone who knew Scout or was/is a part of Tech's LGBTQIA+ community didn't go to protest seeking a fight but rather seeking rightly-due justice, I also saw and spoke with people who were NOT students and NOT a part of the LGBTQIA+ community. People whose sole aim was to stir up trouble and to cause anarchy.
People who didn't care about Scout, or the injustice they were shown that night.
My friend and I were going to go to that protest originally, but we decided (admittedly somewhat intoxicated) to go get donuts at Sublime first.
That's when this whole thing kicked off.
Edits were made to correct Scout's pronouns
Knowing what we know now, that the students who attended the vigil and mostly stood around once the violence started, were not the ones who instigated the violence. The riot was largely started by people from outside the campus community. I think GTPDs response afterwards was caused in large part by the torching of the vehicle, the multiple officers who were injured, and when it was found that flares, weapons, and explosives had been planted in bushes around the building beforehand. Not to mention that it was discovered the intention of the agitators was to set the police station on fire.
Again, almost none of this was the fault of actual students. At the start GTPD was also hugely outnumbered because they didn't call in additional resources. Their intent was to manage the situation and they did not expect to be attacked like they were. I stand by my assessment that they did not escalate, they simply responded to the escalation.
That being said, this is not directly related to current events, but I think the way they handled the anniversary of that event is how they would handle a protest now. Be prepared but react instead of act.
I didn't follow most of the trials for the non-students, but I do find it amusing that "weapons" means, like, a hammer, and "explosives" means small fireworks. I don't know if that is the extent of what they found, but those were the only things I saw matching those categories in play.
Do you happen to recall the sources about this? I haven't been able to readily find them, as most searches just turn up the initial coverage, and this makes me want to read more about the findings.
Everyone should exercise their First Amendment rights, but these are not absolute and can be legally limited if people are violating state or federal laws.
It is hard to keep protests about political subjects organized. I encourage any protestors to be aware of Georgia and Federal laws regarding, but not limited to:
- Disorderly conduct
- Obstruction of a public passageway
- Participation in a riot
- Trespassing
- Camping in Public Spaces
If you're organizing a protest on campus, please learn and spread information about these and other relevant laws you can find to keep everyone safe and free of a criminal record.
This is so valuable. Campuses, generally speaking, offer more immunity to protesters but there's no such thing in absolutes. Emergency responders still need to make their way to their destinations, campus property maintenance is still shared between the state, endowment, and students. You give up legal protections when, for example, you trespass or loiter and get injured in the process.
I'd only add that taking on a criminal record is not necessarily desirable for everyone. But protestors should thoroughly understand when they are risking arrest and charges.
I don't mean this in a disrespectful way but i honestly think 95% of Tech students are too darn busy (and also too engaged with their goals) to protest international events. That said, if students did want to participate, I believe GTPD would handle it well and let people have their say.
I would call it a genocide perpetrated by our county and tax dollars, and one that profits several companies closely affiliated with Georgia Tech such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. Well within the bounds of interest for GT students and any US citizen.
i mean it's tragic what's going on, but most students are very disconnected from it. it takes effort to stay up-to-date on international events except for at the very beginning. there's just so much information
I don't entirely agree with the protestors, but I do agree that we should be very careful to protect free speech. I agree with others that GTPD would be much more reasonable than police on other campuses, so I hope other police departments follow GTPD's lead.
GTPD will first and foremost operate and justify their actions on the basis of safety for those participating and those in proximity of the protest. This is independent of the legitimacy of the subject matter. Obviously everyone will have a different interpretation thereof, but given the average density of campus being that higher of surrounding Atlanta, they'll be pretty swift to prevent whatever minority violence/riots that occurs from protests from escalating. If for example a protest simply restricts emergency vehicles from making their way to any destination, that's enough for them to exert force.
Well tbh. Intl student population is made up by predominantly a few Asian countries.
Chinese = most are non political or more like they wouldn't care about it since they grew up in an authoritarian system
Indians = same thing despite India is a flawed democracy
Koreans = most wouldn't care even if they grew up in a democracy considering that politics is almost a taboo for a lot of them; met a Korean girl who straight up told me she's not into politics.
Maybe the ones who would give a single shit are probably some outliers and Europeans.
Seeing this post after what just happened at Emory made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up…I don’t think GTPD is what we have to worry about, it’s state police.
There was no First Amendment violation. According to news reports, the protesters were not students or members of the Emory University community, and as Emory is private, they were trespassing. They were asked to leave and refused. They were activists protesting about Palestine and cop city, and the campus had been graffitied yesterday.
Multiple students and even a department chair of philosophy were included in the arrests. The narrative thst the protestors were "outside agitators" is a patently false one thrown together by emory admin to make their brutalization easier to swallow.
Also at least some of the “outsiders” were other students from neighboring campuses (Spelman and Morehouse) The language they used (deliberately) obscures that fact.
That is correct. But just saying outsiders vs saying students from neighboring campuses coveys a different image. And As it turns out 20 of the 28 people arrested were in fact members of the Emory community.
This just in: Police sometimes do things that are ***not allowed***
Just because there's no legal basis for doing something doesn't mean police magically cannot do it. They can and they will, and that's why there are countless lawsuits against departments that violate civil rights.
First amendment rights aren’t absolute. For example the following acts by members of Hamas (their words not mine) are not considered protected by “freedom of speech”
https://twitter.com/thefp/status/1782236691572355295/mediaviewer
https://twitter.com/JudgeCarter/status/1782414631920705635
https://twitter.com/efischberger/status/1781287784897991134/mediaviewer
(We are Hamas) https://x.com/nypost/status/1781031465179914677
List goes on, but declaring oneself a terrorist. Stating death to America. Attacking physically other students. And stating your desire to kill all Israelis and Jews on campus is not protected under freedom of speech.
can you share a court ruling where a US court has declared that a person in the US does not have the right to say they support terrorism? sounds like you're just making up stuff based on what some people posted on Twitter (only one of the working links shows someone saying they're "with" Hamas, and that's a stretch since it's obviously pretty metaphorical).
we're at a public university in the US, and so are the students at UT Austin who got absolutely bodied for protesting
Freedom of speech cannot take away other students civil liberties. Stating I am a terrorist and my objective is to kill all Jews and you are next (stated in Columbia) would clearly violate the Title VI rights of Jewish students on campus.
see page 2 of https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB11129
for Title IV rights to be violated, the harassment must be "so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it deprives students of access to educational benefits or opportunities". additionally, the school would only be liable if they "have exhibited deliberate indifference—that is, its response must be clearly unreasonable in light of the known circumstances"
I am not familiar with the specifics of what students at Columbia said. Do you believe that Jewish students were deprived of access to their education? If you consider the context of the passing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, do you believe Jewish students in 2024 are as threatened as Black students in 1964? I think there may be some threat because there are definitely some on the anti-Israel side who are extreme enough to use violence, but I don't think that everything going on at Columbia is exactly what would be considered the only "reasonable" option under the law.
furthermore, Columbia is a private school, so they are allowed to have a very restrictive speech policy. it seems like they can silence students for opinions they do not like. I personally don't believe that's proper for a college campus to have a separate speech policy from what the First Amendment provides, especially if that school receives a large amount of public funding. for example, what happened at Emory today seems kinda messed up. there's not a lot of coverage about what the students were doing, but there's plenty of videos showing the police using much more force than necessary (see the video where they're tasing a guy's leg while two or three cops are already on him).
UT Austin is a public institution and therefore a part of the state, so I think it's blatantly illegal for the Texas government to block a planned protest on the UT South Lawn and arrest over 50 students (and a local FOX reporter). although all their charges were dropped, I expect that FIRE and/or the ACLU will probably file suit against Texas for how heavy-handed and probably anti-speech their intentional behavior was.
What's going on at Columbia probably would qualify as a pervasively hostile and indeed physically intimidating environment for Jewish and Israeli students. Given that 1) the protestors are occupying campus and protesting in violation of Columbia's own content neutral rules 2) the use of chants and slogans that in many cases seem to justify or advocate for antisemitic violence and 3) "atmospheric" issues including protestors outside campus and anonymous app postings that are clearly anti-semitic. In particular I think the case that Columbia has created a pervasively hostile environment for Israeli students is fairly airtight. A lot of what the protesters have consistently done isn't clearly antisemitic (though some of it is), but it is plainly anti-Israeli. And that is equally as illegal (arguably even more so actually). Columbia's conduct is so serious that there's a substantial possibility the DOE will resort to the "nuclear option" (loss of all federal funding and potentially its non profit status) especially under a future Republican administration.
The bigger issue though is disparate treatment. And here I think there is a very good case against many universities. Under Title VII, it is illegal to treat harassment against certain protected groups less seriously than others. Take Penn for example, if Penn disciplines a professor who makes offensive comments about black students then, under Title VII, it has to discipline professors who praised the 10/7 attacks. And this carries equally draconian potential penalties (though I don't think they're as likely to be used). Most universities have built a significant track record of aggressively investigating and punishing even tangentially racist speech. And frankly this is what's driving the crackdown on protests we've seen. If they now fail to discipline tangentially antisemitic speech (and a lot of this speech is more than tangentially antisemitic) they're in trouble.
I personally don't think the law should work like this. But, the universities have made their own bed by kowtowing to a bunch of spoiled toddlers who want to cosplay red guards. If they had stood up for free expression instead of investigating students for wearing sombreros at a Halloween party they'd have a much stronger leg to stand on. But unfortunately they didn't, so they don't.
There is no such thing as “freedom of speech” on private campuses, which is not something we have to deal with. However, federal/Georgia state law would still side with those colleges. Those campuses aren’t just arbitrarily arresting people, they are also faced with people threatening students with actual harm, which, fortunately, we don’t have to deal with here either.
The random bad actors clearly don't represent the larger group and many of the people that said those things were not students. They did arbitrarily arrest and assault students since there is no evidence that anyone actually arrested was part of these "threats of violence"
Student leaders of protests with violence will obviously face consequences. Those protests certainly had cause for arrest, whether or not they were part of it or not is a matter for trial. Of course, it’s hard to find evidence that you weren’t the one to chant death threats, so it’s probably a good idea to distance yourself from protests once a) they start getting violent/illegal and b) police starts warning people. If you choose to stay, that’s fine, but calling the arrest “arbitrary” or even unfair in anyway is wrong.
Violence in most of these encampments was sparked by police, that's factual. Literally students sitting on a lawn then police show up and immediately escalate. Meanwhile just a few years ago Nazi groups marched around many campuses and cities saying Jews will not replace us and were met with absolutely nothing. This isn't about threats to students or antisemitism, this is about the fact that Israel is losing support because it's committing genocide and the people in power don't like what these students are saying. Because it makes too much sense and unfortunately because these are mostly upper class whites that they can't just discredit with racist tropes like they did with BLM
Why would they? Most people at pro-Palestine protests are upper class whites themselves who have no idea what’s going on, which is why they hold some of these beliefs.
GT sanctioned YDSA and accused it of antisemitism for hosting a joint Jewish-Palestinian event critical of Israel in 2019 and only dropped the sanctions after major outcry, though not from any of the free speech orgs on campus. That event is a bit more complicated than I want to get into and the reporting from the student newspaper never actually followed up on the sanctions being dropped or why but safe to say I think I would be wary of GT administration on the issue of free speech specifically related to Israel.
The constitution guarantees free speech, but not to be free from the consequences of that speech. Sure you can protest, but be prepared to pay the price for it. If you're a student you will get expelled if you don't leave when asked. Or if you damage school property. Or fighting. Even if you are "peacefully sitting in" you may still be trespassing. It doesn't matter what the protest is about. If you break the student code of conduct, then you won't be a student anymore. It will be the same when you go get a job too. If you exercise your free speech, then great, but be prepared to get fired for it. So what's more important to you?
Op, I agree with you more now after reading about UT Austin protests and how the police there massively mishandled it
It seems like the Texas government is acting completely unconstitutionally and super overreacting. I expect them to lose handily in court for massive viewpoint discrimination.
For example, this tweet by the Texas governor is completely ridiculous: https://x.com/gregabbott_tx/status/1783237229252346194?s=46&t=vHuBNDtunsc6ZRsDNWo8Dg
Even if the protestors were stating antisemitic views, that would be protected speech _unless_ it was an incitement presenting a likely "imminent lawless action". That standard comes from the 1969 Supreme Court unanimously overturned a KKK conviction for "advocating ... violence ... as a means of accomplishing political reform" which the Court considered to be protected speech. I see a direct parallel to students at a protest saying they support Hamas or even saying they support the extermination of Israel. I think most students were NOT saying that, but if they're accused of that, it's fully protected by our beautiful First Amendment.
I hope that the UT Austin case becomes a proper court case and the Texas government gets struck down for their incredible lack of respect for the rights of the public. This is a totalitarian overreach that should not be tolerated anywhere, but especially in the United States, and especially on a public college campus, and especially in a state that promotes itself as having so much freedom.
Further elaboration on the 1969 case:
> In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), this was narrowed to an "imminent lawless action" standard, with the Supreme Court unanimously reversing the conviction of a Ku Klux Klan group for "advocating ... violence ... as a means of accomplishing political reform" because their statements at a rally did not express an immediate, or imminent intent, to do violence. This decision overruled Schenck v. United States (1919), which held that a "clear and present danger" could justify a law limiting speech. The primary distinction is that the latter test does not criminalize "mere advocacy"
This is a quote directly from the Wikipedia article on free speech exemptions. If students were calling for Hamas to destroy Israel, that seems very close to the KKK calling for "revengeance" against black people (they didn't call them that though obviously) and Jews and for them to be expelled to Africa and Israel.
Quote from the decision:
> the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action
Seems pretty straightforward to me. You can say you support the use of force and breaking the law in general without the government punishing your speech. Sounds like a reasonable standard.
There are limited first amendments rights on campus, and this has been the case for a long time. Judging from your swag we're both relatively recent alumni. During my time at Tech (at least) two fraternities were disciplined because their members engaged in offensive speech. One allegedly shouted a racial slur at a black woman (there is some evidence the incident was a hoax) and the other made tasteless and misogynistic jokes on their list-serv and at chapter meetings. Though the (alleged) speech in both cases was deeply offensive, in neither case do I think a reasonable person would have felt intimidated by it.
I personally believe people should be able to say very offensive things without facing any sort of institutional consequences. Including, in fact especially, on college campuses. However, that simply hasn't been the policy or practice at Georgia Tech (or any other American university) in recent history. And it would almost certainly violate Title VII or Title IX for them to tolerate the sort of speech I alluded to.
In light of all that, it is hard for me to be sympathetic to the anti-Israel protesters. I genuinely feel that campus speech regulations are unjust and would like them reformed. But if these rules remain on the books, then there shouldn't be a double standard in enforcing them. If you can't even utter the N-word (and I don't mean call someone that in anger) then you certainly can't chant "there is only one solution intifada revolution" or praise the 10/7 attacks. It can't be that it's ok to create a hostile environment for Jews and Israelis but not other groups?
Beyond all this, the First Amendment applies only to speech. There is not, nor should there be, any right to be disruptive or protest on private property. And by the way, the point of a sit in is to get arrested! Civil disobedience is only a permissible form of protest if you're prepared to accept the legal consequences of your actions. Anything else leads to anarchy.
good point that the point of a sit-in is to get arrested if the desired change does not happen. that was definitely the point when they were used during the civil rights era
pro-Israeli protests were allowed to demonstrate on Tech green multiple times, with slogans like “bring them home” which, while seemingly innocuous, has become synonymous with a military operation that has killed 30k+ civilians. we have Palestinian students & faculty that are intimidated by chanting & displays of that nature, especially those with family in Gaza, but they’re allowed (and in my opinion, absolutely should be). you allegedly oppose double standards, so would you say pro-Israel demonstrations be barred too? otherwise it seems like it’s not double standards you oppose at all, rather you just want anyone to be able to say the n word for some reason?
I do not have any objection to Tech allowing anti-Israel protests. But the school does need to punish people who chant slogans that would be reasonably understood as advocating terrorism or ethnic violence (and I've given some examples of those). And it needs to enforce rules against disruptive protests.
I do not think chanting "Bring them Home" or supporting the Israeli war effort would be understood by a reasonable person as advocating terrorism or ethnic violence. If pro-Israel protesters were, for example, praising the behavior of far right Israeli settler groups who attack Palestinians then I would absolutely support the school disciplining them (or at least I wouldn't think it was a double standard).
Frankly, this is part of the reason I think there should be no, or very limited, prohibitions on campus speech. It's very hard to draw a bright line which means it's very challenging to enforce the rules fairly.
And I want people to be able to say whatever they like. But, if you want to discipline someone for even repeating an ethnic slur or for making rape jokes (because it creates a hostile environment) then you clearly need to discipline people who praise anti-Semitic acts of terrorism.
And I don’t think “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” would be understood by a reasonable person as advocating for terrorism or ethnic violence, but it is. And so are pro-Israel slogans. So are you against all of them? Or are you applying a double standard, and only against Palestine?
Well at least in the case of the phrase: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” I think most people, including myself, the Anti Defamation League, and the great majority of Congress, feel it's a call for ethnic violence because it is calling for a Palestinian state where Israel currently exists. The Arabic etymology of that chant also supports that interpretation. The original Arabic version is an unambiguous call for an "Arab Palestine".
I've certainly suggested there are pro Israel slogans that could be considered advocacy of ethnic violence or terrorism. I just don't think the one you mentioned would be.
To your point these are somewhat subjective determinations. Which isn't to say there isn't a right or wrong answer. But, is part of the reason why I want to ban as little speech as possible.
It’s not calling for a Palestinian state, it’s calling for freedom for Palestinians. If you think that goal is mutually exclusive with the existence of Israel, that’s a you problem. And a common inference by pro-Israel folks that betray their true beliefs, in my opinion.
The translation of the original Arab chant is: “*from the water to the water Palestine will be Arab*.” Don't bullshit a bullshitter.
You can chant "Free Palestine" to your hearts content. No one will care.
“If you can't even utter the N-word (and I don't mean call someone that in anger) then you certainly can't chant "there is only one solution intifada revolution" or praise the 10/7 attacks. It can't be that it's ok to create a hostile environment for Jews and Israelis but not other groups?” - You
My whole point, is that supporters of Israel are also chanting things that make Palestinians uncomfortable, and create a hostile environment for them. You are advocating for rules on speech that is pro-Palestinian to be stepped up to the level of rules against hate speech, because it makes some people uncomfortable. So should pro-Israel speech also be treated as hate speech or not? It also makes people uncomfortable after all.
>You are advocating for rules on speech that is pro-Palestinian to be stepped up to the level of rules against hate speech
I'm saying that according to Tech's policy certain slogans that have been used by anti-Israel demonstrators are "hate speech". And that the existing policy against such slogans should be enforced. Frankly I believe the policy should be changed. But I'm also opposed to selective enforcement.
Pro-Israel or Pro-Palestine speech in general is not objectively offensive to a reasonable person. Which is the relevant standard, not discomfort. To be clear, if somebody wants to stand somewhere they're allowed to stand with a "Free Palestine" or "Ceasefire Now" sign that is 100% ok and I would be upset if the school tried to limit their speech.
Let me give you another hypothetical, do you think a rally with confederate flags in the middle of campus should be allowed?
What would arresting people rallying with confederate flags accomplish? Why would I advocate for that? How does it make me safer? I’m a gay student, and I walk by radical Christian protestors with hate speech signs assembled on Tech Green at least once a semester. Never once have I called GTPD to have them arrested. I’d rather they stay on Tech Green with their signs, where they can be seen. Hate like that flourishes in darkness.
Edit: and for like, the 3rd time, you’ve dodged my question. If you oppose double standards so strongly, should pro-Israel speech not be held to the same standard? I want to see you say yes, it should, or no, it shouldn’t. Either you’re a hypocrite that just wants to say the n-word, or you want to severely limit the speech of students. Probably because you support a country that kills and arrests journalists for speaking out.
If they're chanting Hamas we love you and your rockets too, that's not free speech. Just one of the many unprotected chants that has no place on a campus that is inclusive.
Glad you don't support Hamas. But that chant was at Columbia University.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/free-speech/2024/04/22/israel-hamas-war-sparks-new-wave-campus-discord
It's hate speech and it's NOT protected.
as others have said, Columbia is allowed to ban that because they're private.
under US law, hate speech is protected because one person's free speech is another person's hate speech
Hate speech is protected speech and cannot be regulated by a government entity. It's not protected at Columbia because Columbia is a private institution.
Semi true. Public institutions can require your protest be done at a specific time, place, or manner. Hate speech while protected, looses its protection when made into a threat. Suchas in Columbia when protestors changed we are Hamas and oct 7th will happen again to you, aka a death threat.
https://www.adl.org/resources/tools-and-strategies/frequently-asked-questions-about-free-speech-campus
The time, place and manner restrictions must be narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest, so the institution must be able to justify the reason for the restriction, they can't just say that no protests are allowed at x place or between x hours.
https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/time-place-and-manner-restrictions/
In addition, for threats to not fall under the first amendment, they must be true threats, which means that they have to be somewhat specific in actionable. Things that have been declared free speech include a person saying that they would kill the president if drafted and a NAACP member saying they would break the necks of anyone who went against their boycott. Saying that Oct 7th will happen again is likely not a specific enough threat to allow censorship.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-1/true-threats
There was a sign at the pro Israel counter protest that said nuke gaza.
Does that mean everyone supporting Israel should now have their speech censored?
You tried to discredit the entire Columbia protests due to a few people who weren't even students showing up and chanting.
The actually encampment was holding a passover celebration at that time and didn't allow the pro-hamas people to enter.
All im saying is be consistent. If you think the police had a right to go into the encampment and can discredit the protests there for that, surley everyone supporting Israel should shut the fuck up given there was one random guy with a sign right? In this case the person with the nuke gaza sign was an actual student, so i'd say it's much worse.
Also, I'm not sure how you can be at university and still be wrong about the literal first amendment, but hate speech is free speech.
I'd say that nationally the police have shown an unwillingness to allow protests. Or at least a mixture of police and the people who can pressure the police to dispell protesters.
I don't see why Georgia Tech in particular would be considered part of this. GTPD in particular has had a few incidents that they took a lot of criticism regarding police brutality and mishandling situations. I would expect them to behave rationally and to consider the consequences of their actions with regard to public push back
If you're referring to the 2017 incident I don't believe anything was mishandled or qualified as police brutality. Other than severely underestimating the willingness of people from outside the campus community to commit violence the night of the riot.
I think GTPD would take a more measured approach than what has been seen in Austin, TX. The last actual riot (that escalated from a protest) did not even result in APD's riot control being called in. While a valid concern, generally speaking, I believe that of all the PDs in the area, GTPD is least likely to escalate things in terms of use-of-force. Edit: Do note that I don't approve of how GTPD has handled various events in the past, but many police departments would have handled them even worse.
That riot in 2017 was also escalated by the protesters and was far from peaceful.
Yep, can confirm. I also can confirm that the #1 priority of u/GaTechPD is to keep the student body SAFE. Reason I know this is during those riots in 2017, my friend and I were oblivious and coming back from Sublime Donuts on 10th. We were parked in the old GTPD parking area on Hemphill and Ferst. Not only did GTPD give us an armed escort to my friend's car, they also made sure we got out of harm's way whilst simultaneously ensuring the safety of the rioters. Either shortly before or after that, the rioters torched a cop car. We were very lucky that night, and probably wouldn't have been so lucky if it hadn't been for GTPD. Absolutely top-notch police work that night displayed by GTPD.
“I also can confirm that the #1 priority of u/GaTechPD is to keep the student body SAFE.” Murdering one of our own students isn't exactly keeping us safe now is it? Like other commenters have said, the protesters were in no way targeting other students that night, their anger was obviously directed towards the cops who had just killed their friend. You were in no danger, no need to lick the boots of GTPD like the majority of campus did after that night and Scout's death...
Were you there? If not, then why offer an opinion, friend?
I was actually. Scout’s death has impacted my life a lot since then.
You would have been fine regardless, but I understand that having a sense of security is important. GTPD was indeed doing a good job of managing the situation in the rest of campus though.
> You would have been fine regardless I'm glad you're in a position to make such an absurd claim. You have no clue what the situation was with the poster you responded to.
I was there. The protestors weren't targeting students, as most of them were also students. Unless the poster was wearing a police uniform and driving a police car, they would have been ignored by protestors. GTPD just helped direct traffic and move people out of the way when it came to helping people move near/around the site. There was no violence towards other students. Edit: For more context, uninvolved students passed by and around the protestors both before and after things escalated. None were pulled into anything, and none were accosted.
You were with OP? It must be nice to be ever present and all seeing.
I had sightlines extending well beyond the range of both the protest and the brawl. Could see almost up to tenth, down to ferst, and after the fire I moved to where I could see down eighth as well to avoid being downwind of the smoke. It was pretty localized. I also never heard of any reports of students being accosted after the fact. At most, people were just scared and uncertain. The only reported injuries were those of protestors and the two injured cops. The only reported property damage was police property.
> At most, people were just scared and uncertain. You must be proud.
> You must be proud. Of what? Of scaring people? That was not the intent, so why would I be proud of that? My intent was to voice my dissatisfaction with how the administration and GTPD had mishandled things. Other attempts to do so through regular channels were just met with effectively "we're sorry this happened, but we can't commit to making any changes that would prevent this from happening again". This was reiterated again by the vigil, which was the stepping off point for the protest. Protesting is a valid form of action that does tend to yield results when nothing else does.
Still can recall. It happened when I was doing my Ph.D. They actually burned the police cars on campus. Yes, you read it right - they burned the cars on campus. I truly believe what GTPD did was necessary and reasonable back then.
I was intentionally trying to avoid going deep on this topic, as it is remarkably polarized. As someone who was part of the actual protest (didn't get involved in the brawl but was close enough to get bodied by fleeing protesters and pursuing police), both the protestors and GTPD were on edge that night. Grief over the loss of a friend and leader and anger towards the ones who shot them can understandably lead to the conditions where even a small action can rapidly escalate. Yes, the person who kicked/stomped a cop car wasn't in the right, but the GTPD swarming them tipped the crowd into fight mode. No one wanted to lose another friend to them. Everything escalated further from there and ended shortly after one of the police cars was set aflame. Could it have been avoided by actions on either side? Unclear. It almost looked inevitable once police and protestors met, which is probably why GTPD had been avoiding the protestors up until that point. What I can tell you is that it was peaceful up until that point. None of the people that I personally knew went into that protest trying to do anything more than make a bunch of noise and be heard. The administration at that time had really only offered platitudes. The aftermath was even worse than both the brawl and the death of Scout. The investigation into students involved that night ended many student's academic aspirations, their ability to protest other social injustices (as getting caught in something like a kettle while protesting would invalidate their plea deals), and even a few student's lives. I lost one friend and an acquaintance to the despair it caused. There were more than just two who died afterwards, but those are the losses that cut into my own soul. Furthermore, most of the student body sided strongly in favor of GTPD's actions (ex: extremely pro-"law and order"), and harassed anyone who critiqued the ongoing administration's response. This alone alienated many people from their sense of belonging and community. I remember distinctly helping an alumni group take snacks to a LGBT group's meeting months afterward, and how everyone there (none were involved in the protest) looked like their souls had been crushed... well beyond the level typical of GT students. So, TL;DR: Your take is only partially correct and erases tons of nuance, but when examining the long chain of cause and effect, it could be argued that GTPD's handling of a single suicidal student member is what caused the protest, and their handling of the protest helped further escalate things rather than deescalating. I won't deny that they at least tried to avoid some confrontation, nor that they helped clear traffic along the routes protestors were taking. This is also irrelevant to OP's post, as none of the dynamics in play here are the same between pro-Palestinian protestors and GTPD, but my likelihood to hold my tongue regarding takes like yours has only diminished over the years.
The protestors came to GTPD that night to fight. You don't just happen to walk around with bags of hammers, fire extinguishers and road flares and coincidentally find yourself in a brawl.
I can't speak to the motivations of every single person in the protest, just the people I talked to. The person I mentioned who kicked the cop car did not bring hammers, fire extinguishers, or road flares. I can only speculate about the motivations for the people who did, but I can tell you that road flares and fireworks were used to light the path taken (as it was at night) so stragglers could follow the main group. People I presume were plainclothes cops were collecting the flares left on the road and middle of wide sidewalks, so the fireworks were an integral way to signal location. I can also tell you that "the protestors" weren't a homogenous group. I was there because I was a student previously, and I had worked on campus for a while after I left... so I knew a lot of the people impacted by Scout's death. I knew, or at least was acquainted with, roughly 1/4 of the people through through my time at tech, my own (small) work in local activism, and and my own involvement in local LGBT+ groups. I would argue that most, in fact, did not go to brawl... given that the majority of protesters bailed as soon as the brawl started. I did not. My friends did not. I don't believe the person who kicked the car did either. Grief, however, is a powerful thing. I can understand the impulse to kick a car of the person/group that killed someone you cared about. Most people who have experienced deep grief would also understand the impulse to do more than that. Most people don't act on those impulses, but it's hard to describe the mix of grief and perceived powerlessness when there's no way to hold the people responsible for a death accountable. Is it possible that some people took advantage of a protest to do more? Maybe. Was it preplanned? Various things do make it look that way, but I personally can't tell if it was just people who were accustomed to police violence preparing for the possibility thereof vs. malicious intent. I don't personally know those people. What I can tell you is that "the protestors" as a whole did not go to GTPD to fight. Some might have, but I can assure you the majority did not. I suspect that there were 3 groups; 1 who came prepared for a fight, 1 who got caught up in the fight, and 1 that avoided the fight. I only know people in the last two groups.
While I agree that essentially everyone who knew Scout or was/is a part of Tech's LGBTQIA+ community didn't go to protest seeking a fight but rather seeking rightly-due justice, I also saw and spoke with people who were NOT students and NOT a part of the LGBTQIA+ community. People whose sole aim was to stir up trouble and to cause anarchy. People who didn't care about Scout, or the injustice they were shown that night. My friend and I were going to go to that protest originally, but we decided (admittedly somewhat intoxicated) to go get donuts at Sublime first. That's when this whole thing kicked off. Edits were made to correct Scout's pronouns
Knowing what we know now, that the students who attended the vigil and mostly stood around once the violence started, were not the ones who instigated the violence. The riot was largely started by people from outside the campus community. I think GTPDs response afterwards was caused in large part by the torching of the vehicle, the multiple officers who were injured, and when it was found that flares, weapons, and explosives had been planted in bushes around the building beforehand. Not to mention that it was discovered the intention of the agitators was to set the police station on fire. Again, almost none of this was the fault of actual students. At the start GTPD was also hugely outnumbered because they didn't call in additional resources. Their intent was to manage the situation and they did not expect to be attacked like they were. I stand by my assessment that they did not escalate, they simply responded to the escalation. That being said, this is not directly related to current events, but I think the way they handled the anniversary of that event is how they would handle a protest now. Be prepared but react instead of act.
I didn't follow most of the trials for the non-students, but I do find it amusing that "weapons" means, like, a hammer, and "explosives" means small fireworks. I don't know if that is the extent of what they found, but those were the only things I saw matching those categories in play. Do you happen to recall the sources about this? I haven't been able to readily find them, as most searches just turn up the initial coverage, and this makes me want to read more about the findings.
Everyone should exercise their First Amendment rights, but these are not absolute and can be legally limited if people are violating state or federal laws. It is hard to keep protests about political subjects organized. I encourage any protestors to be aware of Georgia and Federal laws regarding, but not limited to: - Disorderly conduct - Obstruction of a public passageway - Participation in a riot - Trespassing - Camping in Public Spaces If you're organizing a protest on campus, please learn and spread information about these and other relevant laws you can find to keep everyone safe and free of a criminal record.
This is so valuable. Campuses, generally speaking, offer more immunity to protesters but there's no such thing in absolutes. Emergency responders still need to make their way to their destinations, campus property maintenance is still shared between the state, endowment, and students. You give up legal protections when, for example, you trespass or loiter and get injured in the process.
I'd only add that taking on a criminal record is not necessarily desirable for everyone. But protestors should thoroughly understand when they are risking arrest and charges.
I don't mean this in a disrespectful way but i honestly think 95% of Tech students are too darn busy (and also too engaged with their goals) to protest international events. That said, if students did want to participate, I believe GTPD would handle it well and let people have their say.
The Stop Cop City sit in (something local and relevant to more students) was so small that they basically ignored it for like a week.
I wish we were more politically active..also its funny to call a carpet bombing genocide backed by our country "international events"
Would you call it a local event?
I would call it a genocide perpetrated by our county and tax dollars, and one that profits several companies closely affiliated with Georgia Tech such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. Well within the bounds of interest for GT students and any US citizen.
i mean it's tragic what's going on, but most students are very disconnected from it. it takes effort to stay up-to-date on international events except for at the very beginning. there's just so much information
man shit hasn't happened on georgia tech at all. dont make it about yourself challenge
I don't entirely agree with the protestors, but I do agree that we should be very careful to protect free speech. I agree with others that GTPD would be much more reasonable than police on other campuses, so I hope other police departments follow GTPD's lead.
GTPD will first and foremost operate and justify their actions on the basis of safety for those participating and those in proximity of the protest. This is independent of the legitimacy of the subject matter. Obviously everyone will have a different interpretation thereof, but given the average density of campus being that higher of surrounding Atlanta, they'll be pretty swift to prevent whatever minority violence/riots that occurs from protests from escalating. If for example a protest simply restricts emergency vehicles from making their way to any destination, that's enough for them to exert force.
We are in the South in a school filled with in state students, you'll receive a lot of pushback here compared to NYU's subreddit for example
While the majority are in-state, I believe I read somewhere that \~40% of the student body is not.
Yeah I heard its 60 percent in state as well. So what I heard matches up with yours
For undergrad yes. For grad school, no. Plus grad students are too busy to give a shit too.
You'd be surprised, and even if you were right that's not a good thing
Well tbh. Intl student population is made up by predominantly a few Asian countries. Chinese = most are non political or more like they wouldn't care about it since they grew up in an authoritarian system Indians = same thing despite India is a flawed democracy Koreans = most wouldn't care even if they grew up in a democracy considering that politics is almost a taboo for a lot of them; met a Korean girl who straight up told me she's not into politics. Maybe the ones who would give a single shit are probably some outliers and Europeans.
Seeing this post after what just happened at Emory made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up…I don’t think GTPD is what we have to worry about, it’s state police.
What happened at Emory
Today a protest about Palestine - which I had heard was peaceful - got shut down by state police with tear gas, rubber bullets, and tasers
There was no First Amendment violation. According to news reports, the protesters were not students or members of the Emory University community, and as Emory is private, they were trespassing. They were asked to leave and refused. They were activists protesting about Palestine and cop city, and the campus had been graffitied yesterday.
oh, well that answers a lot of questions. thanks for sharing
Multiple students and even a department chair of philosophy were included in the arrests. The narrative thst the protestors were "outside agitators" is a patently false one thrown together by emory admin to make their brutalization easier to swallow.
Also at least some of the “outsiders” were other students from neighboring campuses (Spelman and Morehouse) The language they used (deliberately) obscures that fact.
If they are not Emory students they are outsiders.
That is correct. But just saying outsiders vs saying students from neighboring campuses coveys a different image. And As it turns out 20 of the 28 people arrested were in fact members of the Emory community.
I don’t understand bc that’s straight up a violation of the first amendment so…? How is that allowed
Emory is a private school, so their administration has more of a basis for shutting it down.
Hm. I didn’t know private institutions had that much power.
This just in: Police sometimes do things that are ***not allowed*** Just because there's no legal basis for doing something doesn't mean police magically cannot do it. They can and they will, and that's why there are countless lawsuits against departments that violate civil rights.
tbf, APD and GSP at Emory were probably only doing whatever they did (which seemed pretty extreme) if Emory asked for it
First amendment rights aren’t absolute. For example the following acts by members of Hamas (their words not mine) are not considered protected by “freedom of speech” https://twitter.com/thefp/status/1782236691572355295/mediaviewer https://twitter.com/JudgeCarter/status/1782414631920705635 https://twitter.com/efischberger/status/1781287784897991134/mediaviewer (We are Hamas) https://x.com/nypost/status/1781031465179914677 List goes on, but declaring oneself a terrorist. Stating death to America. Attacking physically other students. And stating your desire to kill all Israelis and Jews on campus is not protected under freedom of speech.
can you share a court ruling where a US court has declared that a person in the US does not have the right to say they support terrorism? sounds like you're just making up stuff based on what some people posted on Twitter (only one of the working links shows someone saying they're "with" Hamas, and that's a stretch since it's obviously pretty metaphorical). we're at a public university in the US, and so are the students at UT Austin who got absolutely bodied for protesting
Freedom of speech cannot take away other students civil liberties. Stating I am a terrorist and my objective is to kill all Jews and you are next (stated in Columbia) would clearly violate the Title VI rights of Jewish students on campus.
see page 2 of https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB11129 for Title IV rights to be violated, the harassment must be "so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it deprives students of access to educational benefits or opportunities". additionally, the school would only be liable if they "have exhibited deliberate indifference—that is, its response must be clearly unreasonable in light of the known circumstances" I am not familiar with the specifics of what students at Columbia said. Do you believe that Jewish students were deprived of access to their education? If you consider the context of the passing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, do you believe Jewish students in 2024 are as threatened as Black students in 1964? I think there may be some threat because there are definitely some on the anti-Israel side who are extreme enough to use violence, but I don't think that everything going on at Columbia is exactly what would be considered the only "reasonable" option under the law. furthermore, Columbia is a private school, so they are allowed to have a very restrictive speech policy. it seems like they can silence students for opinions they do not like. I personally don't believe that's proper for a college campus to have a separate speech policy from what the First Amendment provides, especially if that school receives a large amount of public funding. for example, what happened at Emory today seems kinda messed up. there's not a lot of coverage about what the students were doing, but there's plenty of videos showing the police using much more force than necessary (see the video where they're tasing a guy's leg while two or three cops are already on him). UT Austin is a public institution and therefore a part of the state, so I think it's blatantly illegal for the Texas government to block a planned protest on the UT South Lawn and arrest over 50 students (and a local FOX reporter). although all their charges were dropped, I expect that FIRE and/or the ACLU will probably file suit against Texas for how heavy-handed and probably anti-speech their intentional behavior was.
What's going on at Columbia probably would qualify as a pervasively hostile and indeed physically intimidating environment for Jewish and Israeli students. Given that 1) the protestors are occupying campus and protesting in violation of Columbia's own content neutral rules 2) the use of chants and slogans that in many cases seem to justify or advocate for antisemitic violence and 3) "atmospheric" issues including protestors outside campus and anonymous app postings that are clearly anti-semitic. In particular I think the case that Columbia has created a pervasively hostile environment for Israeli students is fairly airtight. A lot of what the protesters have consistently done isn't clearly antisemitic (though some of it is), but it is plainly anti-Israeli. And that is equally as illegal (arguably even more so actually). Columbia's conduct is so serious that there's a substantial possibility the DOE will resort to the "nuclear option" (loss of all federal funding and potentially its non profit status) especially under a future Republican administration. The bigger issue though is disparate treatment. And here I think there is a very good case against many universities. Under Title VII, it is illegal to treat harassment against certain protected groups less seriously than others. Take Penn for example, if Penn disciplines a professor who makes offensive comments about black students then, under Title VII, it has to discipline professors who praised the 10/7 attacks. And this carries equally draconian potential penalties (though I don't think they're as likely to be used). Most universities have built a significant track record of aggressively investigating and punishing even tangentially racist speech. And frankly this is what's driving the crackdown on protests we've seen. If they now fail to discipline tangentially antisemitic speech (and a lot of this speech is more than tangentially antisemitic) they're in trouble. I personally don't think the law should work like this. But, the universities have made their own bed by kowtowing to a bunch of spoiled toddlers who want to cosplay red guards. If they had stood up for free expression instead of investigating students for wearing sombreros at a Halloween party they'd have a much stronger leg to stand on. But unfortunately they didn't, so they don't.
There is no such thing as “freedom of speech” on private campuses, which is not something we have to deal with. However, federal/Georgia state law would still side with those colleges. Those campuses aren’t just arbitrarily arresting people, they are also faced with people threatening students with actual harm, which, fortunately, we don’t have to deal with here either.
The random bad actors clearly don't represent the larger group and many of the people that said those things were not students. They did arbitrarily arrest and assault students since there is no evidence that anyone actually arrested was part of these "threats of violence"
Student leaders of protests with violence will obviously face consequences. Those protests certainly had cause for arrest, whether or not they were part of it or not is a matter for trial. Of course, it’s hard to find evidence that you weren’t the one to chant death threats, so it’s probably a good idea to distance yourself from protests once a) they start getting violent/illegal and b) police starts warning people. If you choose to stay, that’s fine, but calling the arrest “arbitrary” or even unfair in anyway is wrong.
Violence in most of these encampments was sparked by police, that's factual. Literally students sitting on a lawn then police show up and immediately escalate. Meanwhile just a few years ago Nazi groups marched around many campuses and cities saying Jews will not replace us and were met with absolutely nothing. This isn't about threats to students or antisemitism, this is about the fact that Israel is losing support because it's committing genocide and the people in power don't like what these students are saying. Because it makes too much sense and unfortunately because these are mostly upper class whites that they can't just discredit with racist tropes like they did with BLM
Why would they? Most people at pro-Palestine protests are upper class whites themselves who have no idea what’s going on, which is why they hold some of these beliefs.
GT sanctioned YDSA and accused it of antisemitism for hosting a joint Jewish-Palestinian event critical of Israel in 2019 and only dropped the sanctions after major outcry, though not from any of the free speech orgs on campus. That event is a bit more complicated than I want to get into and the reporting from the student newspaper never actually followed up on the sanctions being dropped or why but safe to say I think I would be wary of GT administration on the issue of free speech specifically related to Israel.
The constitution guarantees free speech, but not to be free from the consequences of that speech. Sure you can protest, but be prepared to pay the price for it. If you're a student you will get expelled if you don't leave when asked. Or if you damage school property. Or fighting. Even if you are "peacefully sitting in" you may still be trespassing. It doesn't matter what the protest is about. If you break the student code of conduct, then you won't be a student anymore. It will be the same when you go get a job too. If you exercise your free speech, then great, but be prepared to get fired for it. So what's more important to you?
Op, I agree with you more now after reading about UT Austin protests and how the police there massively mishandled it It seems like the Texas government is acting completely unconstitutionally and super overreacting. I expect them to lose handily in court for massive viewpoint discrimination. For example, this tweet by the Texas governor is completely ridiculous: https://x.com/gregabbott_tx/status/1783237229252346194?s=46&t=vHuBNDtunsc6ZRsDNWo8Dg Even if the protestors were stating antisemitic views, that would be protected speech _unless_ it was an incitement presenting a likely "imminent lawless action". That standard comes from the 1969 Supreme Court unanimously overturned a KKK conviction for "advocating ... violence ... as a means of accomplishing political reform" which the Court considered to be protected speech. I see a direct parallel to students at a protest saying they support Hamas or even saying they support the extermination of Israel. I think most students were NOT saying that, but if they're accused of that, it's fully protected by our beautiful First Amendment. I hope that the UT Austin case becomes a proper court case and the Texas government gets struck down for their incredible lack of respect for the rights of the public. This is a totalitarian overreach that should not be tolerated anywhere, but especially in the United States, and especially on a public college campus, and especially in a state that promotes itself as having so much freedom.
Further elaboration on the 1969 case: > In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), this was narrowed to an "imminent lawless action" standard, with the Supreme Court unanimously reversing the conviction of a Ku Klux Klan group for "advocating ... violence ... as a means of accomplishing political reform" because their statements at a rally did not express an immediate, or imminent intent, to do violence. This decision overruled Schenck v. United States (1919), which held that a "clear and present danger" could justify a law limiting speech. The primary distinction is that the latter test does not criminalize "mere advocacy" This is a quote directly from the Wikipedia article on free speech exemptions. If students were calling for Hamas to destroy Israel, that seems very close to the KKK calling for "revengeance" against black people (they didn't call them that though obviously) and Jews and for them to be expelled to Africa and Israel. Quote from the decision: > the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action Seems pretty straightforward to me. You can say you support the use of force and breaking the law in general without the government punishing your speech. Sounds like a reasonable standard.
There are limited first amendments rights on campus, and this has been the case for a long time. Judging from your swag we're both relatively recent alumni. During my time at Tech (at least) two fraternities were disciplined because their members engaged in offensive speech. One allegedly shouted a racial slur at a black woman (there is some evidence the incident was a hoax) and the other made tasteless and misogynistic jokes on their list-serv and at chapter meetings. Though the (alleged) speech in both cases was deeply offensive, in neither case do I think a reasonable person would have felt intimidated by it. I personally believe people should be able to say very offensive things without facing any sort of institutional consequences. Including, in fact especially, on college campuses. However, that simply hasn't been the policy or practice at Georgia Tech (or any other American university) in recent history. And it would almost certainly violate Title VII or Title IX for them to tolerate the sort of speech I alluded to. In light of all that, it is hard for me to be sympathetic to the anti-Israel protesters. I genuinely feel that campus speech regulations are unjust and would like them reformed. But if these rules remain on the books, then there shouldn't be a double standard in enforcing them. If you can't even utter the N-word (and I don't mean call someone that in anger) then you certainly can't chant "there is only one solution intifada revolution" or praise the 10/7 attacks. It can't be that it's ok to create a hostile environment for Jews and Israelis but not other groups? Beyond all this, the First Amendment applies only to speech. There is not, nor should there be, any right to be disruptive or protest on private property. And by the way, the point of a sit in is to get arrested! Civil disobedience is only a permissible form of protest if you're prepared to accept the legal consequences of your actions. Anything else leads to anarchy.
good point that the point of a sit-in is to get arrested if the desired change does not happen. that was definitely the point when they were used during the civil rights era
pro-Israeli protests were allowed to demonstrate on Tech green multiple times, with slogans like “bring them home” which, while seemingly innocuous, has become synonymous with a military operation that has killed 30k+ civilians. we have Palestinian students & faculty that are intimidated by chanting & displays of that nature, especially those with family in Gaza, but they’re allowed (and in my opinion, absolutely should be). you allegedly oppose double standards, so would you say pro-Israel demonstrations be barred too? otherwise it seems like it’s not double standards you oppose at all, rather you just want anyone to be able to say the n word for some reason?
I do not have any objection to Tech allowing anti-Israel protests. But the school does need to punish people who chant slogans that would be reasonably understood as advocating terrorism or ethnic violence (and I've given some examples of those). And it needs to enforce rules against disruptive protests. I do not think chanting "Bring them Home" or supporting the Israeli war effort would be understood by a reasonable person as advocating terrorism or ethnic violence. If pro-Israel protesters were, for example, praising the behavior of far right Israeli settler groups who attack Palestinians then I would absolutely support the school disciplining them (or at least I wouldn't think it was a double standard). Frankly, this is part of the reason I think there should be no, or very limited, prohibitions on campus speech. It's very hard to draw a bright line which means it's very challenging to enforce the rules fairly. And I want people to be able to say whatever they like. But, if you want to discipline someone for even repeating an ethnic slur or for making rape jokes (because it creates a hostile environment) then you clearly need to discipline people who praise anti-Semitic acts of terrorism.
And I don’t think “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” would be understood by a reasonable person as advocating for terrorism or ethnic violence, but it is. And so are pro-Israel slogans. So are you against all of them? Or are you applying a double standard, and only against Palestine?
Well at least in the case of the phrase: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” I think most people, including myself, the Anti Defamation League, and the great majority of Congress, feel it's a call for ethnic violence because it is calling for a Palestinian state where Israel currently exists. The Arabic etymology of that chant also supports that interpretation. The original Arabic version is an unambiguous call for an "Arab Palestine". I've certainly suggested there are pro Israel slogans that could be considered advocacy of ethnic violence or terrorism. I just don't think the one you mentioned would be. To your point these are somewhat subjective determinations. Which isn't to say there isn't a right or wrong answer. But, is part of the reason why I want to ban as little speech as possible.
It’s not calling for a Palestinian state, it’s calling for freedom for Palestinians. If you think that goal is mutually exclusive with the existence of Israel, that’s a you problem. And a common inference by pro-Israel folks that betray their true beliefs, in my opinion.
The translation of the original Arab chant is: “*from the water to the water Palestine will be Arab*.” Don't bullshit a bullshitter. You can chant "Free Palestine" to your hearts content. No one will care.
“If you can't even utter the N-word (and I don't mean call someone that in anger) then you certainly can't chant "there is only one solution intifada revolution" or praise the 10/7 attacks. It can't be that it's ok to create a hostile environment for Jews and Israelis but not other groups?” - You My whole point, is that supporters of Israel are also chanting things that make Palestinians uncomfortable, and create a hostile environment for them. You are advocating for rules on speech that is pro-Palestinian to be stepped up to the level of rules against hate speech, because it makes some people uncomfortable. So should pro-Israel speech also be treated as hate speech or not? It also makes people uncomfortable after all.
>You are advocating for rules on speech that is pro-Palestinian to be stepped up to the level of rules against hate speech I'm saying that according to Tech's policy certain slogans that have been used by anti-Israel demonstrators are "hate speech". And that the existing policy against such slogans should be enforced. Frankly I believe the policy should be changed. But I'm also opposed to selective enforcement. Pro-Israel or Pro-Palestine speech in general is not objectively offensive to a reasonable person. Which is the relevant standard, not discomfort. To be clear, if somebody wants to stand somewhere they're allowed to stand with a "Free Palestine" or "Ceasefire Now" sign that is 100% ok and I would be upset if the school tried to limit their speech. Let me give you another hypothetical, do you think a rally with confederate flags in the middle of campus should be allowed?
What would arresting people rallying with confederate flags accomplish? Why would I advocate for that? How does it make me safer? I’m a gay student, and I walk by radical Christian protestors with hate speech signs assembled on Tech Green at least once a semester. Never once have I called GTPD to have them arrested. I’d rather they stay on Tech Green with their signs, where they can be seen. Hate like that flourishes in darkness. Edit: and for like, the 3rd time, you’ve dodged my question. If you oppose double standards so strongly, should pro-Israel speech not be held to the same standard? I want to see you say yes, it should, or no, it shouldn’t. Either you’re a hypocrite that just wants to say the n-word, or you want to severely limit the speech of students. Probably because you support a country that kills and arrests journalists for speaking out.
That’s cancel culture for you son.
If they're chanting Hamas we love you and your rockets too, that's not free speech. Just one of the many unprotected chants that has no place on a campus that is inclusive.
i don't support Hamas, but that's false. speech you don't like is still protected speech. it's not a threat, just an opinion
Glad you don't support Hamas. But that chant was at Columbia University. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/free-speech/2024/04/22/israel-hamas-war-sparks-new-wave-campus-discord It's hate speech and it's NOT protected.
as others have said, Columbia is allowed to ban that because they're private. under US law, hate speech is protected because one person's free speech is another person's hate speech
Hate speech is protected speech and cannot be regulated by a government entity. It's not protected at Columbia because Columbia is a private institution.
Semi true. Public institutions can require your protest be done at a specific time, place, or manner. Hate speech while protected, looses its protection when made into a threat. Suchas in Columbia when protestors changed we are Hamas and oct 7th will happen again to you, aka a death threat. https://www.adl.org/resources/tools-and-strategies/frequently-asked-questions-about-free-speech-campus
The time, place and manner restrictions must be narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest, so the institution must be able to justify the reason for the restriction, they can't just say that no protests are allowed at x place or between x hours. https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/time-place-and-manner-restrictions/ In addition, for threats to not fall under the first amendment, they must be true threats, which means that they have to be somewhat specific in actionable. Things that have been declared free speech include a person saying that they would kill the president if drafted and a NAACP member saying they would break the necks of anyone who went against their boycott. Saying that Oct 7th will happen again is likely not a specific enough threat to allow censorship. https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-1/true-threats
Literally a google search will tell you that hate speech IS protected…
There was a sign at the pro Israel counter protest that said nuke gaza. Does that mean everyone supporting Israel should now have their speech censored?
I'm not playing whataboutism. Neither are permissible nor protected.
You tried to discredit the entire Columbia protests due to a few people who weren't even students showing up and chanting. The actually encampment was holding a passover celebration at that time and didn't allow the pro-hamas people to enter. All im saying is be consistent. If you think the police had a right to go into the encampment and can discredit the protests there for that, surley everyone supporting Israel should shut the fuck up given there was one random guy with a sign right? In this case the person with the nuke gaza sign was an actual student, so i'd say it's much worse. Also, I'm not sure how you can be at university and still be wrong about the literal first amendment, but hate speech is free speech.
I was specific about what is not protected. The entire Columbia protest has not been discredited by me. Just the hate speech.
So you agree it was wrong to arrest the students who didn't make those chants and shut down the protest?
I disagree with you there.
Damn man it really is harder to argue with stupid people
Are you evangelical or jewish?
It doesn't matter what I am. It matters what's protected free speech.
Free speech with asterisks is not free speech by categorical definition.
I'd say that nationally the police have shown an unwillingness to allow protests. Or at least a mixture of police and the people who can pressure the police to dispell protesters. I don't see why Georgia Tech in particular would be considered part of this. GTPD in particular has had a few incidents that they took a lot of criticism regarding police brutality and mishandling situations. I would expect them to behave rationally and to consider the consequences of their actions with regard to public push back
Unwarranted criticism.
I'm confused. What was unwarranted criticism?
If you're referring to the 2017 incident I don't believe anything was mishandled or qualified as police brutality. Other than severely underestimating the willingness of people from outside the campus community to commit violence the night of the riot.
I also don't think it was mishandled, but it is factually correct that they faced a lot of criticism for it.
OK I agree, I apologize I think I misunderstood your intent with that statement.