The right to assemble 

American college students should not be forced to give up their constitutional rights to free speech, to peacefully assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

That is what is happening today on college campuses across the country.

It began when protesters set up tents on the South Lawn of Columbia University and flew Palestinian flags. They held demonstrations in which they denounced the "genocide" in Gaza. Now students at dozens of universities have joined the protest.

In response to this demonstration of free speech, America's universities have called local police onto their campuses to arrest all who will not shut up and leave. Law enforcement has used tear gas, rubber bullets, and physical force to remove peaceful demonstrators.

Watch demonstration footage, and you will see students drumming and chanting. Then you will see police in riot gear hell-bent on removing every protester from the campus. The police are violent, not the protesters. The police put students in danger. They do not protect anyone from harm.

These videos show police mistreating students and representatives of the press by throwing them to the ground and pinning them to trees. At Emory University in Georgia, you see an older female professor thrown brutally to the ground for asking the police, "What are you doing?" In Bloomington, Indiana, you can see snipers on the roofs overlooking the demonstrators. And now our speaker of the house has suggested we send in the National Guard.

This takes me back to 1970 at Kent State University in Ohio, where I was a graduate student. There were snipers on the roofs of buildings the day that the Ohio National Guard fired on unarmed protesters and killed four innocent students. Kent State students were protesting America's bombings in Cambodia. Today's students are protesting Israel's indiscriminate bombings of civilians in Gaza.

The Constitution gives students the right to protest and petition the university to disinvest in companies that profit from the war in Gaza. The Constitution does not give universities the right to silence that protest. Today's students have the right to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people. This does not make them anti-Semitic.

Now, Prime Minister Netanyahu has instructed America to crack down on the "anti-Semitic mobs that are taking over leading universities."

There are no anti-Semitic mobs on American university campuses. At Columbia, students of all races and religions camped out on the college lawn to get the school's leaders to take them seriously.

In an interview with Glen Greenwald, two of the group's leaders, Jon Ben-Menachem and Mohammad Hemeida, stated clearly that there is no anti-Semitism exhibited at their camp. Hemeida said he had never felt so connected with Jews, Muslim, Blacks, and Latinos as he does today. Ben-Menachem states that Jewish students are an important part of protests on each campus. They both agree that claims that protesters are pro-Hamas and anti-Semitic are perpetrated by pro-Israel groups to discredit them.

These brave men maintain that their protest is less about free speech and more about Columbia's investments in Israel. They want Columbia to disclose all of its investments, divest from Israel, and offer amnesty to the students and teachers who are being punished for speaking out for the Palestinians.

We must not let free speech die on college campuses. It's time for us to speak up, too. Δ

Gale McNeeley writes to New Times from Santa Maria. Send a response for publication to [email protected].