The First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the right to protest through freedom of speech and freedom to assemble. This includes the ability to verbally protest, engage in symbolic speech, and organize peaceful marches and protests on certain public lands. The First Amendment also applies to international visitors who wish to participate in lawful public demonstrations and protest.
Similar laws apply in most free countries, including the European Union, Australia, and others.
While most could agree that some verbal attacks may be part of what is protected by Freedom of Speech laws, insults and physical attacks are not.
Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, was arrested, and Jewish groups feared for the safety of students of its community amidst anti-Israel protests on its campus.
This caused the Rabi on the university to ask Jewish students to go home. It’s sending a terrible message to New Yorkers and the world.
New York is a city that welcomes thousands of foreign visitors every day and is seen as the gateway to the United States.
You can have different opinions, and you can have strong opinions, but one cannot overstep the red line of assaults and threats.
In a country that has the highest murder rate because of the Second Amendment in the US Constitution, referring to the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, it shall not be infringed, including the right to keep and bear arms, including ammunition in the US. This is very different from legislation in almost any other country in the world.
The current protests at Columbia University in Manhattan, New York, one of the country’s most prestigious and most expensive universities are concerning in many ways. Such intolerant demonstrations have the potential to turn violent and could become a trigger for wider civil unrest.
This is specially true in the current US environment of a very critical and controverse election period between a possible president Trump and Biden.
Antisemitic actions putting fear in the minds of ordinary citizens and have little to do with freedom of speech and the guaranteed right of protests. Antisemetic threats are surpriing in a city that is the home of the Statue of Liberty and where 18% of the people are jewish.
A week before the International Pow Wow is welcoming travel agents and tour operators from around the globe to Los Angeles, such developing stories are not what visitors and citizen will see as the land of the free home of the brave – and as a safe country to travel to.
While pro-Israel activists wave the U.S. flag and sing “God Bless America” at Columbia University, it may be interpreted by those supporting peace in Gaza as e message of not being American when voicing this. It has the potential of anti semetic and anti islamic outcry, even between participating student groups that may not be Jewish or Moslems.
This coordinated attack on freedom of expression and protesting genocide at Columbia University is an attempt to stop the spread of such protests to campuses nationwide, others say.
How did the protests develop at Columbia University
The campus had been simmering with rage for a few months because of the rising tensions. After the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, numerous Columbia students, who had supported a public letter blaming the Israeli extremist government and other Western governments for the war and casualties, had their personal information leaked online.
Conservative politicians and right-wing donor groups exerted ongoing pressure, leading to Columbia University suspending the charters of Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine student groups. The suspension occurred because the groups organized unauthorized demonstrations advocating for a cease-fire in Gaza.
Colleges nationwide are witnessing a surge in antisemitism and Islamophobia. To prevent political expressions within the dormitories, Barnard College in New York, affiliated with Columbia University, has implemented a prohibition on decorations for dorm room doors. Furthermore, both institutions have taken steps to confine protests to specific areas on campus.
Culombia, Yale, or any University should make it straightforward and completely lawful and ethically right: prohibit the use of masks unless there are valid medical grounds.
Passover Statement by President Biden
In a statement to commemorate the Jewish holiday of Passover on Sunday, Biden said it was necessary to speak out against “the alarming surge of antisemitism – in our schools, communities, and online. Silence is complicity. Even in recent days, we’ve seen harassment and calls for violence against Jews.
This blatant antisemitism is reprehensible and dangerous – and it has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country.”
Biden made these remarks in response to recent reports of harassment and threats targeting Jewish students at Columbia University in New York.
Activists were captured on social media instructing students to return to Poland and warning them that October 7th would become a daily occurrence for them, alluding to the series of Hamas attacks on Israel that resulted in the loss of 1,139 lives.
Not every anti-Israel Protester is also an Antisemtic
Chabad at Columbia University, a chapter of an international Orthodox Jewish movement, said in a statement that protesters had also told Jewish students, “You have no culture”, “All you do is colonise” and to “Go back to Europe”.
A group of student activists who spoke out on Sunday expressed their separation from provocative individuals and reaffirmed their opposition to any manifestation of hate or prejudice in a statement.
“We are frustrated by media distractions focusing on inflammatory individuals who do not represent us. At universities across the nation, our movement is united in valuing every human life,” the statement said.
“A politically-motivated mob has misidentified our members. We have been doxxed in the press, arrested by the NYPD [New York Police Department], and locked out of our homes by the university. We have knowingly put ourselves in danger because we can no longer be complicit in Columbia funneling our tuition dollars and grant funding into companies that profit from death.”
New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York State Governor Kathy Hochul have also condemned reports of harassment and intimidation at the protests.
Columbia, a renowned American university, has become a center of student activism ever since the beginning of the Israeli-Gaza conflict after the October 7 terror attack by Hamas on Israel.
