Texas Lawmakers Walk Back Campus Free Speech Law Because It’s Letting Too Many Pro-Palestinian Students Protest

Free Speech

from the party-of-free-speech-strikes-again dept

It would be too kind to say the irony is lost on Republican lawmakers. They would have to be capable of comprehending and acknowledging their own hypocrisy to even begin to recognize the irony. That’s why these lawmakers are so unconcerned with the long-term destruction they’re causing. It’s all worth it if it results in short-term success. And besides, they’re not the ones who are going to have to deal with the fallout.

But every so often, the tides turn fast enough even these sorts of lawmakers are getting caught up in the messes they’ve made. That’s how it’s going in Texas right now, as Republican lawmakers seek to undo campus free speech protections enacted a half-decade ago because it’s allowing people they don’t like to express ideas they don’t like.

Here’s how it started, as reported by the Texas Tribune:

In 2019, the Legislature passed a law requiring colleges and universities to ensure that all outdoor common areas of campus can be used to stage a protest, as long as demonstrators don’t break the law or disrupt school activities.

That measure came after Texas A&M leaders canceled a white nationalist rally and Texas Southern University scrapped a planned speech by Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park. Both happened in 2017. Texas A&M said it canceled the event due to safety concerns while TSU said it canceled Cain’s speech because it was organized by an unregistered student group.

“Our college students, our future leaders, they should be exposed to all ideas, I don’t care how liberal they are or how conservative they are,” Sen. Joan Huffman said at the time.

Some of these same lawmakers are now involved in an effort to create more speech restrictions on campus because students failed to comprehend the 2019 law was only there to ensure the presence of white nationalist rallies on Texas university campuses. Now that these expanded protections are being enjoyed by non-white nationalists, it’s time for a change.

Senate Bill 2972, which passed 97-39 in a final House vote on Wednesday, would give university systems’ governing boards the power to limit where protests can take place on campus.

Republicans who support say it will prevent disruption and unsafe behavior seen during the pro-Palestinian demonstrations last year. Critics say the measure contradicts previous conservative efforts to protect free speech rights on Texas campuses and is unconstitutional.

As is almost always the case when Republicans start re-writing laws they previously enacted, it’s the Republicans who are wrong and the critics who are right. Of the two groups, the critics are, at least, more consistent in their views.

There’s more to the law than simply expanding the amount of viewpoint censorship publicly-funded schools can engage in. In addition to giving universities more discretion on time/place decisions, students would be forbidden from using amplification devices (including microphones) when protesting during class hours, erecting overnight encampments, taking down a university’s “U.S. flag to put up another nation’s or organization’s banner,” wearing disguises (which really just means wearing masks of any kind, including the COVID-prevention variety), and protesting within 300 feet of any residences overnight.

This was never a problem between 2019 and this year, even though none of the proposed restrictions were in place since the law was first passed for the sole purpose of forcing public universities to host far-right speakers and white nationalist rallies. But with pro-Palestine protests taking over college campuses, it’s time for a change. Fewer rights for everyone — something that may result in fewer white nationalist rallies but a hit white nationalists are likely to take because it means people they don’t like won’t be able to protest either.

Even if you ignore the blatant hypocrisy of rolling back protections just because they’re capable of protecting students Texas Republicans don’t like, there’s also the sheer stupidity of what will likely become the finished work product sent to the governor’s desk. Here’s FIRE attorney Tyler Coward pointing out some obvious problems with the current proposal:

“Under this bill, the university would be required to ask a student to take off a MAGA hat if they were wearing it at 10:15 p.m. or a Bernie Sanders shirt because that is political, that is expressive activity,” he said.

Meanwhile, true believers like Senator Huffman will continue to pretend her party isn’t selling out its white nationalist voting bloc with this ham-handed attempt to silence pro-Palestinian protesters.

Huffman, a Houston Republican who authored that 2019 law, voted earlier this month in favor of the new limits on protests, citing similar reasons mentioned by other supporters. She said the new measure doesn’t undermine the former one.

Oh, but it does. It rolls back protections and makes it that much easier for universities to block appearances and rallies by bigots the Republic Party approves of. This attempt to only harm the protesters Huffman doesn’t like while protecting those she does like means the law won’t protect anyone and will make universities less likely to allow protests, rallies, and public appearances of any kind because nearly any cause could be considered to be “political” enough it’s just going to create a bunch of extra enforcement work for schools and their local security/police forces.

Filed Under: campus speech, free speech, gop, hypocrisy, palestine, protests, texas