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Free Speech

Brandeis University bans Students for Justice in Palestine campus chapter following SJP support for Hamas

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Brandeis University is banning the campus’ Students for Justice in Palestine chapter after SJP groups across the country applauded Hamas for the terrorist organization’s deadly attacks in Israel.

Brandeis SJP following Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Oct. 7 supported “Palestinian resistance in all of its forms” and rejected “the characterization of Palestinian resistance as ‘terrorism.’ “

Hamas terrorists murdered an estimated 1,400 Israeli civilians and troops in the surprise attack. Another 240 Israelis were kidnapped, and nearly 7,000 were injured.

The university in Waltham, which was founded by the American Jewish community a few years after the Holocaust, is no longer recognizing the Brandeis SJP chapter after national Jewish groups urged colleges to investigate their SJP chapters — including for possibly violating the ban against materially supporting a foreign terrorist organization.

“National SJP has called on its chapters to engage in conduct that supports Hamas in its call for the elimination of the only Jewish state in the world and its people,” Brandeis University said in a statement.

“Such expression is not protected by Brandeis’ principles of free speech,” the university added. “Students are welcome to express their support for Palestinians in a manner that complies with our rights and responsibilities.”

Brandeis SJP had organized a vigil for Palestine for Monday night, but the group announced that the vigil was canceled following the university’s decision to de-charter the SJP chapter.

“We recognize that such a decision is purely racist and goes against the values of Brandeis University, an organization that was built to fight racism in higher education,” Brandeis SJP wrote.

The student group also added, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” That phrase is an antisemitic slogan commonly featured in anti-Israel campaigns and chanted at demonstrations, according to the Anti-Defamation League. The slogan is a call for a Palestinian state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, territory that includes the State of Israel.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression said it was disappointed in the university’s decision to ban the SJP chapter.

“Make no mistake, Brandeis is punishing its students for nothing more than protected political advocacy,” FIRE Senior Program Office Zach Greenberg said in a statement.

“In this difficult moment, Brandeis could have demonstrated how students can engage with opposing viewpoints,” Greenberg added. “Instead, President (Ronald) Liebowitz is teaching them to simply silence those they hate. This betrayal of Brandeis’s free speech promises is a stain on the school’s 75-year reputation as a bastion for free inquiry.”

Meanwhile, Liebowitz recently signed on as a coalition founder of the national group called “Universities United Against Terrorism,” which is standing in support of Israel against Hamas.

“We, the presidents and chancellors of universities, colleges and higher education associations across the United States of America and the world, stand with Israel, with the Palestinians who suffer under Hamas’ cruel rule in Gaza and with all people of moral conscience,” the national group wrote with more than 100 signatures from higher education institutions.

UMass President Marty Meehan is also a coalition founder of the group.

Martin Meehan, President of University of Massachusetts in a 2106 file photo by Mark Garfinkel.
UMass President Martin Meehan is a founder of “Universities United Against Terrorism.” (Herald file photo)

 

Massachusetts SJC defends free speech in public comments, even of calling public figures ‘Hitler’

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The state’s highest court looked to the intentions, practices and philosophies of Founding Fathers Samuel Adams and John Adams to declare that, yes, you have the right to call public officials Hitler.

“The people have a right, in an orderly and peaceable manner, to assemble … to request of the legislative body, by the way of addresses, petitions, or remonstrances, redress of the wrongs done them, and of the grievances they suffer,” reads Article 19 of the state’s Declaration of Rights, one of the prime documents in informing the SJC’s ruling that reversed a lower court’s decision and found that public bodies can’t bar the public from criticizing them.

The article was written by none other than John Adams, the second president of the United States and the namesake of the courthouse on Pemberton Square where the state Supreme Judicial Court issued its ruling Tuesday that also found this provision, informed by John Adams’ fiery cousin Samuel Adams, “expressly envisions a politically active and engaged, even aggrieved and angry, populace.”

Case in point is one Louise Barron, who came to the Dec. 7, 2018, meeting of the Southboro Board of Selectmen with a, in her words, “cheap but meaningful to me” sign featuring stop signs over the word “Spending” on one side and “Stop Breaking Open Meeting Law” written on the other — but she wasn’t going to let her sign do all the talking.

“This board, like this town, has been spending like drunken sailors,” she began, before getting to the main crux of her issues with the board, which was a violation of public meeting laws days before.

“I know it’s not easy to be volunteers in town. But, you know, breaking the law is breaking the law,” she said during public comment.

Board member Daniel Kolenda fired back, “So, ma’am, if you want to slander town officials who are doing their very best … then we’re going to go ahead and stop the public comment session now —”

“Look, you need to stop being a Hitler,” Barron said, adding “You’re a Hitler. I can say what I want” over Kolenda as he initiated a recess.

The audio of the public access video of the recording cuts out here, but Kolenda could then be seen standing, jabbing his finger at Barron and shouting something. The SJC fills in his words: “You’re disgusting!” And that he was going to have her “escorted out” if she didn’t leave.

The town’s public comment policy, which Kolenda paraphrased ahead of the session, includes a provision the SJC found invalid in this ruling: “All remarks and dialogue in public meetings must be respectful and courteous, free of rude, personal or slanderous remarks.”

“Such civility restraints on the content of speech at a public comment session in a public meeting are forbidden,” the SJC wrote. “Although civility, of course, is to be encouraged, it cannot be required regarding the content of what may be said in a public comment session of a governmental meeting.”

“Both Adams cousins emphasized in their correspondence and their actions the importance of the right to assemble. Samuel Adams wielded it to great effect in his attempt to ‘procure a Redress of Grievances’ when the British governor of the colony attempted to exercise control over assemblies after the Boston Massacre,” the court wrote.

State Sen. John Cronin discusses importance of local news, state aid with local journalism leaders

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As local news outlets continue to contract and shutter, legislators including state Sen. John Cronin are hoping to take action to support access to a fact-driven, healthy and local free press.

In January, Cronin signed on to legislation by state Rep. Jeffrey Rosario Turco that would create a tax credit reimbursing any state resident up to $250 per year for the cost of a local newspaper subscription. The hope, Cronin said, is that by subsidizing local journalism, Massachusetts could “spur a generation of quality, competitive local coverage and create a market to support healthy civic engagement.”

In a meeting with members of the Sentinel & Enterprise and Lowell Sun editorial board Tuesday, Cronin stressed the urgency of the “Act to establish a local community newspaper subscription tax credit.”

“This bill is not exactly complex, but I think it’s the start of a really important conversation,” Cronin said, noting it was only one page in length. “It’s an acknowledgment of how important a role [reporters and a free press] play in our democracy.”

“There are very few people left that sort of understand what healthy, local news coverage looked like — in 20 to 30 years, that’s going to be such an abstraction, hence the urgency to identify and implement a remedy now,” he said.

Under the legislation, a publication must create “original content derived from primary sources and relating to news and current events” of a regional or local community for a subscription stipend to qualify. Said publication must also employ at least one journalist from that regional or local community.

Subscriptions to statewide and national publications would be ineligible for the credit. Cronin later suggested that a potential state Senate version of the bill could propose further restrictions as he noted the “gray area” posed by the issue.

“Honestly, what sort of institutions should be eligible for this?” he asked. “That’s not something that is necessarily addressed in the bill as it is right now, but maybe that’s something we could vet through a committee process, through public testimony.

“There are certainly going to be some tensions that could create some of these ethical and moral gray areas, but we have to balance that against the very real threat to our democracy if we don’t correct the dearth of local news coverage in our communities in some capacity,” he said.

Cronin also stressed that the bill was not meant to “subsidize big media corporations,” but rather support a “quality, competitive” local press, fix a modern political dialogue that has become “toxic” and reintroduce “healthy civic engagement” to local communities, the lack of which he called “concerning.”

“I think there is a causal relationship between the lack of resources for local news and local journalism and the lack of civic engagement that we see everywhere today,” he said. “Local news also sets the table for debate in a way that, frankly, I think we’ve lost at both the state and national level — a reinvigorated press would help fix that toxic dialogue.”

While not specifically referenced in the legislation, Cronin touched on the importance of “media literacy” and said “people’s ability to discern fact from fiction or opinion will be better if they can grow up reading a local newspaper.” While he admitted the legislation as is might not be the best way forward, he made it clear that it is far better than the “path” local coverage is already headed down.

“Is it perfect? No, nothing is,” he said. “But is it better than the alternative? The path we’re sort of heading down already? I believe it is,” he said.

Aside from Cronin, the bill has already garnered six other co-sponsors: state Sen. Adam Gomez and state Reps. Jessica Giannino, Michelle DuBois, Dan Sena and Patrick Kearney. Cronin said, as a group, their job would be to educate legislators and the public at large as to the importance of the bill moving forward.

“I think the job right now is to educate every stakeholder about what we’re trying to do and why,” Cronin said. “Policymakers are one of the last groups of people that get up every day and read the newspaper — it’s important to us and to the work we do every day.

“My hope is that, as we continue to educate each other and call attention to the potential of this bill, we’re able to garner the public support that we need,” he said.