New Arizona Board of Regents Policy Would Penalize Student Groups for Supporting Terrorist Groups Like Hamas
“Student groups and/or organizations who violate this policy . . . may face sanctions that include revocation of the use of university facilities for a definite period of time or denial of recognition or registration”
This would apply to students at public universities. It’s a good idea.
Campus Reform reports:
Arizona regents move forward with ban on student groups’ support for terrorists
On June 20, the Arizona Board of Regents moved forward with a policy proposal that would stop students at the state’s public universities from supporting terrorist groups.
The policy will go into effect if approved again at the next Board of Regents meeting, which will take place Sept. 25-27.
“Beginning last year, political events have led to a nationwide rise of allegations of both discrimination and harassment and support to foreign terrorist organizations that are calling for discrimination, harassment, and even genocide of people worldwide. In February 2024, the Arizona Legislature proposed legislation to address such allegations,” the policy states.
The measure would prohibit student groups from “knowingly [providing] material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization as defined in 18 U.S. Code § 2339B.”
It would also stop student groups from calling “for violence and/or genocide against any individual or group based on race, color, national origin, or shared ancestry,” and from engaging in “other conduct” that “interferes with maintaining a school environment free from discrimination based on race, color, or national origin, including shared ancestry.”
“Student groups and/or organizations who violate this policy . . . may face sanctions that include revocation of the use of university facilities for a definite period of time or denial of recognition or registration,” the policy proposal concludes.
Hamas, which launched the Oct. 7 massacre against Israel, has been on the State Department’s “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” list since 1997. Anti-Israel students across the nation have expressed their support for the terrorist organization, and Hamas itself has endorsed the protests.
The proposed measure is clear that it “is not intended to prohibit any expressive activity that is protected by the First Amendment.”
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Comments
This will sure increase tensions between the Regents and the Red Diaper Presidents of our three state universities.
This is pure virtue signalling. No student group at any university has ever been shown to be providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist group, and if any group at Arizona is ever found to be doing so the correct response will not be to revoke its use of facilities, but to call the FBI and have them arrested. The FBI has a long record of being very strict about this; there is no chance that it would let such a thing go just because it’s for a politically correct cause.
But
“calling for violence and/or genocide” is 100% protected speech, so that part of the resolution is self-negating, and thus also virtue signalling.
Which leaves:
That is constitutional, but the university surely already has policies and rules for this. The problem is they’re not enforcing them, so why should we believe they will enforce this one either?
Also, any attempt to enforce this or the already-existing rules will be met with a claim that the conduct is protected speech, so the evidence that it is not so will have to be strong enough to stand up in court. That’s not an impossible ask, but it will be a hassle, because the opposition will insist on taking every case to court and making the university prove its case.
A University cannot restrict calls for violence as free speech? Seems unlikely.
A government university is bound by the first amendment, and the first amendment protects calls for violence, at least in traditional public forums.
In limited public forums governments can restrict speech in ways that needn’t be content neutral, but must still be viewpoint neutral. So in such a forum it could probably justify a rule restricting all calls for violence, regardless of viewpoint.
THEYYYYYYY ARE THE TERRORIST GROUP(S)