“The fog of fascism is descending quickly over many American universities.”

The preceding statement was made by prominent lawyer Alan Dershowitz on Fox News recently. It was not made in response to the multiple incidents of swastikas being drawn around the University of Missouri campus, or the death threats made online against black students at the same school. He was not deriding the insinuation from the dean of Claremont McKenna College that certain minority groups do not fit the mold of their student body, nor was he maligning the exclusion of black students from a fraternity party at Yale University. Rather, he was referring to attempts by students to hold their school administrations accountable for failing to appropriately address these types of incidents. 

Students across the country are taking part in demonstrations to protest school administrations for failing to control racism on campus. At the University of Missouri at Columbia, students demanded that former President Tim Wolfe implement policies to deal with a slew of racist incidents. The pressure from the student body ultimately led to Wolfe’s resignation. A large push back has occurred in response to these movements, with many decrying the spread of of “PC culture” and accusing recently resigned administrators of being “spineless.” 

Incidents in which students have called for the ousting of professors and school administrators for racially insensitive comments have led many critics to claim that the movement is inconsistent with the First Amendment. Although there have been incidents in which protestors have overstepped boundaries themselves, their right to organize and advocate for change is both protected by our country’s laws and consistent with its most important values.

Much of this criticism is derived from an unfortunate incident at the University of Missouri in which student protesters and professors prevented media from reporting on a demonstration taking place in a public space. A YouTube video showing protesters shoving a student photographer and a professor of communications calling for “muscle” to remove another went viral. The actions of the students and faculty during this incident were unacceptable for various reasons. Their claim that others do not have the same rights as they do in public spaces is inconsistent with the message of their own movement. Fortunately, the episode turned out to be a relatively minor case of frustration clouding the judgement of a small group of protestors. The next day, the movement welcomed media back into the space where the demonstration was occurring. The professor involved apologized and was rightfully removed herself from her supervisory position at the school newspaper. Other demonstrators at campuses across the country, including at Brandeis, have embraced the media. Yet still, the incident at the University of Missouri became the impetus for backlash against all movements advocating for an end to racism on college campuses. 

Many have begun portraying the movements’ participants as whiners who want to be shielded from any opinions with which they disagree. Jonah Goldberg of the National Review recently claimed that the true goal of the movements is to create “little moving zones of political absolutism, where their worldview and, yes, their privilege, are unquestioned and celebrated.” Alan Dershowitz stated that students “want mommy and daddy dean to please give them a safe place, to protect them from ideas that maybe are insensitive, maybe will make them think.” The purpose of racism on college campuses is not to make people think. Its purpose is to marginalize and intimidate. Such sentiments cannot be accepted in a place where students are supposed to be able to better themselves and realize their full potential. In a recent article in the New York Times, black students from the University of Missouri describe how repeated incidents of racism deter them from leaving their rooms in the morning. When death threats were made on Yik Yak recently, some classes were canceled and many black students chose not to go to class. When a group of students is discriminated against, they are less likely to participate in open discussions which university settings are also supposed to provide. Thus, racism has the effect of undermining the goal of free and open discourse rather than being evidence of it as critics such as Dershowitz and Goldberg claim.

Of course, other groups seeking an end to discrimination on campus have not faced nearly the same backlash as current movements catalyzed by black students. The Anti-Defamation League has argued that legality of free speech for all does not make discrimination against Jewish students acceptable. Their webpage dedicated to anti-Semitism explains the causes of the discrimination thusly: “Among America’s students are many who grew up with little or no contact with Jews and who have a limited personal background to fall back upon when professional anti-Semites come to campus. For instance, young adults with little knowledge of the Holocaust might cast an uncritical look at a campus newspaper advertisement or scholarly-looking text claiming to prove that the murder of 6 million Jews is an historical hoax.” Many of the demands of protesters now involve the implementation of diversity programs on campus to mitigate the type of factors described by the ADL. Both anti-racism movements on college campuses and the ADL have identified lack of interaction between groups as a main cause of prejudice. Given the parallels between the two, it should be questioned why there is such outrage over movements headed by black students and no outrage to speak of when the same sentiments are echoed by other groups.

The argument that the movement belies the values of the First Amendment is self-defeating. There is nothing un-American about a marginalized group putting pressure on their superiors in order to create change in their communities. In fact, that is exactly how our country came into existence. 

Furthermore, the same amendment that guarantees the right to free speech also affirms the right to peaceably assemble and jointly defend commonly held ideals. The purpose of the movements across the country is to create environments in which all groups are able to fully participate in college life. Ironically, the claim that the movements taking place on campuses across the country are inconsistent with classical American values is just as hypocritical as a communications professor believing that only certain people are protected by the First Amendment.