A large number of people were arrested at protests against the war in Gaza
The Case of Tinker v. Des Moines: Students’ Right to Free Speech in the Aftermath of a World War I: The High School Case
Students in Washington, D.C. have filed a lawsuit claiming their school didn’t allow them to show a film about the treatment of Palestinians because it was critical of Israel.
According to Israeli authorities, 1,200 Israelis were killed and over 200 others taken hostage by Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7. Israel launched a war against Hamas. According Gaza’s health ministry, Israel’s military response has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, a majority of them women and children.
The students said they sought to hold their Palestinian Culture Night back in January, but the event was removed from the school’s official calendar. Repeated attempts were made to get the event approved to be held at a later date.
In 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case of Tinker v. Des Moines that “made clear that high school students had a right to peacefully express their views about the war,” said Spitzer.
A group of Des Moines students wore black arm bands in 1965, to show their support for a truce in the Vietnam war. School administrators created a policy stating any student refusing to remove the armband would be suspended. Two students were sent home on December 16th 1965, after they wore their remembrances. The Supreme Court upheld their position, holding that students’ right to free speech was not lost when they stepped onto school property.
The students were eventually able to host it this Thursday, but Spitzer told NPR, “It was still not exactly the program they would have wanted. The school required them to submit details about the books and symbols they planned to display for advanced clearance.
The students want a federal judge to rule quickly so they can host a screening of the documentary before the seniors go home.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators that set up temporary structures on the Meadow Dunn refused to leave, and a protest at Northeastern University in Boston
More than two hundred miles away at Indiana University, campus police and Indiana State Police arrested 23 protesters at 12:35 p.m. Saturday. The group of people that set up the unapproved temporary structures on the Meadow Dunn refused to leave, according to a university statement obtained by NPR.
“While the university will continue to be an environment that embraces freedom of speech, ASU’s first priority is to create a safe and secure environment that supports teaching and learning,” the school said in a statement.
More than a 1,000 miles east on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis, another pro-Palestinian protest sprung up on Saturday. The protesters spread out on the campus with tents and made calls for more people to join.
“It quickly became clear through the words and actions of this group that they did not have good intentions,” the statement read. “When the group began to set up a camp in violation of university policy, we made the decision to tell everyone present that they needed to leave.”
Police arrested over 80 people when the group refused to leave. The Stein campaign confirmed the arrest in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
All those arrested face charges of trespassing and some face charges of resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer, according to Washington University.
“The Indiana University Police Department continues to support peaceful protests on campus that follow university policy,” according to the university statement.
There was a pro-Palestinian demonstration being held at Northeastern University in Boston, and more than 100 people were arrested.
According to a post of X, Northeastern University officials said the decision to arrest protesters was made after the group had erected a camp on the campus and used slurs against Jews.
It’s not clear who said it, but the video seems to have captured the moment when someone said “kill the Jews” at Northeastern. A local socialist and pro-Palestinian group has a video. They said a pro-Israel counter protester made the call in an effort to criticize the pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
The movement is largely focused on support for people in Gaza and demands that universities divest from companies that profit or support Israel’s war effort in Gaza. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other US politicians have called the demonstrations antisemitic.
“Look, antisemitism has always existed. ” It exists today,” he said on All Things Considered. “But to suggest that when you have a significant majority of the American people who, among other things, do not want to support more U.S. military aid to Netanyahu’s war machine, we’re not going to suggest that all of those people are antisemitic.”
