Glenn Greenwald clearly didn't heed my warning about campus violence
In a battle royale debate the free speech icon exposed himself as someone incapable of recognizing the violent element within his side.
In November I wrote a public letter to renowned investigative journalist and free speech advocate Glenn Greenwald where I cautioned that there is a real danger of violence attached to pro-Palestine activism that would come to haunt it. I didn’t necessarily expect Greenwald to read or respond to the letter like Alan Dershowitz did, but I had the feeling that my message would come off as alarmist even if he did read it. Yet I felt like it was important to show that my shared value of free speech and open dialog with people like Greenwald does not blind me to the possibility of violence in the Middle East inspiring violence elsewhere. I've reiterated as often as possible that any violence committed in the name of protesting the conflict, whether it is by pro-Palestine partisans against pro-Israel subjects, or by pro-Israel attackers against pro-Palestine protesters, only can cause harm to one's cause. The UCLA attack against the pro-Gaza encampment, while exulted by some on the pro-Israel side may have been gratifying for those that praised it. Will they feel as euphoric when the police lead the assailants on a perp walk after busting them using facial recognition software? Unfortunately last week Greenwald revealed that even when clear cut crimes and violence are committed by pro-Palestine protesters he is not able to accept that this is a problem nor admit that it exists. Yet he is simultaneously frustrated when those violent elements are conflated with the movement as a whole.
Greenwald revealed this paradox during a debate on the topic of campus activism and the response by administrators and law enforcement. Both he and his opponent, legal scholar and former professor Ilya Shapiro, have taken slings and arrows over their commitment to free speech and civil liberties. Greenwald put his career and safety on the line as the Guardian journalist who facilitated the Edward Snowden links in 2014 and Shapiro triggered a massive backlash through his criticism of the nomination and eventual confirmation of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in 2022. After being suspended and investigated, Shapiro resigned from Georgetown University School of Law. One of the moderators was admittedly biased in favour of Greenwald, his former colleague Ryan Grim of The Intercept.*
AAA junk logic
In one hour I feel that the two lived up to their billing as advocates for their respective stances, and I agree with Greenwald on at least one issue, opposition to the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (AAA). Shapiro made the only good defense of the AAA I have heard so far, saying it does not constrain speech that is critical of Israel, Jews, and Judaism in any setting, while clarifying that it does forbid discrimination against Jews within an educational setting as framed by the IHRA working definition of anti-Semitism by codifying it within Title VI of the 1964 of the Civil Rights Act. However, a basic amount of research finds that there’s nothing the AAA does that is not already covered in Title VII of the same Civil Rights Act. Shapiro also conceded that if the AAA is abused as other laws are done to prosecute non-criminal behaviour like protected speech in the public sphere under the IHRA definition, he would defend those prosecuted. Generally colleges are not restricting pro-Palestine speech, however there are exceptions that need to be addressed such as the University of Texas - San Antonio which issued guidance against students including advising them against "speaking Arabic". The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is threatening to sue UTSA on behalf of those affected.
Another point of contention was whether it is valid to ban organizations like the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) from being recognized groups on campuses due to their alleged support of terror groups. Greenwald accused Shapiro of labelling the students themselves as terror supporters over their speech against Israel, whereas Shapiro argued that on the contrary this was simply a matter of whether SJP and JVP as organizations ought to be recognized on campuses and be eligible for extracurricular educational funding that is budgeted to their respective schools. I concluded that in this round of the debate neither person was talking about the same issue, although Shapiro insisted that student speech in criticism of Israel or in favour of Gaza is not prosecutable as a felony as Greenwald was warning would happen.
No right to coerce
When asked by moderator Emily Jashinsky about where he draws the line between (protected) free speech and “unprotected civil disobedience”, Greenwald stated “I think it absolutely depends on the impact” and went on to dissemble and claim that there have been a rash of “hate crime hoaxes” to claim that American Jews are at risk on American college campuses. The example he referred to was that of Sahar Tartak, a Jewish Yale University student who has claimed she was stabbed in the eye while filming a pro-Palestine protest. After witnessing the footage, I don’t think it’s possible to conclude one way or another if she was stabbed or it was an accident, but the group that was confronting Tartak had formed a ring trapping her against a physical wall (or embankment). Even without being stabbed deliberately Tartak was the subject of a coercive act by protesters and their civil rights do not override hers.
The use of this example is a sly deflection. Greenwald would know that the protests, in particular encampments, are not peaceful or lawful because the footage of students “reclaiming” an encampment at MIT was screened at the beginning of the debate showing them clearly destroying barriers and violating administration directives that such violations would lead to penalties including suspensions. In addition, in many schools the protests are not limited to encampments, but rather in some cases occupation of buildings for educational or other use and denial of access to anyone who is not approved. At UCLA it was documented that a student was denied access to the school library because he did not have a wristband. During the exchange the protesters converged on him to prevent him from entering because as he admitted he is “a Zionist”. As he points out correctly, they do not have the right to deny him access to a library that is a public accommodation and which he also is entitled to access as a UCLA student.
If that is not a clear cut example of coercive or violent behaviour, how about the April demonstration outside the private residence of the Emory University Chabad on Campus rabbi in which a crowd of protesters attempted to steal a man's flag through the fence and then demanded he come outside and fight them? The point is not that every person associated with a given viewpoint is a ranting lunatic, however as with the case of the UCLA encampment one violent incident can sully the reputation of everyone associated with the cause.The lackadaisical attitude towards these incidents leads to a culture of tolerance for them and eventually they ratchet up in severity, as happened at Emory when later that month pro-Palestine protesters confronted and assaulted police officers near the university's divinity school and hurled objects at them. Does anyone seriously believe that Emory campus police and local counterparts arrested the protesters at the behest of the administration, because they don't want students or faculty to express their anger at the plight of the Palestinians of Gaza? During the previous semester prior to the Thanksgiving break President Gregory Fenves had expressed in a viewpoint neutral communication his grief over the violence in the Middle East, while admonishing students not to harass one another or engage in uncivil acts as a reaction to it. Prior to the incident at the divinity school, he wrote another one where he stated that protesters camped out on its quad on April 25 in large part were not affiliated with the college in any way. As a private institution, these protesters had no inherent right to stage an encampment.The university in 2019 opted not to discipline members of its SJP chapter even after its members vandalized the dorm room doors of students with fake eviction notices in protest of home demolitions in Palestinian towns in the West Bank. Fenves, his predecessors, and Emory's administration have been accommodating to the pro-Palestine movement for years, but they are not obligated nor should they be expected to tolerate violence, intimidation and coercion on their campus that disrupts the educational, residential, or workplace environments of the community members who are affected by the protests.
And it's not as if Greenwald has to search hard to find similar cases of violent protest or disruptions akin to Emory, UCLA, or most famously Columbia:
University of Arizona (Tucson; May 1) - Protesters assaulted police and threw objects at them.
University of Wisconsin-Madison (May 10)--Officials opened hate crime investigations into incidents that included intimidation of a pro-Israel counterprotester with a knife. Protesters also violated an agreement with the school's administration by disrupting commencement ceremonies later during the week.
University of Washington (May 8) - Encampment protesters assaulted reporter Jonathan Choe of right-wing outlet Turning Points USA during coverage of an appearance by its founder Charlie Kirk.
University of South Florida (Apr. 30) - Ten people were arrested after a group of roughly 100 armed with shields and other wooden weaponry clashed with police after refusing to disperse during an unruly protest. Of those arrested, several are not known to be connected to USF, and one was armed with a handgun.
Portland State University (Apr. 29 - May 2) - Protesters occupied the school library for four days and caused as much as $750,000 worth of property damage by damaging furniture and equipment and defacing walls with graffiti.
But what about Nazis. . .
Another subtopic covered was the attempt by Ryan Grim to steer the debate against Ilya Shapiro by asking him why the current protests are different from historical precedents such as lunch counter protests in the segregated South in the 1960s or Harvard student protests against university ties to Nazi Germany during the 1930s. Indeed a handful of protesters were arrested for disturbing the peace during the Harvard protest in 1934 during the visit of a close aide to Adolf Hitler who was a Harvard alumnus. Ultimately that protest was a small anomaly as Harvard's administration and most of the student body had no objection to the visit. Grim also implied that Shapiro was being hypocritical given his past sympathy for the Canadian trucker protest in Ottawa in 2022. But as Shapiro correctly pointed out these are "apples and oranges" comparisons. When it came to the Ottawa protest, Canadian laws on public demonstration are not the same as America's and Shapiro was reacting more specifically to some of the Orwellian responses such as freezing protester bank accounts. I think such comparisons are valid with respect to the pro-Palestine protests when it comes to some of the more absurd overreactions such as Sen. Marsha Blackburn's (R-TN) suggestion to put protesters on no-fly lists. Otherwise the trucker convoy protest was totally - not mostly - peaceful and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was overreacting by invoking the Emergencies Act. The trucker protest also had a much stronger parallel to the student lunch counter sit-ins of the 1960s, because these were protesters that were using their free speech and violating laws as a matter of civil disobedience over a matter that was their direct concern against the authorities that were responsible for it. Overwhelmingly the pro-Palestine protests are directed at schools and other institutions that have zero input into whether Israel continues its invasion of Gaza. In addition, unjust as one may see it, protesters in Canada and the deep South did get prosecuted or endured other penalties, which is a defining feature of civil disobedience. The pro-Palestine protests often choose targets that have no bearing on the situation in Gaza or the government of Israel, such as the three people arrested on May 11 for blocking a highway leading to Walt Disney World in Florida. They openly flout the law in order to mount their protest but are unwilling to incur the consequences of it such as suspensions, banning from graduation ceremonies, expulsions, and criminal penalties where warranted.
It was this exchange that encapsulates how different the definition of "free speech" for people that are broadly defined as "left" progressives and "right" conservatives: Shapiro continually emphasized the actions of the protesters and the legal definitions that exclude them from the First Amendment whereas Greenwald and Grim are more focused on the reaction of campus administrators, counterdemonstrators, and the police. Even when acknowledging that violent actions are not protected they deny that such violence has happened even though there is now a voluminous record of such incidents. I feel like it is this difference in perspective that explains why every left-wing populist protest movement whether it is Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, or the Women's March, either spirals out of control or sputters to a standstill due to internal strife. Universities are right to discipline the protesters doing this today, however their long track record of tolerating this may mean that they are too late to save their institutions.
*In an unrelated matter, Grim was the subject of a series of investigative articles and videos by this writer exposing an unethical story he wrote for the Huffington Post in 2017 alleging that there was Russian infiltration of Bernie Sanders volunteer groups in 2016.