From FIRE’s letter sent yesterday to the University of Wisconsin (you can see the citations here); I generally trust FIRE’s factual summaries, but if there is any error in the below, I’ll of course be very glad to correct it:
FIRE is deeply concerned that UW-Madison has suspended two registered student organizations—Anticolonial Scientists and Mecha de UW Madison—amid criticism of chalk messages some group members allegedly wrote at an off-campus event earlier this month. Some of the messages expressed support for terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades, and advocated the use of violence against Israelis and Zionists in the Middle East.
The student groups are currently under interim suspensions, pending investigation, with UW stating that, because “[s]ome chalkings endorsed violence, supported terrorist organizations and/or contained antisemitic comments,” they could qualify as prohibited discriminatory harassment under the university’s RSO Code of Conduct. But that conclusion cannot constitutionally stand. The off-campus chalk messages constitute political speech wholly protected by the First Amendment, which requires UW, as a public institution, to respect the groups’ expressive and associational rights—even if some, many, or most people dislike their message.
There is, more specifically, no First Amendment exception that would remove protection from speech simply because it is deemed “anti-Semitic” or otherwise bigoted based on race or religion. Regardless of the viewpoint expressed, the rule is the same: Government officials cannot circumscribe expression on the basis that others find the ideas offensive or hateful.
This is particularly true at public colleges, where “conflict is not unknown,” and “dissent is expected and, accordingly, so is at least some disharmony.” The First Amendment instead “embraces such heated exchange[s] of views.”