Essay What The First Amendment Means For Campus Protests

As more and more college campuses are having student protests and encampments, due to the ongoing genocide in Palestine, are schools able to legally pursue their students? Alan Blinder explores that in his article published in the New York Times, “What the First Amendment Means for Campus Protests.” Students are invoking the First Amendment to aid their plea against government suppression, whether it be by peaceful protesting or more provoking means such as encampments and building occupations. However, university administrators must interpret the amendment and apply the rights it grants while maintaining safety on campus. Public institutions must grant students their rights as they are granted their funds directly from the government, but

Regardless, both private and public universities may allow some short-term violations of their policies to grant express rights, although they can not permit it in the long term as they do not want to undermine their established procedures. The goal for post secondary institutions is to foster an environment in which their students feel they can express their viewpoints freely while being able to keep those protests in check (Blinder).

Protections are crucial to activists, especially the protections that are provided by the First Amendment. The First Amendment provides for a plethora of protections, such as the ones that activists focus on, which are the right to freedom of speech and press (Schoology, “3.05 Media and Politics”). Student protestors enact their First Amendment rights by engaging in peaceful demonstrations, encampments, or building occupations (Blinder). Which forces universities to balance not only ensuring that their students have freedom of speech on their campuses, but also maintaining their power over their students and ensuring public safety. However, the words that describe the First Amendment in the constitution are hard to define and apply. Amendments as