We write to express our alarm at the decision by administrators at many U.S. institutions of higher education to suppress peaceful expression by their students in support of Palestinian civilians in Gaza who are under assault by the Israeli military.

Among the most egregious of these are Emerson, Northeastern, Columbia and Yale, where nonviolent students have been subjected to mass arrest by armed police. Harvard has also tried to limit the political expression of its students by suspending Students for Justice in Palestine, sending university employees to photograph protesters and other coercive measures. At MIT, the administration suspended student organizations whose members were sitting peacefully in the lobby of a building. All student protesters have been informed that they will be disciplined if they persist.

These protesters are in a long and honorable line of student activists who came before them –students who saw and opposed the horrors of the Vietnam War, of U.S. interventionism in Central America and of apartheid South Africa, young men and women who risked their own status and privileges to stand up for the necessity of justice.

As an alliance of Cambridge residents, we feel strongly that students in our city are fellow members of our community. It is our responsibility to protect their well-being and their right to peacefully express their views. Interference in this expression is not a “private” matter, it is an affront to our community and undermines the community benefits offered by universities in our city.

Above all, the scenes that we have witnessed in New York, New Haven, Connecticut, and now Boston must not be repeated here. By calling in a disproportionate police response, administrators have made some students unsafe for peacefully expressing one view, in the name of ensuring safety for other students who express an opposing view. That violates the university’s obligation to protect legitimate speech; the university’s obligation to be fair and not to engage in viewpoint discrimination; and the university’s obligation to protect the safety of its students even when what they are saying is politically inconvenient for university administrators.

We are pleased that the City Council has communicated to the city manager its opposition to a police response in Cambridge to campus protests. We urge the council to also pass a policy order making clear to the universities in our city that protection of academic freedom is a premise of their nonprofit tax exemption, and that Cambridge police will not be sent to arrest peaceful students or remove peaceful encampments.

The board of directors of the Cambridge Residents Alliance

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9 Comments

  1. Other than a quibble or two, I agree with every word written here, but I have to wonder whether the Cambridge Residents Alliance would as vociferously defend those who, chant “all lives matter!” instead of “there is only one solution, intifada revolution!”

    Or, to take another recent example, would they strongly defend those who protested local Covid vaccine mandates?

    Where was Cambridge Residents Alliance’s defense of academic freedom in 2021, when MIT cancelled a lecture by Dorian Abbott, who had questioned higher ed’s DEI efforts.

  2. The real question is: where are those who claimed academic freedom and freedom of speech in order to defend the platforming of fascists across American universities from any and all criticism now that students are being beaten by armed agents of the state for exercising their rights to freedom of speech and assembly?

  3. I applaud the intent of your article in SUPPORTING FREEDOM OF SPEACH, with all the complexities that this involve.

    Dan Eisner’s focus on CRA also raises a very valid point: FREE cannot mean “free for some, not for others” (pardon the offense to most Cantabridgians: even for TRUMP supporters).

    The present context perfectly highlights our bigotry in having sent close to One TRILLION Dollars to various governments of Israel over three quarters of a century, without any objective oversight of its use…admittedly repression.

    It is high time we question the impacts of our policies, rather than blindly trust our elected representatives…alas it had to come to THIS…Amen

  6. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/28/opinion/protests-college-free-speech.html

    CRA. How do feel about students taking over an academic building, Hamilton Hall, at Columbia?
    In your eyes, is that permissible? Does this not violate “free for some, but not for others?”

    And to take up another part of the demands… divestment from companies doing business in and with Israel.

    Have all of you gotten rid of your Apple phones? Have you stopped shopping at Whole Foods and stopped ordering from Amazon. What browser are you using? Can’t use Google because it has a large presence in Israel and you most certainly do not want to support Israel in any way. And tell your doctors that you don’t want any drugs developed by Israeli companies.

    Why don’t you stand up and tell everyone that you’re not going to support any companies that have a presence in Israel!

  7. Dan Eisner, universities are not calling in police to arrest students who oppose the Black Lives Matter movement. They are not arresting Jewish students who call for all of Gaza to be destroyed if that is what it takes to kill all the remaining members of Hamas. They are arresting advocates of Palestinian human rights. It’s their expression that is being shut down by a coordinated effort of private and government actors. MIT canceling a lecture and Northeastern calling in police to arrest student protesters seem like two very different things.

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