Arizona Students’ Free Speech Rights Challenged in Border Agent Visit Protest

Two students at the University of Arizona will face misdemeanor charges after a video showing them protesting an appearance by Customs and Border Protection officials on their campus went viral, Rachel Leingang reports in the Arizona Republic.

As Border Patrol agents gave a presentation on March 19 to the Criminal Justice Association, a student club, some outside the event recorded the presentation and shouted “Murder Patrol,” “murderers,” and “an extension of the KKK,” it was reported. When the agents left, some dissenters followed them off campus, continuing chants of “Murder Patrol.”

Multiple student leaders called into question the charges, members of the university’s Associated Students wrote to the administration that it was “unacceptable” that CPB officers are allowed to make unannounced visits to campus.

Conservative media jumped on the incident, calling it another case of liberal students going “berserk.” The Daily Wire claimed protesters were “harassing” the agents, but it’s the student protesters, and not the agents nor members of the club who invited them, who are being charged with a crime.

The right has frequently accused colleges of stifling conservative speech on campus, especially during the Trump administration. When the University of California at Berkeley canceled an appearance from far-right writer Milo Yiannopoulos after extensive student protests, the Berkeley College Republicans and the Young America’s Foundation filed a lawsuit, claiming the university attempted to “restrict and stifle the speech of conservative students whose voices fall beyond the campus political orthodoxy.”

After protests at other campuses over visits from other far-right figures, Peter Beinart wrote in The Atlantic, “something has gone badly wrong on the campus left.” Jeffrey Selingo, writing in The Washington Post, suggested that  “students have a tenuous relationship with the First Amendment.”

The evidence is not so clear cut. Conservatives, a 2018 Gallup poll found, claim to be censored for their views more frequently than liberals. However, as Kelly Weill writes in The Daily Beast, while “those sentiments are subjective and difficult to quantify, actual incidents of political firings skew against the left.” Weill continues:

A 2015-2017 study of academic firings found significantly more liberal professors who were fired for their speech than conservative professors. Although that figure might reflect a greater percentage of liberal professors in academia, the rate of liberal firings increased after 2016, while conservative firings remained unchanged.

Lack of concrete data didn’t stop President Trump from getting involved. In March, claiming that American universities “have tried to restrict free thought, impose total conformity and shut down the voices of great young Americans,” he signed an executive order on campus free speech mandating that colleges must adhere to the First Amendment to continue receiving federal funds, a requirement under existing law.

In a letter to students, University of Arizona President Robert Robbins called the protest a “dramatic departure from our expectations of respectful behavior and support for free speech on this campus.” Two students will be charged with “interference with the peaceful conduct of an educational institution,” according to police.

Robbins indicated the incident will continue to be investigated for “additional criminal violations,” including on the part of university employees. However, as pointed out in Leingang’s article, “It’s unclear what role employees played in the situation.”

Robbins claimed in his letter, “Student protest is protected by our support for free speech but disruption is not.” He did not indicate why these particular students were disrupting rather than protesting, nor what generally constitutes acceptable protest for the university.

If convicted, the students face up to six months in jail.