Despatched out yesterday:
This publish supplies an replace from Stanford College in regards to the encampment lately arrange on Stanford’s White Plaza. It follows the message despatched to college students by the president and provost final Friday, April 26. Extra updates shall be posted to this web page as wanted.
Stanford welcomes and encourages the peaceable expression of free speech by members of our Stanford neighborhood. College students have been pursuing many alternatives to take action over the course of this 12 months, in quite a lot of methods. Amongst different choices, scholar teams are welcome to interact in advocacy on White Plaza in a way in step with campus insurance policies. There’s a course of for registering to take action, so as to enable for equitable entry to this house by members of our neighborhood.
Alongside its assist for the peaceable expression of free speech, the college has viewpoint-neutral time, place, and method insurance policies. Amongst these are insurance policies relating to the usage of White Plaza, prohibiting in a single day tenting, and prohibiting the disruption of lessons and college occasions.
With respect to the encampment on White Plaza, the college is continuous to submit names of scholars who’re violating campus insurance policies to the Workplace of Neighborhood Requirements (OCS) for disciplinary proceedings. That is being finished in a viewpoint-neutral method and primarily based on proof of scholars’ conduct in violation of college coverage. College students who’re concerned may have the chance to offer a protection to OCS.
Stanford additionally is anxious in regards to the involvement of non-student outsiders in these actions on our campus. We proceed to remind guests that their participation in actions that violate college coverage might topic them to legal and/or civil legal responsibility.
We’ve obtained many expressions of concern a couple of picture circulating on social media of a person on White Plaza who gave the impression to be carrying a inexperienced headband just like these worn by members of Hamas. We discover this deeply disturbing, as Hamas is designated a terrorist group by the USA authorities. We’ve not been in a position to determine the person however have forwarded the picture to the FBI.
Because it has all through the final months, Stanford is working to handle these points in a deliberate method that helps the security of our college students and of our campus neighborhood. As our college students work towards the completion of their research this spring quarter, and plenty of look ahead to commencement in June, we intend to proceed working to assist peaceable expression, to assist the principles that govern our campus, and to assist a secure setting for all.
Friday’s message additionally hyperlinks to the insurance policies that “prohibit disruptions of classes and university events” and “prohibit[] overnight camping,” and provides:
These insurance policies are vital to supporting the educational and scholarly actions on campus and to supporting the security of our neighborhood. As we’ve got beforehand defined, tents and in a single day tenting pose a number of security challenges, together with the necessity for 24-hour safety for the reason that bodily structure of our campus makes it simply accessible to outsiders, a few of whom might include dangerous intentions. The tents themselves may also pose security hazards, as was mentioned in winter quarter. College students have been reminded of those insurance policies in a message earlier this week. We encourage the daytime use of White Plaza free of charge expression so long as the conduct is in step with college insurance policies, which require reservations for teams and solely enable tables and never in a single day tents or different supplies.
Non-public universities in California, resembling Stanford, are ruled by the Leonard Regulation, a California statute that gives, in related half,
No non-public postsecondary academic establishment shall make or implement a rule subjecting a scholar to disciplinary sanctions solely on the premise of conduct that’s speech or different communication that, when engaged in outdoors the campus or facility of a personal postsecondary establishment, is protected against governmental restriction by the First Modification ….
However content-neutral time, place, and method speech restrictions—together with prohibitions on in a single day tenting in public parks and restrictions on speech that disrupts academic establishments—are permissible “outside the campus,” and thus could be allowed on campus as properly; and the statute itself (in an element that does not seem within the California Training Code, however stays a part of the legislation) expressly acknowledges this:
The Legislature finds and declares the next: … Free speech rights, each on and off campus, are topic to cheap time, place, and method laws.
(To be permissible, the insurance policies probably must be not simply “viewpoint-neutral,” however content-neutral, in order that content-based distinctions primarily based on subject material, use of profanity, and the like are typically unconstitutional even when they’re viewpoint-neutral. But it surely sounds just like the related Stanford insurance policies are certainly content-neutral.)
Notice that carrying a inexperienced headband as an indication of assist for Hamas would stay constitutionally protected speech (as would carrying a swastika or the like); punishing a scholar for doing so could be primarily based on content material and certainly on viewpoint, and would thus typically not be allowed underneath the Leonard Regulation. After all, being an precise member of Hamas is a federal crime, since Hamas is certainly a delegated international terrorist group, and becoming a member of such a corporation constitutes legal provision of fabric assist to the group.
I am skeptical that merely carrying the headscarf is way of a foundation for the FBI to analyze, however I do not suppose there is a First Modification (or state legislation) drawback with such an investigation; the federal government can (at the very least underneath the First Modification) examine somebody primarily based on constitutionally protected speech, even when the particular person cannot be prosecuted primarily based simply on that speech.