The Difference Between ‘Speech’ and ‘Assault’

The Difference Between ‘Speech’ and ‘Assault’

Seth Madel for Commentary  

Columbia University appears to be standing by the punishments it has doled out to students who took part in the infamous occupation of Hamilton Hall last year, confirming disciplinary actions “ranging from multi-year suspensions, temporary degree revocations, and expulsions.”

Separately, Barnard College has issued one expulsion over Hamilton Hall, as well as two expulsions of students who barged into an Israeli history class and threatened the students. In the wake of those expulsions, supporters of anti-Zionist violence staged further sit-ins and occupations. All of this was aimed at intimidating the university into rescinding disciplinary action for any rulebreaking or lawbreaking related to Gaza.

The intent was to carve out a “Palestine exception” to make anti-Zionist-inspired violence unpunishable. Had the school caved, it would have been seen, accurately, as an endorsement of violence.

While Columbia is under pressure to get its rampant anti-Semitism under control, these disciplinary moves should have another benefit. Drawing a clear distinction between violence and protest will do far more to promote free speech than those who have been conflating the two cynically for the past 16 months.

A perfect example comes from one of the Barnard students facing expulsion: “The fact that my removal has taken place so baselessly, simply because I believe that a holocaust of the Palestinian people is unequivocally wrong has completely shattered the illusion of what I thought Barnard stood for.”

Because none of that statement is true, Barnard is probably feeling pretty good about the fact that this student will no longer be a representative of the “elite” school. It does, unfortunately, raise the question of how common it is for Columbia University to admit complete idiots.

You will find similar rank dishonesty—I am being persecuted for my political opinions—underpinning the tentifada movement more broadly, but of course there are lots and lots of people who express support for Palestinians without holding a classroom hostage and threatening Jews in the vicinity.

Similarly, the Hamilton Hall goons who were arrested and charged with trespassing and burglary were not, in fact, punished for their private thoughts. It’s worth recalling an account in the New York Timesof the Hamilton Hall occupation from the perspective of those taken hostage.

After midnight on April 30, dozens of activists entered the building with ropes, chains, zip ties and the like, barricading the doors. After a scuffle, they let three building workers leave. One filed an accident report with pictures of his wounds stating he was “assaulted and battered, and wrongfully imprisoned.” That employee and another trapped in the building, the Times wrote, “said they strongly objected to the tactics of the occupiers, which they said had taken a toll on them. Neither man ever wants to work in Hamilton Hall again.”

About 20 hours later, the police finally arrived and, despite resistance, cleared the building and made arrests.

It goes without saying that not a single person in that group was punished for “political speech,” either. Like the Barnard super-genius quoted earlier, they just didn’t see a reason the rules should apply to them. They all assumed their actions were covered by the “Palestine exception.”

Perhaps the punishments herald a return to sanity for the school—after all, they were initially announced initially before the Trump administration pulled Columbia’s federal funding for its violations of civil-rights law. If so, the institution might start attracting students who know the difference between “feelings” and “assault and battery.”