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College Protests and the First Amendment

Research & Learn

What are your rights when it comes to protesting on a college campus? What forms of protest are protected? What is not? FIREanswers those questions and many more in our extensive library of legal explainers.

Protesters block police vehicles from leaving the University of Texas at Austin on Monday, April 29, 2024

Student protest is a proud democratic tradition on our college campuses. 

For generations, college students have engaged in protest to express their views, to actively participate in the public conversation and, in doing so, to draw wider attention to causes they care about. From the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War protests in the 1960s and 1970s to Black Lives Matter and Israeli-Palestinian Protests and Encampments in the 2020s, multiple generations of college students and faculty have taken to the quad to stand up for civil liberties.

Since ֭'s founding in 1999, we've seen   in First Amendment-protected peaceful protests. We’ve also seen , most recently sparked by the  on Israel and subsequent war in Gaza. protested institutional engagement with Israel and showed solidarity with students at Columbia University, who were  for protesting in the form of a round-the-clock encampment. And in Texas, state troopers acting under Gov. Greg Abbott’s  arrested  at the University of Texas at Austin.  a March 27  from Gov. Abbott, in which he singled out the Palestine Solidarity Committee, the same group that organized yesterday’s protest, for discipline in the event that the group violated campus speech policies designed to “address the sharp rise in antisemitic speech.”

The ability to distinguish between peaceful protest, civil disobedience, and genuine misconduct is as important now as ever.

To be clear: ֭ takes no stance on the content of the speech we defend. Time and time again, both recently and throughout our 25 years defending student rights, we’ve defended the rights of pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli speakers alike. We defended the rights of students to campaign for Bernie Sanders and a professor who was fired for criticizing Mike Pence. We have defended the rights of athletes kneeling during the national anthem and students disciplined for distributing American flags; an animal rights advocate and a hunting club; student clubs hosting speakers on both the left and right; and so much more.

Yet we’ve always drawn a distinction between protected speech and unprotected conduct: The former reflects the core purpose of a functioning university; the latter undermines it. 

FIRE should know their rights. We hope this Q&A will equip students to speak freely, and administrators to know what forms of protest are protected by the First Amendment.

FAQ for Student Protests on Campus

Know Your Rights

Planning a campus protest — or already part of one? To help get to know your rights, here are some answers to questions we’ve seen come up time and again in over two and a half decades of defending students’ right to free speech.

Read the full explainer here

An illustration of a picket sign showing "right to protest"

Your Rights Explained

For students, faculty, and administrators, here's what you need to know when a protest erupts on your college campus.

Women holding sign "this is genocide" written in red marker

Why (most) calls for genocide are protected speech

Analysis
The tendency to make exceptions for what’s allowed to be said is all too human, but creating a “genocide” exception to free speech only opens the door to more speech restrictions and selective enforcement.
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