Updated at 9:35 a.m. ET on April 30, 2024
Say you’re a college senior, just a few weeks from graduation. For as long as you can remember—even back in high school, before you set foot on campus—older people have talked about free speech. More specifically, older people have talked about free speech and you: whether your generation understands it, whether you believe in it, whether you can handle it.
After watching some of those same people order crackdowns on campus protests over the past few days, you might have a few questions for them.
Last week, from New York to Texas, cops stormed college campuses clad in riot gear. They weren’t there to confront active shooters, thank goodness, or answer bomb threats. Instead, they were there to conduct mass arrests of students protesting the war in Gaza.
As the legal director of a First Amendment advocacy nonprofit, I teach students across the country that the government can’t silence…