Lawmakers who have complained about
censorship on Arizona college campuses are lining up to support a bill
that would censor pro-Palestinian student organizations.
House Bill 2759
prohibits state universities from recognizing student groups that
provide “material support” to a foreign terrorist organization, vocally
support genocide or promote a foreign terrorist organization on their
social media platforms, or in any manner that “places a Jewish student
in reasonable apprehension”
The bill is sponsored by Rep. Alma
Hernandez, D-Tucson, though it has garnered most of its support from
across the aisle, with Republican co-signers greatly outnumbering those
of Hernandez’s own party, including many that have supported changing
state law to end what they’ve claimed is censorship of conservatives on
Arizona campuses.
Hernandez’s bill has been condemned
by pro-Palestinian advocacy organizations and student groups, as many
believe the broad manner in which the legislation is written
encapsulates almost every aspect of protest against Zionism and the
Israeli occupation.
The bill comes as chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine have faced scrutiny on campuses nationwide after the national chapter disseminated materials to chapters following the events commending the attacks.
However, despite the work of
individual campus chapters to distance their groups from the national
organization, the groups have been targeted by college administrations
on campuses throughout the country.
In alliance with the Students for
Justice in Palestine chapters at all three state universities, the
Arizona Palestine Solidarity Alliance released a statement regarding
Hernandez’s bill, stating that the legislation “infringes upon
constitutional rights by effectively criminalizing free speech.”
“The freedom to advocate for the
rights of Palestinian should not be misconstrued as an endorsement of
terrorism and anti-semitism” the group said in the statement via
Instagram. “The use of the ‘fight against anti-semitism’ to silence
criticism of government policies or to suppress advocacy for Palestinian
rights is unacceptable.”
Raees Mohamed is an attorney with the
Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). During a press conference
denouncing the bill, Muhammad called HB2759 propaganda, that offers
nothing to support the first amendment
“We all agree on all sides of this
dispute that the First Amendment is critical. We all agree that state
sponsored viewpoint censorship is unconstitutional.” Mohamed said. “We
can all agree that the First Amendment is first in the Constitution
because it is the essential fabric of who we are as Americans.”
Mohamed referred back to when ASU was criticized after the university’s College Republicans United chapter welcomed Nick Fuentes,
a Nazi sympathizer, holocaust denier and white supremacist, to speak at
the group’s annual convention, and the university’s only defense was
that it supported the group’s First Amendment rights to free speech.
That event was later canceled.
“No one tried to pass a bill to ban
him from coming to campus or from a student group endorsing him. Why is
that?” Mohamed said. “We should entertain no bill that censors students
protesting against genocide.”
Censorship on university campuses has been a hot topic amongst Republican lawmakers in recent years. A number of bills have been proposed by GOP members seeking protections for conservative viewpoints on campuses.
When Barrett Honors College students
and faculty protested an event featuring controversial conservative
figures, Sen. Anthony Kern demanded an investigation exploring the state
of free speech on the campus. He then introduced Senate Bill 1304, which targets Arizona’s public universities for what he claims has been habitual censorship of conservative students. Three lawmakers who cosigned that bill are also cosponsors of Hernandez’s HB2759.
While the Arizona Board of Regents, Arizona State University and
Northern Arizona University have all lobbied against Kern’s measure, the
regents and universities have yet to take any formal position against
Hernandez’s bill.
Lawmakers supporting censorship when
it aligns with their beliefs is hypocritical, said Derek Duba of Common
Defense, a grassroots organization of U.S veterans, and is deeply
disappointing.
“I think that those lawmakers
actually are deeply aware of that overlap,” Duba said. “That
(contradiction) shows that this is not serious legislation that they are
advancing to pass.To me, it shows that this is not a good faith attempt
to advance the rights of individual students, and it highlights the
hypocrisy of those, frankly, Republican lawmakers.”
Rowan Imran, an activist with the
Arizona Palestine Solidarity Alliance, also spoke at the press
conference. Her comments brought attention to the fact that personal
bias plays a large role in determining what rhetoric is responsible for
placing students in “reasonable apprehension” as mentioned in HB2759.
Imran said that when Hernandez, who is Jewish, refers to herself as a “proud Zionist,”
what she hears is that the Tucson Democrat actually supports the
political movement to lay claim to her ancestral land and the settlement
within the homes of her family and friends, even if it leads to the
displacement of those Palestinians, or worse — their incarceration or
death.
Nonetheless, Imran emphasized that,
despite how apprehensive the phrase makes her and many other
Palestinians feel, there has been no call for censorship of the matter.
“Just because some believe ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ is a genocidal call,
doesn’t mean it is,” Imran said. “Students calling themselves ‘proud
Zionists’ makes me feel uncomfortable and unsafe, but that’s the beauty
of living in a country where we believe in freedom of speech.”
Imran is referring to the Feb. 13
House Education committee meeting, where Hernandez read a passage from
the social media from an unnamed recognized student organization that
read: “Death to the pilgrim, death to the Zionist, death to the
settler.”
Hernandez said that the post reflected the reason that she introduced HB2759.
“I am a very proud Zionist, all of
you who have served with me know that. My license plate says ‘Zionist,’”
Hernandez said. “When I have students who are calling for the death of
me and my community, I find that very problematic.”
In response, civil rights attorney
David Chami told lawmakers that the issue with interpreting social media
posts like the aforementioned is that you can not assume you know the
intent of their message.
“The pilgrims died a long time
ago…they don’t even exist. You can very easily read that post to mean
death to the ideology of settler colonialism,” he said.
Chami, who is a board member for CAIR’s Arizona chapter, also reminded the committee of a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court ruling
which states that the First Amendment protects the right of student
organizations to “associate and speak out on matters of public concern
free of censorship by public university officials.”
“We can have arguments about what
(from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free) means, but you can’t
censor that speech. That is viewpoint discrimination,” he said. “When
the Israeli student associations condone what the (International Court
of Justice) has said is plausibly an active genocide, not a hypothetical
genocide…will the university be forced to shut them down? You think
you’re restricting (Students for Justice in Palestine), but you’re
restricting everybody.”
The bill passed through committee
with a vote of 7-1, with the only vote against the measure coming from
Chandler Democrat Jennifer Pawlik. The bill is awaiting consideration by
the full House of Representatives.