Re “UCSD profs face discipline in connection with protests” (April 12): Disrupting school functions is conduct, not speech. UCSD’s time, place and manner policy and compliance with Title VI civil rights obligations does not violate the First Amendment. The university needs to ensure that education continues and that minority students aren’t subject to possible violence, harassment and intimidation, including Jews and Israelis. Professors should be setting an example by following school policy and law enforcement. There should be consequences when they facilitate misbehavior.
The school’s actions would have been the same regardless of the content of the protest. When someone disruptively occupies school space, the issue is their conduct, not the content of their speech.
— David Rodstein, Carmel Valley
UCSD’s discipline of professors tied to the anti-Israel encampment isn’t about protected speech; it’s about faculty participation in unlawful conduct. The encampment involved unauthorized structures, occupation of campus property in violation of policy and refusal to obey repeated lawful orders to disperse. Arrests for unlawful assembly, illegal camping and resisting police followed.
The First Amendment doesn’t shield such behavior. Public universities may enforce content-neutral “time, place and manner” rules to protect safety, access and core operations. That’s what occurred here.
These protests fostered an atmosphere where Jewish and Israeli students and faculty reported harassment, intimidation and exclusion. At the former Israeli ambassador’s event, protesters blocked entry and used amplification to shout him down, preventing speech, forcing delays and causing an early end under police presence. Holding faculty accountable for enabling lawbreaking isn’t political; it’s essential.
— Wayne Harris, Carmel Valley