Despite a preface that assures readers of Carleton’s commitment to fostering expression and dialogue amongst faculty and students, what follows in the “Student Speech and Demonstration” guidelines is really anything but. 

Tackling the “Freedom of Expression” section first, we run into our first problem almost immediately amongst the several qualifications applied to “forms of peaceful protest.” The clause prohibits the disruption of “the operation of the College” or “other normal day-to-day activities of the College,” and any interference “with entrances to or exits from College facilities.” 

What is or is not a “disruption” to something as nebulous as “the operation of the College” is ill-defined and so broad as to be farce. The volume of chants from protestors at an otherwise proscribed protest may be “disruptive” to classes or visiting students and therefore may be disbanded. A gathering of students outside Laird or Sayles to rally may be accused of interfering with “normal day-to-day activities” or of interfering with entrances and exits, and thus be shut down. The vagueness of these policies could allow the administration to restrict even the most milquetoast of rallies to avoid drawing any unwanted attention to student concerns. 

Broadening administrative power to crack down on protests is an underlying theme throughout the new guidelines. The point here is that any gathering of students for a protest does, in some subjective way, break the guidelines’ rules, which gives the administration the ability to pick and choose when to enforce these rules. 

While the parameters of what constitutes a “disruption” may be in some way definable and have been of the policy historically, there is a small phrase  in these guidelines that is easy to gloss over but is of paramount importance.

In the language of the guidelines, protests which “jeopardize the legal status” of Carleton may be subject to sanction and dispersal. If the legal status of Carleton—as a non-profit entity and as an accredited college—is placed under threat by a protest, this will result in action against the protestors. While this may seem reasonable, consider the current U.S. administration and its policy of targeting higher education institutions and their legal status (including institutions like Columbia which have capitulated to every demand and yet were still defunded by Trump). Where does Carleton’s administration draw the line in terms of which protests threaten Carleton’s legal status? 

Representative Brian Mast for Florida’s twenty first congressional district proposed a policy giving the State Department the ability to revoke the passports of American citizens for participating in Pro-Palestine protests. In the wake of the Charlie Kirk shooting, Trump declared “Antifa” a terrorist organization. It seems as though a protest of either of these political positions would risk jeopardizing Carleton’s legal status. Any protest of the Trump administration would risk a Republican administration trying to revoke Carleton’s legal status anyways, as they are trying to do to Harvard with accusations of “rampant anti-semitism.” 

What happens when students try to organize against Trump, against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or for Palestine? Can we really trust the Carleton’s administration to prioritize the rights of students to organize over potential legal threats from an increasingly authoritarian U.S. government? I don’t think so, and neither should you.

This implicit capitulation to stricter controls on student expression continues unhalted into the section on “Protest and Encampment Protocols.” The policies around “breach of peace on College-owned property” and “refusal to comply with the directions of a College official” are full of more flimsy justifications to shut down any demonstration the school deems disruptive. Particularly egregious here is the masking policy which states that, “Participants in protests and encampments should not be masked as a group, as it is important for college staff to know whether protestors are Carleton students.” It goes on further, stating the “presence of masked protestors has heightened concerns about safety, which has in turn contributed to more confrontational responses from officials.“

Now, putting aside the fact that the only reasons authorities would be called in the first place would be if the Carleton administration called them to break up the protest, this policy is either ignorant of or deliberately using the dangers of protesting in the digital age to dissuade protests from even happening. There is an increasing number of counter-protest groups which track, document and report student activists from protest videos, putting students from international backgrounds, undocumented backgrounds and frankly really anyone at risk of further targeting, harassment and even violence. Masking during protests is a well-known form of self-defence from retaliation from both digital audiences and authorities, and it is a deliberate choice to force students to give up their identities at a time when the threat of retaliation is higher than ever. 

The justification that college officials need protesters unmasked to check if they are actually Carleton students would be laughable, if it weren’t so damaging. Firstly, do college officials have some divine ability to recognize on-sight every student of Carleton’s 2000 person population? I have trouble recognizing people I’ve lived on the same floor with for two years, so I sincerely doubt the ability of college officials to have this level of perfect recall. Secondly, many of the locations where protests occur at Carleton such as Sayles, outside Laird and the Bald Spot are all considered public grounds accessible to the public (as made clear by the administration regarding the permissibility of ICE on campus), so it really shouldn’t matter who is or is not protesting there. If you have to register yourself with the administration before a protest, is it really a protest? 

I believe these policies were not created with the intent of capitulation towards the current government but instead encompass a wider attitude of defeatism amongst liberals. The administration is “playing it safe” and not allowing the possibility of the boat to be even gently swayed, much less rocked. It speaks to a wider problem with Carleton’s administration and liberals in general, that of a lack of faith in the student body to conduct itself with care and resistance to the current political moment, as student bodies in the United States have done since pretty much the advent of higher education in the country. If we just remain quiet, perhaps we won’t be as badly hurt by the world outside the Carleton bubble. I reject that. We are better than that. The Carleton administration had an opportunity, and still does, to foster an emancipatory model of free speech on campus. Instead of placing more restrictions on its students, it should encourage panels, discussions and, yes, protests on campus—and actually stick to its commitment to the diversity of expression instead of just paying lip service to it. It should lift these ridiculous restrictions on the expression of students in the name of a real push against the current political zeitgeist of censorship and silence, instead of becoming yet another part of it. We have to be better than this. Right?