I never took many pictures during college, but there is one that I’ll always remember. I’m sitting in a circle with a group of students. To my right is a gay man from Montana who supports Second Amendment rights. To my left is a neurodiverse English major who calls himself an unabashed Zionist. Across from me is a black man who has just written an article arguing in favor of colorblindness, a piece that would soon put this young man—Coleman Hughes—in the national spotlight. This is not a classroom discussion, nor are these students your typical Columbia kids. This was my first day walking into a meeting for a new campus group devoted to free speech.
You might be wondering why Columbia University—supposedly one of the nation’s premier institutes for the pursuit of knowledge—needs a club whose sole mission is to promote open discourse. Isn’t that the mission of any liberal arts university, after all?
Far from it.
As an English major with somewhat unorthodox views, I felt so stifled in humanities classrooms when it came to expressing what I actually believed that I was inspired to join Columbia Colloquia, a now-defunct club that several of my classmates founded in order to uphold the tenets of free speech. I still look back today with bemusement that some of the most diverse students on campus—gay, black, and neurodivergent—felt the need to join an alternative discussion space simply to express what they actually had on their minds. And while I am eternally grateful to Colloquia for getting me through my final years of college, I am appalled that such a club needed to exist in the first place—a club whose mission it was to simply promote discussion.
Yet its existence was more than necessary, for free speech at Columbia has never existed. In a recent report on college free speech rankings from The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), Columbia University was ranked 250 out of 251 universities investigated for their commitment to free speech, earning a rating of “Abysmal” for the category of “Speech Climate.” I not only accept FIRE’s critique of my alma mater but wholeheartedly endorse it—Columbia does not and never will care about free speech. Rather, the university is a cesspool for groupthink and far-leftist views, a dynamic promoted by an ideologically-captured professorate whose goal is not to promote free speech but to stifle it in favor of ideological conformity.
Much of this intolerance was brought to the public eye this past April, when Columbia made national headlines for its so-called “Tentifada” protests. Yet protests are nothing new—they have been the hallmark of Columbia University since the Vietnam era and were a definitive part of my experience as an undergraduate student. While I did not attend any of these singular events during my at Columbia, I often passed by such protests on my way to breakfast, and they were certainly never in favor of free speech principles—rather, they were meant to shut down the latest dissenting campus voices, usually invited as guest speakers by Columbia University College Republicans (CUCR). While these incidents did not make national news back when I was a student, the administration’s response to similar protests—most during the visit of British anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson in 2017—is eerily similar to what has been happening over the past year. Campus was shut down for the span of a week, the NYPD pretended to intervene, and several students were suspended for inciting violence. An influx of opinion pieces began to appear in the Columbia Spectator, the university’s campus newspaper, justifying campus disruptions on the grounds that “white supremacists” do not deserve a voice. A petition that garnered over five thousand signatures claimed that the suspended students had a duty to uphold the “moral principles” that would lead to “a more just and inclusive campus” and that the protesting students were simply “providing a model of informed political engagement.” That is to say, these students performed intense intellectual acrobatics to denigrate the importance of free speech in order to shut down views they disagreed with.
Today, Columbia students tell a different story.
On Saturday, March 8, Columbia SIPA student Mahmoud Khalil was arrested by federal immigration agents for his pro-terrorist activism during the April 2024 “Tentifada” protests. Khalil allegedly circulated pro-Hamas posters that glorified the October 7 attacks on the Jewish people, using his position in CU Apartheid Divest to call for violence against Zionist students. Whether you agree with the legal proceedings against Khalil or not, it is undeniable that his actions are despicable. Yet over the past month, the Left has suddenly fashioned Khalil into a free speech martyr, with Columbia Spectator opinion writers taking a pro-free speech stance in order to defend students with terrorist sympathies. The national conversation has shifted in favor of Khalil, with many on the Right—most notably Andrew Sullivan—also defending Khalil’s rights under the First Amendment. I sympathize with this take on free speech—I have always believed that the right to express even the most despicable of opinions is a small price to be paid for the greater protection of our freedoms. Yet what I do not sympathize with is our nation’s choice of this particular instance over so many others before it to suddenly throw a tantrum about the importance of protecting First Amendment rights. Where were these same people when Israeli Knesset member Simcha Rothman was forced offstage at UC Berkeley? When pro-Israel activist and Columbia professor Shai Davidai was suspended from campus? When a quick Google Search of “silencing pro-Israel voices” yields results exclusively pertaining to the silencing of pro-Palestinian voices?
It is clear that the sudden uproar about free speech has little if anything to do with free speech at all—rather, the sudden support for Khalil amongst so-called “free speech” activists demonstrates our country’s lopsided political agenda and the overall disdain for Zionist voices and Jewish safety amongst the American intelligentsia. And while there is an argument to be made against Khalil’s deportation, what many free speech commenters on the Right fail to see is that the Left only upholds the tenets of free speech when it is politically convenient for them to do so—that is to say, the reason that many on the Left care so vehemently about Khalil is not because he is a unique martyr for free speech but because he is a supporter of an agenda that aligns with their worldview.
As a supporter of free speech, I am ambivalent about the fate of Mahmoud Khalil, (although there is substantial evidence that he violated rights protected under the First Amendment through his active calls for violence and that, as a green card holder, he is not protected under the same free speech laws as American citizens to begin with). As a Columbia alum, however—one who lived through four years of attacks on free speech on my campus from the same people who are now standing by free speech to defend a terrorist supporter—I cannot in good faith buy the free speech argument in favor of Khalil. Over the years, I have heard countless attacks on free speech from fellow classmates who scorn anyone who happened to be a proponent of the First Amendment. To see these same people now turn to free speech to defend terrorism is the epitome of hypocrisy, demonstrating the power of ideological weaponization by individuals who lack moral values.
Defenders of Mahmoud Khalil do not care about free speech—nor have they ever spoken out in favor of it before this day. The case of Mahmoud Khalil is not about free speech—it is a testament to the ideological conformity that has plagued our nation, and regardless of Khalil’s ultimate fate, we must be wary of such ideological hypocrisy.
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The right to free speech does not include the right to incite rights-violating *action* because there can be no such thing as a right to violate rights. Speech that threatens violence is not protected because it is not merely speech; it forcibly stops the victim from acting on his own judgment by creating a threat that he must respond to in order to protect himself. Forcibly preventing others from acting on their judgment *is* what it means to violate rights, except, of course, when one's judgment is that he should forcibly stop others from acting on theirs. This is the key principle that so many people miss, misunderstand, or misinterpret on this issue. I'm not familiar with the case you're talking about, so I can't comment on whether his particular words and actions constituted a violation of rights, but they were morally despicable in any case.
I would temper the concluding paragraph with "some". Some, like you persuasively argue, indeed dont care about "freedom of speech" at all - just for him. But some, like Andrew Sullivan and others (as do I) do. Otherwise - good piece. Thank you