University of Maryland tried to suspend the First Amendment on October 7. The Constitution doesn’t allow that.

Today, the University of Maryland-College Park’s chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace will hold an on-campus interfaith vigil on the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel. That’s unquestionably their right; as a public institution, UMD is required by the First Amendment to protect student speech, even when it offends or angers others.

But remarkably, it took a federal court order for today’s vigil to go forward, after UMD’s administration tried to get around the First Amendment’s constraints by simply canceling free speech for an entire day.

That’s what University President Darryll Pines tried to do on Sept. 1, when he announced that in order to ensure “the paramount importance of campus safety,” UMD would only allow school-sponsored events to take place on campus on October 7. As a direct result of this decision, UMD’s SJP and JVP groups were banned from holding a vigil on that day, despite having previously secured an event permit. No other student groups or individuals, neither pro-Israel nor pro-Palestinian, were to be allowed to hold events that day, either.

In today’s campus climate, it’s not unreasonable to be concerned about safety. Last year, campuses roiled with protests, encampments, and sometimes even violence in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks. What’s more, FIRE’s recent College Free Speech Rankings survey found that alarming percentages of students consider illiberal protest tactics — like engaging in violence and blocking entry to a speech — acceptable on some occasions.

But vague concerns for safety, however understandable, don’t give schools the right to tap the brakes on students’ First Amendment freedoms. So the organizations CAIR and Palestine Legal filed suit against UMD, and FIRE and partner organizations backed their lawsuit with a friend-of-the-court brief. 

Federal court blocks University of Maryland’s unconstitutional ‘Expressive Event’ ban

Press Release

FIRE, ACLU, and Knight Institute say decision is an important victory for students’ First Amendment rights.

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SJP said in an Instagram post that they “have every right” to hold an event on Oct. 7, and the group is absolutely correct. Public universities such as UMD do not get to decide when the Constitution applies. They are obligated to uphold speech protections no matter what day it is.

What’s more, the school clearly had no specific security-related justification for the decision. In his announcement, President Pines confirmed that, after conducting a safety assessment, university police assured him there was “no immediate or active threat.”

It’s critically important that all students are safe on campus. But the university can and, per the First Amendment, must ensure safety without censorship, including by providing increased security if necessary. Shutting down free speech and restricting peaceful communication is not among the options, and is likely to make things worse. And once this door is opened, it will be difficult to contain the censorship to just Oct. 7. Surely there are other dates that might inspire student demonstrations and controversial speech on campus. (Sept. 11? Dec. 7?) If UMD starts going down this road, many more will become “school-sanctioned events only” days on campus. This violates students’ First Amendment rights, and the principle of free expression they’re designed to protect. Principles matter, even when applying them is hard, and consistency in applying them matters even more.

Freedom of speech is a sacred and fundamental right at the very core of our nation’s founding principles. The Constitution’s protections apply on every single day of the year and to every public institution — and that includes UMD.

When President Pines announced the ban, he said the university would allow events to resume on Oct. 8, “in accordance with time, place, and manner considerations of the First Amendment.”

But the suspension of free speech for an entire day is not a legitimate time, place, and manner restriction. Public universities may only establish reasonable, viewpoint- and content-neutral provisions if they serve a significant government interest (i.e., keeping traffic flowing or allowing classes to continue) and still allow speakers other means to spread their message. UMD’s blanket ban on all non-university-hosted events, despite there being no identifiable safety threat, coupled with its refusal to give students any other avenue to hold their expressive events, does not meet that high standard. 

“This is a matter of law, not of wounded feelings,” wrote U.S. District Judge Peter Messitte in his opinion. “Free speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment may be the most important law this country has. In many ways, all other basic freedoms . . . depend upon it.”

Exactly right. Freedom of speech is a sacred and fundamental right at the very core of our nation’s founding principles. The Constitution’s protections apply on every single day of the year and to every public institution — and that includes UMD.