Following the October 7 terror attacks by Hamas, the group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) staged quite a few vicious protests on American campuses, attempting to justify the violence done to unarmed civilians and targeting Jewish students for taunts and harassment. That led several schools to suspend or ban the organization.

Is that legal? Is it wise? In today’s Martin Center article, Jenna Robinson examines the question.

First, whatever one thinks of the arguments made by SJP, trying to ban the group is certain to run into legal trouble. The State of Florida has already been sued over its ban.

Second, will such bans accomplish anything other than allowing officials to say, “We did something”? Robinson is very skeptical, writing,

Research has shown that restrictions on certain kinds of speech don’t curtail the underlying ideas. For example, as Jacob Mchangama documents in his 2022 book, Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media, crackdowns during the Weimar Republic on newspapers that printed Nazi propaganda and Communist rhetoric failed utterly to eliminate sympathy for Nazi and Communist ideas. Mchangama writes that, for many, “Convictions for speech crimes became badges of honor.” By kicking SJP off campus, universities risk making Hamas’s propaganda more salient.

I think that’s right. The only way to combat bad ideas is with better ideas. My view is that the claims made by SJP need to be refuted, not banned.