As at many other colleges and universities recently, the campus at the University of North Carolina was the scene of an “encampment.” After the campers refused to leave public property, officials called in the police to remove them.

Naturally, that led to another dispute — did the school overreact?

In today’s Martin Center article, Professor Mark McNeilly argues that officials were right to call in the police. He writes:

Free expression is a core value of a university. However, free expression does not apply only to protesters and does not mean that speech can be expressed in any manner, at any time, or in any place. For example, one can debate whether protesters were wearing medical masks for their safety or to hide their identity and intimidate others. I favor the latter explanation based on communications from the protesters themselves (“wear bloc“). Certainly many people on campus, especially Jewish faculty and students, were intimidated by it.

Freedom of speech is subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. There are many other ways of expressing your solidarity with Hamas than taking over public property.

Furthermore, McNeilly points out, a university should be neutral in enforcing its rules — not making exceptions for protests that are ideologically favored and cracking down on those that are not.