Free speech fault lines
New rules for campus protests ... Student athletes get a pay bump ... And giving history a second look.
If there’s one thing the Trump administration is good at, it’s generating protests.
And Arizona’s GOP-led Legislature and Democratic governor just made it easier to crack down on the student protesters who have become a prime target of President Donald Trump.
A new state law is on the books that will make it a crime for students to set up encampments on campus. You remember those? They were a big deal about a year ago, when universities across the nation exploded with pro-Palestine collective action.
In Arizona, university students set up tents, grabbed construction material for makeshift structures, and threatened to stay on campus until their demands were met. Police eventually broke up the protests with tear gas and made dozens of arrests.
At this point, you might be thinking the new law came from a Republican legislator trying to crack down on liberal universities.
Nope.
It came from a Tucson Democrat. And the messy, months-long process of getting the bill to Gov. Katie Hobbs’ desk split the Democratic caucus, freaked out some Republicans, and left students without a clear idea of what exactly they’re not allowed to do.
And as the first state in the country to ban encampments on campus, policymakers might’ve just signaled to Trump that Arizona would be fertile ground for his ever-widening crusade against universities.
As for the legislators who debated the bill, HB2880, for the past few months, some are worried the new law will have a chilling effect on free speech, and that it could end up targeting groups that have nothing to do with the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Getting out of hand
The bill was the brainchild of Democratic Rep. Alma Hernandez, who rocks a custom license plate that says “Zionist” and is not shy about getting into online spats with critics of Israel.
She sponsored a bill last year that would have cracked down on pro-Palestinian activists on campus, following the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas.
She also adamantly defended Israel last spring after students set up encampments at the University of Arizona and Arizona State University to advocate for Palestinians who were being bombed by the Israeli military.
As Hernandez put it at a recent Senate hearing, the goal of HB2880 was to make sure that pro-Palestine protests “did not get out of hand again.”
“People have the right to protest, but they do not have the right to disrupt the learning of other students or intimidate Jewish students who are trying to get to class. HAMAS propaganda is not wanted in our colleges!” Hernandez wrote on social media after Hobbs signed HB2880.
But a lot has changed since last spring. Trump is president again and he has put a target on the backs of student protesters, some of whom are being deported or thrown in detention centers for as little as writing pro-Palestine opinion pieces for student newspapers.
At ASU, more than 100 students had their visas suddenly revoked in recent months. And after Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk got detained, the pro-Palestinian protests that were widespread on campuses last year are significantly quieter.
Heated debate
As the bill made its way through the Legislature, the tension between Hernandez and her fellow Democrats was on full display.
At one point, Hernandez said her fellow Democrats accused her of using the bill to curry favor with Republicans.
The tension started to boil over when Tucson Democratic Sen. Priya Sundareshan asked whether the bill could lead to crackdowns on protesters beyond college campuses, like at the state Capitol.
“I’m sorry if you did not get a chance to visit the universities while this was going on, especially the one that’s near your district,” Hernandez said.
When it came time to decide on the bill, House Democrats split almost evenly, with 13 voting against the bill. In the Senate, all but three Democrats voted against it.
What’s allowed and what’s not?
But the legislation didn’t just rankle Democrats.
Republican Rep. Alexander Kolodin was one of four GOP House members who voted against the bill, saying he was worried it would be used against conservative organizations like Turning Point that set up tables on campus to register voters.
“Is this bill really going to get used against Students for Justice in Palestine? Probably not,” Kolodin said. “Is it going to get used against Turning Point and pro-life organizations? Far more likely.”
Over and over again, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle pointed out the bill’s language was too vague about what exactly would be illegal.
The bill Hobbs signed into law last week defines an encampment as “a temporary shelter, including tents, that is installed on the campus of a university or community college and that is used to stay on campus overnight or for a prolonged period of time.”
Legislators repeatedly pointed out that the bill doesn’t define what a “prolonged period of time” would be, but nobody amended the bill to clarify the language.
Democratic Sen. Rosanna Gabaldon was one of the lawmakers who worried the bill was too broad.
“When a law that restricts speech is so vague that an ordinary person wouldn’t know what conduct is actually prohibited, that’s when it becomes unconstitutional,” Gabaldon said.
That leaves the door wide open for legal challenges.
The ACLU already made it clear it has a problem with the new law.
The organization sent a representative to argue against the bill with a litany of complaints about unconstitutional restrictions on speech and undermining university autonomy.
Kind of like the arguments Harvard is using in their lawsuit against the Trump administration.
Poking around the Legislature is fascinating! Do us a favor and smash that button so we can keep doing it!
We watched hours of legislative committee hearings to see what lawmakers had to say about HB2880. A lot of the discussion involved question-and-answer sessions as lawmakers considered batches of bills.
But when it came time for the final Senate debate, two senators wrote up speeches that gave the clearest arguments for, and against, the bill.
We pulled a few key quotes and made video clips so you can hear the arguments for yourself.
Republican Sen. Hildy Angius spoke in support of the bill, saying the “hypocrisy is stunning.”
“Day after day, I'm lectured to by my social justice warrior friends on my left about how we need to be more compassionate, more understanding, protect minorities in this country and in the state,” Angius said. “African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, boys who think they're girls, girls who think they're boys, gays, non-binary, Muslims, Christian, Buddhists, the list goes on ad infinitum.”
“The takeaway, of course, is that all minorities deserve respect, to be protected and to be safe. We all agree, right? Well, that is, of course, unless they are Jewish. Then, apparently, all bets are off,” she said.
Democratic Sen. Analise Ortiz spoke against the bill, arguing “our most sacred rights” are getting “trampled on.”
“Why, at a time that 150 ASU students have had their visas revoked, at a time when universities already can, and are, harshly going after students who peacefully protest on campus, why are we looking to add another law to the books to criminalize protest, to put a target on the backs of people simply for their political beliefs?” Ortiz said.
“This is about so much more than encampments, and this is not about any type of protest that might encourage actual hate speech, because ARS 15-1866 already grants universities the authority to regulate campus activity in a content-neutral manner and to keep the most egregious speech off of campuses.”
Singling out teachers: Speaking of free speech on campuses, state lawmakers are getting close to sending a bill to Gov. Katie Hobbs’ desk that would expose teachers to liability if somebody thinks they’re teaching antisemitism, Capitol Media Services’ Howard Fischer reports. Republican Rep. Michael Way said his bill, HB2867, is a response to what he sees as rising antisemitism at the University of Arizona and Arizona State University.
A new (pay) day: Arizona universities can pay student athletes directly, now that Hobbs signed SB1615 into law, KJZZ’s Wayne Schutsky reports. Previously, athletes could make money through their name, image and likeness, commonly referred to as NIL. But the game is changing again and schools are looking for the next way to entice athletes. And it's not just college athletes who can cash in now. High school athletes already are learning how to make money from NIL, too, Cronkite News’ Gregory Graves reported.
It’s still the Gulf of Mexico: Hobbs vetoed a bill that would have required schools to use “Gulf of America,” instead of Gulf of Mexico. GOP Rep. Teresa Martinez wrote the bill after Trump issued an executive order changing the name, which had been in place for centuries.
“Arizonans want us to work together to lower costs, secure the border, create jobs, and protect public education. Instead of joining with me to do that, this Legislature has chosen to attempt to dictate how teachers refer to geographic features. I encourage you to refocus your time and energy on solving real problems for Arizonans,” Hobbs wrote in her veto letter.
Telling stories: Nogales native Neylani Castro took a film crew around her hometown last fall, hitting the local library, a restaurant, and a bakery. After months of editing her film about strangers repeatedly crossing paths without noticing each other, the University of Arizona student premiered her short film, “Parallel Lines,” at the Oasis Cinema this month, the Nogales International’s Genesis Lara reported.
It’s never too early to look back on local history.
After an intensive social social studies class, Tucson middle school students came up with new names for their schools, the Arizona Luminaria's Shannon Conner reported.
Students at Miles Exploratory Learning Center, where school officials say “Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and Hearing students work together,” picked Black Coyote, a deaf Lakota warrior who may have been the son of Sitting Bull.
Over at Sam Hughes Elementary School, they chose Góshé Whitman, combining an Apache word for dog (the school’s mascot is a dog) and Royal Emerson Whitman, a soldier at Camp Grant who helped the Apache people.
And it’s also never too early to take part in civic life. Four of the students got to present their ideas to the Tucson Unified School District Governing Board, Conner reported.
