Illustration by Abubacar Keita
Last fall, outside of the Montclair State University Student Center, students and faculty stood silently, holding posters of children killed in Gaza captioned: “We mourn.” Within minutes, two administrators and campus police arrived, surrounding the small group. For many students involved in MSU4Palestine, this was no surprise, as the university had done this before. The university’s actions had only begun as what the participating students describe as “patterns of heightened scrutiny” over pro-Palestinian expression on campus.
Over the past academic year, students and faculty involved in pro-Palestinian organizations at Montclair State University say they experienced restrictions, police interventions and administrative pressures that limited their ability to protest. The experiences of these groups highlight issues regarding the way free speech is permitted, restricted, and interpreted under Montclair’s updated Expressive Activity Policy: guidelines which ironically discourage student protests.
The Expressive Activity Policy, updated October 18, 2024, states that members of the public can only engage in expressive activity in front of the campus amphitheater. Students and faculty can speak or assemble in outdoor spaces, but planned gatherings must be registered and administered. Whether it is a silent or symbolic expression, it may also require a reservation.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), an organization that defends and sustains the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and thought, rated Montclair State University as a “yellow light.” This means the university’s policies are a “substantial risk of restricting protected expression.” FIRE also notes that requiring pre-approved space for expressive activity can limit spontaneous student demonstrations.
One part of the new policy prevents students from marching. Daniel, a student organizer with MSU4Palestine who requested an alias for safety, believes this change specifically targeted their group.
“So part of the new policy is that we’re not allowed to march anymore, and that was directly because of MSU4Palestine,” Daniel told The Montclarion. “The older members told me that they did a march… where they walked around, outside [on the] sidewalk that goes around the quad… literally the day after, they’re (the university) like, ‘you can’t do that anymore.’”
A tenured faculty member who works with MSU4Palestine who requested anonymity due to concerns of retaliation explained that the university began cracking down on all protests in 2024. By the fall, things began to quiet down.
On October 9, 2024, MSU4Palestine organized a Palestinian poetry reading in front of the Feliciano Business School and University Hall. Within 10 minutes, a group from an outside organization, Mothers Against College Antisemitism (MACA), arrived with bullhorns and large Israeli and American flags.
“The university let them in onto campus,” the faculty member said. “The police and administration just stood by and watched this mob of counter-protesters drown out our poetry reading. They were calling us Hamas motherf—-, terrorists.”
At the time, this incident violated the 2021 Expressive Activity policy, which prohibited outside groups from coming onto campus without a reservation request. However, the administration allowed MACA to remain.
Students have also faced consequences for minor expressions of speech. In October 2024, campus police stopped three students holding signs on the grass patch in front of Montclair State University Student Center. At the end of a protest, the police asked for their IDs and addresses, then referred them to a prosecutor’s office for trespassing.
A former founder of MSU4Palestine believes the policy represses even minor expressions of speech. “The best way to sum it up is that policy they made, any kind of organized speech has to be approved of, including symbolic clothing [like the keffiyeh],” the individual said. “And the way the policy read, it was like nobody could say anything that might be controversial at any time on campus without scheduling.”
However a pro-Israel campus organization, Hillel, did not experience issues with the university and police. According to Shayna Barkan, a student leader with Montclair Hillel, the organization does not organize protests out of concern for students’ safety.
“The university is relatively responsive in regards to protests, but we don’t really find it to be a good approach for the club since we usually face concerns around the safety of our students despite [the] responsiveness of the university and campus police,” Barkan said.
The Montclarion could not identify any reported incidents of targeted violence against students in relation to demonstrations on campus in recent years.
According to Montclair State University’s Expressive Activity Policy, the university “plays an important role in creating an environment that is respectful of free expression, and encourages the free exchange of ideas.” While Montclair Hillel avoids protests as a means of expression, MSU4Palestine’s members believe the rules are a targeted restriction of speech.
FIRE’s assessment of multiple accounts suggest the university’s policies may limit students’ ability to spontaneously express activism. While it is a preliminary assessment, just the possibility of this restriction developing is enough concern for students to not just be aware of it, but to react and step into their roles as activists.
Amidst that limitation, even surrounded by police in front of the student center, the organization still held their posters. Their presence only proves that activism might be reduced, but it is still always resilient. Voices can be dampened, but not silenced.
