At Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, students must receive approval from the administration before they can protest. Rutgers students need to acquire a permit from the school. At Indiana University, students may no longer engage in what school leaders call “expressive activity” between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. Some universities have enacted a wave of new rules and tightened restrictions around protest and speech in an effort to avoid a repeat of the spring semester, when thousands of people were arrested at protests and encampments prompted by the Israel-Hamas war, the New York Times reports. The rules vary from campus to campus, but they generally set limits on when and where protests can occur, and prohibit encampments. In many cases, universities say the policy changes are minimal or clarify existing rules. Some attorneys said many of the new restrictions were written to fall within acceptable limits on speech, and would not raise constitutional issues if enforced equally.
Lauren Lassabe Shepherd, a professor at the University of New Orleans, said that more detailed rules would make it easier for university administrators to say that student protesters have broken them. “To me it seems very clear that they’re setting up a case to point to where students have violated something,” she said. Here are several ways universities have shifted their guidelines around protest and expression: Many universities have adopted rules that limit protests to specific times and prohibiting them overnight. At Ohio State, all campus events must end by 10 p.m. Northwestern has prohibited protests before 3 p.m. on weekdays on a part of campus surrounded by classroom buildings. Rutgers allows demonstrations only between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. At Franklin & Marshall College in southeastern Pennsylvania, a new interim policy requires demonstrations, rallies and vigils to wrap up within two hours. Another common new measure requires protest organizers to seek university approval at least a few days ahead of time.