Tag: nightmare

  • Navigating the Kafkaesque nightmare of Columbia’s Office of Institutional Equity

    Navigating the Kafkaesque nightmare of Columbia’s Office of Institutional Equity

    Franz Kafka’s masterpiece “The Trial” begins when Josef K discovers that “one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.”

    What follows is the story of his desperate attempt to navigate a nightmarishly opaque bureaucracy — and the bleak results. Like Josef K, Columbia students awoke one morning to find themselves at the mercy of the university’s new Office of Institutional Equity.

    In recent weeks, the OIE sent dozens of warnings to students telling them they were under investigation for alleged discriminatory harassment simply for engaging in pro-Palestinian advocacy on campus. Individual acts of protected political expression — social media posts, peaceful demonstrations, and op-eds in the student newspaper — were treated as creating a “hostile environment” for criticizing Israel, with accusations framed in expansive interpretations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

    FIRE has since heard from a number of students lost in the maze of Columbia’s cryptic dispatches and confusing accusations, and one thing is clear: the OIE has cast a late-winter chill across campus. 

    These investigations can take months or even years, and leave students in fear of what they can and cannot do or say while they await the results. 

    Take the two Columbia seniors who were notified just months before graduation that they were under investigation and subject to expulsion for allegedly writing a student newspaper article signed by a consortium of pro-Palestinian student groups urging divestment from Israel. One student described the situation as “dystopian” and said she is now reluctant to speak out on the issue again. Even worse, the two students were targeted not because there was any evidence they’d actually authored the article, much less created a hostile environment by doing so, but merely because of their involvement with the pro-Palestinian student group consortium.

    Another student contacted FIRE to report that they were afraid to return to campus because they feared the administration would retaliate against them for their previous advocacy with Students for Justice in Palestine. 

    Moreover, Columbia made national headlines this week when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained former student Mahmoud Khalil, who previously tried to fight the OIE. Though he had already successfully appealed the university’s disciplinary charges against him, federal agents showed up on his doorstep and hauled him off to an ICE detention center based on accusations that he led campus protest activities aligned with Hamas. 

    Trump administration’s reasons for detaining Mahmoud Khalil threaten free speech

    News

    The government arrested and detained Mahmoud Khalil for deportation, and its explanation for doing so threatens the free speech of millions of people.


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    Khalil reported that just before he was due to graduate this past December, the OIE buried him in allegations relating to social media posts with which he was uninvolved. Furthermore, when he stood up for himself and refused to sign a nondisclosure agreement, the university put a hold on his transcript and threatened to block his graduation — until he hired counsel, and the OIE seemed to temporarily back off. The timing of the ICE raid and the OIE’s investigation into Khalil leaves students and faculty with more questions than answers, especially as he has still not yet been criminally charged for anything and is facing deportation.

    While Columbia’s OIE is charged with addressing claims of unlawful discrimination and harassment, it cannot do so by employing an overly broad definition of harassment that stretches the meaning beyond recognition. Yet the OIE has done exactly that in interpreting Title VI harassment to include protected criticism of Israel, suppressing political activism under the guise of maintaining a “safe” environment by defining speech against another country as possible discriminatory harassment if “directed at or infused with discriminatory comments about persons from, or associated with, that country.” 

    Is it possible for such speech to be part of a pattern of discriminatory harassment? Yes. It’s also possible for it not to be harassment. The way Columbia is treating such speech, though, makes that impossible to discern. 

    The OIE’s needlessly murky investigatory process is also deeply troubling. Students report being left in the dark about the specifics of the charges against them, and being required to sign a nondisclosure agreement in order to see the evidence. In other words, they can’t talk to anyone about their case or get help until after it’s too late and the OIE has already decided their case and potentially sealed their fate. 

    These investigations can take months or even years, and leave students in fear of what they can and cannot do or say while they await the results. When students are forced to endure lengthy investigations that may result in serious sanctions such as suspension and expulsion, it’s obvious that the process, even if it results in a student’s favor, is the punishment. 

    The original title of “The Trial” was Der Prozess, or literally “The Process,” because the true horror Josef was forced to confront was that of a Byzantine and convoluted process custom-built to crush dissent. If nothing else, we can perhaps thank Columbia, like so many schools before it, for bringing classic literature to life.

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  • Snitch hotlines for ‘offensive’ speech were a nightmare on campus — and now they’re coming to a neighborhood near you

    Snitch hotlines for ‘offensive’ speech were a nightmare on campus — and now they’re coming to a neighborhood near you

    We know the term “Orwellian” gets thrown around a lot these days. But if a government entity dedicated to investigating and even reeducating Americans for protected speech doesn’t deserve the label, nothing does.

    This step towards the Stasi isn’t hypothetical, either. It’s real. The governing bodies in question are called bias reporting systems, and the odds are they’re already chilling free expression on a campus near you. What’s worse, they aren’t staying there — now municipalities and states are using them, too.

    In this explainer, we’ll break down what bias reporting systems are, how they’ve spread beyond campus, and why they’re a threat to free speech.

    What are bias reporting systems?

    If you’ve been on campus in the last decade, you’ve likely heard of bias reporting systems — or, as they’re sometimes called, bias response teams. Their structure and terminology vary, but FIRE defines a campus bias reporting system as any system that provides:

    1. a formal or explicit process for or solicitation of
    2. reports from students, faculty, staff, or the community
    3. concerning offensive conduct or speech that is protected by the First Amendment or principles of expressive or academic freedom.

    Bias reporting systems generally solicit reports of bias against identity characteristics widely found in anti-discrimination laws. Western Washington University, for example, defines a “bias incident” as “language or an action that demonstrates bias against an individual or group of people based on actual or perceived race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity or expression, disability, sexual orientation, age, or veteran status.” Some systems also invite reports of bias against traits like “intellectual perspective,” “political expression,” and “political belief,” or have a catch-all provision for any other allegedly biased speech.

    Many colleges have bias response teams that consist not only of administrators but law enforcement. They often investigate complaints and summon accused students and faculty to meetings.

    The ability to speak freely is core to our democracy. Any system or protocol that stifles or inhibits free expression is antithetical to the principles and ideals of our institutions of higher education and our republic. 

    You might be wondering, “Don’t civil rights laws already cover this sort of thing?” Well, not quite. Bias reporting systems cover way more expressive ground than civil rights laws do, which puts these systems at odds with First Amendment protections. They generally define “bias” in such broad or vague terms that it could be applied to basically anything the complainant doesn’t like, including protected speech. This is doubly so when a school includes that vague and subjective word “hate” as another form of language or behavior worth reporting.

    That’s a problem at public colleges, which are bound by the First Amendment, and also at private colleges that voluntarily adopt First Amendment-like standards. Bias reporting systems completely ignore the fact that “hate speech” has no legal definition, and that unless a given expression clearly falls into one of the clearly-defined categories of unprotected speech, like true threats or incitement to immediate violence, it is almost certainly protected by the First Amendment. This remains so regardless of how anyone might feel about the speech itself.

    Bias Response Team Report 2017

    Reports

    The posture taken by many Bias Response Teams is likely to create profound risks to freedom of expression and academic freedom on campus.


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    These initiatives incentivize and in many cases encourage people to report each other for disfavored expression. As you can imagine, these systems often lead to unconstitutional infringements on protected student and faculty speech and chill expression on campus.

    For example, after the University of California, San Diego received bias incident reports about a student humor publication that satirized “safe spaces,” administrators asked the university’s lawyer to “think creatively” about how to address the newspaper, which they felt “crosse[d] the ‘free speech’ line.” And at Connecticut College, pro-Palestinian students were reported for flyers mimicking Israeli eviction notices to Palestinians, prompting an investigation by a dean.

    These are just a couple of instances where bias reporting systems have crossed the line. Sadly, there are plenty more, spanning FIRE’s research and commentary going back as far as 2016 — and none of them are good news.

    Sound Orwellian enough for you yet? Wait until you hear how bias reporting systems work off campus.

    Bias reporting systems have graduated from campus into everyday life

    Exporting campus bias reporting systems to wider society is a disastrous idea. No state should be employing de facto speech police. But of course, that hasn’t stopped state and city governments from trying.

    Bias reporting systems have been popping up in one form or another across more than a dozen state and city municipalities in the last four years, usually consisting of an online portal or telephone number where citizens are encouraged to submit reports.

    If you’re thinking this is just like the hate crime hotlines that many states have had for years, there is one important difference: namely, the word “crime.” While the new bias reporting systems will similarly accept reports of criminal acts, they also actively solicit reports of speech and behavior that are not only not crimes, but also First Amendment-protected expression.

    They know this, too.

    Vermont state police protocol, for instance, describes the information it compiles as being on “biased but protected speech.” This raises the obvious question of why the police are concerning themselves with Americans lawfully exercising their fundamental rights, and opens the door to police responses that violate those rights.

    Wherever they’ve popped up, these bias reporting systems have been bad news. Washington Free Beacon journalist Aaron Sibarium’s research has turned up a number of alarming examples. In Oregon, citizens can report “offensive ‘jokes’” and “imitating someone’s cultural norm or practice.”

    Meanwhile, in Maryland, the attorney general’s office states on its website that “people who engage in bias incidents may eventually escalate into criminal behavior,” which is why “Maryland law enforcement agencies are required by law to record and report data on both hate crimes and bias incidents.” But these speculative concerns do not justify the chilling effect bias reporting systems create. Not only do these systems solicit complaints about protected speech, they also cast an alarmingly wide net. It’s hard to believe, for instance, that many “offensive jokes” are reliable signs of future criminal activity.

    At this point you’d be forgiven for thinking that “Orwellian” is an understatement.

    But that’s not the worst of it. In Philadelphia — home of FIRE, the Liberty Bell, and the Constitution — authorities fielding “hate incidents” can now ask for exact addresses and various identifying details about the alleged offending party, including their names. According to Sibarium, city officials will in some cases “contact those accused of bias and request that they attend sensitivity training.”

    You heard that right. If you’re reported for a “non-criminal bias incident” in the city of Philadelphia, the city may request that you take a course meant to teach you the error of your ways. “If it is not a crime, we sometimes contact the offending party and try to do training so that it doesn’t happen again,” Saterria Kersey, a spokeswoman for the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations, told Sibarium.

    The training is voluntary, but it reflects an unsettling level of government interference in the thoughts and opinions of the public.

    At this point you’d be forgiven for thinking that “Orwellian” is an understatement.

    Bias reporting systems are a threat to free speech on and off campus

    Thankfully, there has been some considerable pushback on bias reporting systems — though not entirely successful. Washington, for example, introduced a bill to create a statewide bias reporting system, but it failed to advance out of the Senate Ways and Means committee. However, a new version of the bill passed in March of 2024, and Washington is now set to establish a bias reporting system this year.

    The threat remains real, and the consequences of these speech-chilling initiatives are further-reaching than it might seem at first glance.

    On campus, the mere existence of bias reporting systems threatens one of the purposes of higher education, if not the purpose: the free exchange of ideas. Some courts have recognized that bias reporting systems may chill protected speech to such a degree that they violate the First Amendment.

    Bias reporting systems fundamentally undermine the First Amendment rights of not just students and faculty, but also ordinary citizens.

    The state-level reporting systems raise similar First Amendment issues — especially when law enforcement is involved. Like their campus counterparts, the state systems use expansive definitions of “bias” and “hate” that could encompass a vast range of protected expression, including speech on social or political issues.

    However, unconstitutionality isn’t the only concern. Even a bias reporting system that stays within constitutional bounds can deter people from freely expressing their thoughts and opinions. If they are afraid that the state will investigate them or place them in a government database just for saying something that offended another person, people will understandably hold their tongues and suppress their own voices. Moreover, the lack of clarity around what some states actually do with the reports they collect is itself chilling.

    The ability to speak freely is core to our democracy. Any system or protocol that stifles or inhibits free expression is antithetical to the principles and ideals of our institutions of higher education and our republic. In both word and deed, bias reporting systems fundamentally undermine these principles — and now seriously threaten the First Amendment rights of not just students and faculty, but also ordinary citizens.

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