County officials’ criticism of planned Gaza protest undermined free speech, ACLU says

Two Camden County officials overreached when they called upon a local school district to halt a protest opposing the war in Gaza, the American Civil Liberties of New Jersey said Tuesday.

A letter the civil rights group sent to the county’s board of commissioners says the county officials must uphold students’ rights to freedom of speech and expression. While the ACLU of New Jersey does not take positions on international affairs, the organization opposes all efforts to censor political speech, it said.

The commissioners’ demand undermines “foundational constitutional principles and the value of free speech,” wrote Sarah Fajardo, ACLU of New Jersey’s policy director.

Commissioners Jeffrey Nash and Melinda Kane sent a letter April 22 to the Eastern Camden County Regional School District’s superintendent as students were planning a walkout in support of a cease-fire in Gaza. Administrators at the district’s high school, which has nearly 2,000 students, were aware of the protest plan.

The duo called on the district to call off the protest, which was set to coincide with Passover. They said common chants at pro-Palestinian rallies like “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and others are antisemitic because they call for the elimination of Israel and accuse the country of genocide.

“Not all speech is protected speech,” Nash and Kane wrote.

The commissioners said the walkout would invite anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric and suggested the district could lose federal funding for violating civil rights laws.

In recent weeks, New Jersey college students set up at least three encampments protesting the war in Gaza, aping encampments seen at colleges nationwide. Rutgers New Brunswick students dismantled their tents last week after the university set a deadline for protestors to clear out, and agreed to eight of the 10 demands from students. An encampment remains active at Rutgers’ Newark campus. And at Princeton University, students have spent nearly two weeks camped out in a courtyard and have launched a hunger strike.

Eastern Regional students agreed to postpone their walkout and instead are planning a rally in support of human rights later this month, according to NJ.com.

Fajardo notes in her letter that a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court ruling protects public school students’ free speech rights. She urged the board to publicly disavow Nash’s and Kane’s letter.

“To be clear, it is critical for schools to combat antisemitism. The harassment of Jewish students is wrong and illegal. But it is also wrong and dangerous to suggest that all speech in support of Palestinians, the cessation of bombing, and human rights is necessarily antisemitic harassment,” she wrote.

Nash, Kane, and the school district’s officials did not respond to a request for comment on the ACLU letter.