UNC Hit with Complaint after Failing to Discipline Pro-Palestinian Students Who Disrupted Bari Weiss Event

The University of North Carolina is the latest addition to the list of institutions of higher education facing scrutiny over their handling of campus Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter.

Campus free-speech advocacy group Speech First filed a complaint on January 31 with Jonathan Sauls, senior associate vice chancellor of student success and administration at UNC, alleging that the university’s SJP chapter violated both state law and university policy by obstructing the ability of two guest speakers — Duke University professor and former New York Times columnist Frank Bruni and Free Press founder Bari Weiss — to participate in an event held on January 22.

Ahead of the engagement, the campus SJP chapter posted on X that “Bari Weiss and her lies are NOT welcome on campus” and advertised a “walkout.” The text of the advertisement included lines describing Weiss as someone who “frequently reviles intersectionality, solidarity politics, anti-Zionism, pro-Palestinian voices, and any functional critique of Israel.” 

As a video of the event posted on YouTube demonstrates, SJP members stood up and chanted “Bari, Bari, you can’t hide; you’re committing genocide” while slowly walking out of the venue. According to a written account of the event, some of the activists stayed outside the auditorium’s doors and heckled the audience as the room emptied following the panel.

A Speech First press release notes that “the event was brought to a standstill for several minutes until the students — who were warned that they were violating the Campus Free Speech Act — were removed from the room by campus security.”

The Campus Free Speech Act, signed in 2017, includes language requiring colleges and universities to sanction any student, faculty, or staff member who “substantially disrupts the functioning of the constituent institution or substantially interferes with the protected free expression rights of others,” meaning that exercising the “heckler’s veto,” as it is known, is legally prohibited.

Speech First executive director Cherise Trump told National Review that many student activists have a twisted view of what constitutes free speech.

“Universities need to take responsibility for the fact that many of their students genuinely believe they are exercising their First Amendment rights when they are shouting down speakers,” Trump said. “We should be deeply disturbed by the fact that so many students across the country think it’s not only acceptable but that it is their right to silence views they disagree with . . . the right to free speech in America does not include the right to silence others.”

Because UNC is a public university system, it is required to incorporate the provisions included in the Campus Free Speech Act as institutional policy. The university’s own website states that its “mission includes the transmission and advancement of knowledge and understanding, the pursuit of which is dependent upon the ability of our faculty and students to remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding.” 

Its code holds that the university “shall enforce a range of disciplinary sanctions, up to and including dismissal or expulsion, for anyone under the jurisdiction of the UNC System Office or the constituent institution who materially and substantially disrupts the functioning of the UNC System Office, a constituent institution, or any other entity or unit of the University, or substantially interferes with the protected free expression rights of others.”

Trump told NR that UNC has not gone far enough in disciplining the students who shouted down Bruni and Weiss at the January event.

“Removing students who are disrupting the event is not a form of discipline, especially considering the SJP chapter fully intended to walk out after their disruption anyway,” she said. “They took up 45 seats in order to leave half the auditorium empty and to prevent those seats from going to their fellow students who actually wanted to hear the lecture.”

Trump said that, instead of simply escorting the students out of the event, UNC should take more concrete action.

“It’s pretty simple: if the SJP chapter conspired to violate campus and state policy, they should lose club status,” she argued. “Speech First wants to know what ‘disciplinary sanctions’ actually means. Policies that have no accountability measures publicly stated signal to students and administrators that there is a low chance of enforcement. At this point, it seems the UNC policy is an empty promise to protect free speech, and the whole thing is just for show.”

Trump told NR that UNC has an opportunity to significantly impact free speech protections on campuses nationwide by enforcing its own policies.

“If they take free speech protections as seriously as they claim, then we will see them do more to deter speaker shout-downs,” she said. “This means clearly defining what the ‘disciplinary sanctions’ are and then following through on those promises.”

UNC’s media relations department told National Review in an email that, while the complaint will be addressed “in accordance with our regular policies and procedures,” the university believes its handling of the incident to have been in accordance with both state law and its own policies.

“The University’s response was consistent with our policies regarding free speech,” a spokesperson wrote. “The event began with a verbal reminder of our free speech policies and expectations for all attendees. Once the protesters began disrupting the program, they were told to leave and approx. 45 protesters were guided out of the event within a few minutes. The program then continued without further interruption.”