Georgia college students who get into legal or disciplinary trouble in campus protests could also lose their scholarships, if a bill making its way through the state House becomes law.
The bill is a reaction to last year’s widespread campus protests of Israel’s mass killing of Palestinian civilians following the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.
To trigger House Bill 602, a student would need to be convicted – or to plead guilty or no contest – to certain crimes, or be found to have violated student code of conduct. If the transgression occurred while the student was engaging in “materially and substantially disruptive conduct,” the student would lose any state money for two years.
“This bill applies to students who receive state scholarships, loans, or grants, such as HOPE, to attend Georgia’s public and private post-secondary educational institutions,” said the bill’s author, Covington Republican Rep. Tim Fleming. “It says that if you are such a recipient and are convicted or found through the institution’s student disciplinary process to have committed certain acts of violence, vandalism, and aggression, that you will lose that financial support for two years.” Rep. Esther Panitch. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder
“We’re not talking here about punishing peaceful protests,” he added. “The conviction or disciplinary action must be fighting, violence, or similar unlawful behavior, damaging property, forcefully and physically violating other access to buildings and events on these campuses, significantly violating reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions, and engaging in harassing behavior.”
Sandy Springs Democratic Rep. Esther Panitch, the state’s only currently-serving Jewish state legislator, said she hears from Jewish students around the country reporting harassment and threats on campuses.
“I’m a parent, I’ve paid college tuition for three kids,” she said. “I want to make sure my kids can access the school that I am paying for and not to be blocked and physically harassed by people in masks who don’t even have the courage of their convictions to show their face to tell my students, my kids, that they can’t go to class because they’re Jewish.”
Panitch was referencing a recent disruption inside a Columbia University classroom, in which students interrupted a class on Israeli history, reportedly chanting and handing out posters that said “crush Zionism,” a Jewish nationalist movement.
“I’m a Zionist,” she said. “More than 90% of Jews around the world are Zionists. If there was a flyer that said ‘crush Black people, crush Asians,’ you think any of us would accept that ever? No.”
Other Democrats were more skeptical, like House minority Whip Sam Park, a Lawrenceville Democrat, who said he worries about the bill’s free speech ramifications. Rep. Sam Park, left, debates Rep. Tim Fleming, right, about Fleming’s campus protest bill. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder
“I certainly understand where Rep. Panitch is coming from, but especially in this environment, I think it’s very important not to be taking action that in any way could potentially infringe upon or chill the free speech rights of students,” he said. “Isn’t it true that Chancellor (Sonny) Perdue told the General Assembly that the USG schools handled campus protests so well that it made it nationally competitive?”
“But what this is doing is it’s giving them another tool for future issues, as we’re seeing across the country,” Fleming said. “You know, this is giving other tools in their belt. And it’s also letting students know that, hey, you have the right to protest. You have the right to have your voice heard, but if you cross that line, there will be additional consequences to your actions.”
Democratic state Rep. Edna Jackson of Savannah said the bill could have prevented Civil Rights era leaders from staging successful protests. Rep. Edna Jackson. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder
“In the 60s, we protested at my college, Savannah State College, because of some of the things that the students felt were not being given to them,” she said. “Those same students, had they gone through something like this would not have served in this Legislature – (former state Rep.) Bobby Hill – would not have become judges, would not have been mayors of our city – (former Savannah) Mayor Otis Johnson – and what have you. They were protests that were controlled by the students, the leadership on the campus. Maybe I need to go back and read what is in this document, but it seems like what you’re trying to do is to silence the students and not giving them what they need.”
About a dozen members of the public spoke at the public hearing for the bill, all opposed. Some said university leaders could selectively apply the law to punish them for speech they disagree with.
“If school administrators have the ability to restrict based on content, which they do if they are allowed to dish out these consequences, however, then we know that existing biases against certain political viewpoints in education settings will become amplified,” said Elijah Brawner, a theology student at Emory University, which saw arrests at protests last spring.
“They will know they can just get rid of these people, and then the university can become safe, and the university can become a hug box, where we only hear ideas that we’ve already heard before,” he added. “That’s not what we want to see.”
Others, like Blake Osborne, programming director at the nonprofit Joseph and Evelyn Lowery Institute for Justice & Human Rights, described the nation’s history of disruptive protests.
“You can’t have a non-disruptive protest,” he said. “That is the point of a protest, as has been mentioned by other speakers, to draw attention to something, to make you stop. Because if I don’t disrupt you, you won’t stop, you can’t even hear me and listen to what I’m saying. And I understand those who feel like they must be protected, because what’s happening in some protests can be seen as harassment or violence, but it is not harassment to tell you you’re wrong. It is not harassment to have dissent. And what this bill does, in your broad application of it, is it polices dissent.”
The bill was not scheduled for a committee vote, which it will need before it can go to the full state House. Thursday is Crossover Day, the deadline for a bill to pass one chamber if it is to have a smooth path to become law.
Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: [email protected].
