‘Shut them down’: Mass. Rep. Moulton, Bay State pols weigh in on university protests

(*This story was updated at 4:52 p.m. on Monday, April 29, 2024, with additional reporting.)

U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton isn’t mincing words when it comes to the pro-Palestinian protests that have rocked college and university campuses across Massachusetts over the last two weeks.

He wants them shut down.

“We live in a country that values freedom of speech,” Moulton, D-6th District, said during an appearance on NBC-10′s “@Issue” program on Sunday.

“But these protests in many cases have threatened the safety of Jewish students,” Moulton continued. “They’ve completely disrupted the operation of universities, preventing all the other kids from being able to go to school. So, the universities have a right, and I would argue in this case, even a responsibility to shut them down.”

The nationwide campus protests began as a response by some students to Israel’s offensive in Gaza after the terrorist group Hamas launched a deadly attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7.

Militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages. Vowing to stamp out Hamas, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths.

Israel and its supporters have branded the university protests as antisemitic, while critics of Israel say it uses such allegations to silence opponents.

Although some protesters have been caught on camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, organizers of the protests, some of whom are Jewish, say it is a peaceful movement aimed at defending Palestinian rights and protesting the war, MassLive previously reported.

The protests have since rippled across campuses throughout the state and country.

Senior leaders at Tufts University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have called for an end to the encampments that have paralyzed their respective campuses, even as they’ve focused national attention on a burgeoning student protest movement.

Meanwhile, the president of Emerson College has the school will not take disciplinary action against students arrested as part of a pro-Palestinian protest encampment that was dispersed by Boston police last week, MassLive previously reported.

And on Saturday, police arrested about 100 people at Northeastern University as they broke up a pro-Palestinian protest encampment that formed earlier this week, according to the university and state police.

In an interview with WBZ-TV in Boston, Massachusetts Senate President Karen Spilka, D-Middlesex/Norfolk, said she “firmly believes” the students have a constitutional right to freedom of speech and to protest.

In a statement, Massachusetts Republican Party Chairperson Amy Carnevale called on colleges and universities to “to swiftly dismantle these hateful protests and to levy appropriate consequences for those involved in fostering a hostile and discriminatory environment for Jewish and pro-Israel students.”

The protests statewide have “flagrantly violated numerous guidelines and rules set forth by these colleges and universities,” Carnevale continued.

“While the MassGOP holds the First Amendment in the highest regard, it’s evident that many aspects of these protests egregiously exceed the protections afforded by students’ First Amendment rights,” she said. “Instead, they have led to harassment and the creation of an unsafe environment for Jewish and pro-Israel students.”

“But you know, like anything else, people should be obeying the laws and, if they’re infringing on ingress and egress and other things, and were told as I understand it, of what the rules were,” Spilka, who is Jewish, said.

Speaking to WCVB-TV’s “On the Record” program on Sunday, U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-8th District, who is among the lawmakers who have called for a cease-fire, said “the protests seem to embody threats as well, especially to Jewish students.

The South Shore Democrat, who voted in favor of a massive foreign aid package that included help for Israel, said he’s had “kids in my district complain about the fact that they’ve had to take the mezzuzehs down off their off ... their door jambs so that they wouldn’t be identified as Jewish.”

The students are “fearful,” Lynch continued, musing that “there’s something different going on here. This is not [like] previous protests. That was a protest against an idea or an action. This is, actually, a protest where there are victims on campus, as well as aggressors on campus.”

In a statement released late last week, U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-7th District, said she believed “every student, regardless of background or faith, has a right to feel safe and show up in the world without fear or discrimination — and we must ensure that those exercising their right to free speech are met with dignity and respect, not criminalization.”

The Boston lawmaker, who has been in the vanguard of the ceasefire movement, added that she had been “deeply concerned about misinformation that aims to undermine this movement, outside agitators that detract from peaceful solidarity actions, and the aggressive response by law enforcement to students peacefully protesting across the country.”