Category Archives: Free Speech

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Should Honking Your Horn Be Considered Free Speech? - The Autopian

Join us for a webinar exploring the free expression implications of the case initiated by South Africa against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention).

In December last year, South Africa instituted proceedings against Israel before the ICJ under the Genocide Convention. On 26 January 2024, the ICJ issued a legally-binding order for Israel to implement a number of provisional measures, including to take all measures within its power to prevent breaches of the Genocide Convention and to take immediate and effective measures to allow humanitarian assistance into Gaza.

While experts around the world have extensively debated various aspects of the case and the provisional measures order such as whether the ICJ should have issued a ceasefire order or what the implications of the order on third-party States with a duty to prevent breaches of the Genocide Convention are the freedom of expression issues raised in South Africa v. Israel have received less attention. Yet, South Africas application did highlight many of Israels freedom of expression violations since Hamass attack on 7 October 2023, such as the killings of journalists, stringent censorship measures, and communication blackouts enforced by Israel. The ICJ also ordered Israel to prevent and punish direct and public incitement to commit genocide and to take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence.

Join us for the event where the panellists will delve into the various freedom of expression issues of the case; in particular

When: Wednesday 6 March 2024, 2pm GMT (check your local time here)

Where: Online

Panellists:

Moderator: Chantal Joris, Legal Officer, ARTICLE 19

Please confirm your participation by registering here.

Information about the speakers

Mai El-Sadany is the Executive Director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, which brings the insights and expertise of advocates from and in the MENA region in the policy discourse to foster transparent, accountable, and just societies. She has previously worked at organisations such as the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, or the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Mai writes about legal and constitutional issues in Egypt, human rights issues in Syria, transitional justice in the Middle East, and the split between Sudan and South Sudan.

David Kaye is a professor of law at the University of California, Irvine, and the former UN Special Rapporteur on freedom expression. He is the 2023-2024 Fulbright Distinguished Scholar in Public International Law at Lund University, Sweden, and the U.S. Independent Expert to the Venice Commission. He regularly lectures and has published widely in academic and non-speciali st journals on issues related to human rights at domestic and international levels, accountability for serious human rights abuses, international humanitarian law, and the international law governing use of force. For Davids commentary on the ICJ ruling, see for example his articles in The Atlantic or Foreign Affairs.

Yuval Shany is the Hersch Lauterpacht Chair in International Law and former Dean of the Law Faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 2013-2020, he was a member of the UN Human Rights Committee, where he served as a Chair for one year. Currently, he is a senior research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, co-director of the Facultys International Law Forum and transitional justice program, the head of the CyberLaw program of the Hebrew University CyberSecurity Research Center and the Chair of the Hebrew Universitys Minerva Center for Human Rights academic committee. His research focuses on international human rights law, international humanitarian law, international courts and tribunals and international law in cyberspace. For Yuvals commentary on the ICJ ruling, see for example his article in Just Security.

Jiries Saadeh is an English-qualified lawyer and solicitor-advocate (higher courts civil proceedings). He also sits as a Deputy District Judge. Both Chambers and Partners and The Legal 500 have recognised Jiries as a leading public international law practitioner. Alongside his experience in private practice, Jiries has worked as a Legal Officer at the United Nations in New York, where he litigated before the United Nations Dispute and Appeals Tribunals.

Chantal Joris is a Legal Officer at ARTICLE 19 where she focuses on platform regulation, freedom of expression in armed conflicts, and freedom of expression issues relating to national security and privacy.

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Event: Free speech implications of the ICJ South Africa v. Israel case - ARTICLE 19 - Article 19

The Supreme Court heard arguments for nearly four hours on Monday on a pair of First Amendment cases challenging laws in Florida and Texas that seek to limit the ability of internet companies to moderate content on their platforms. Here are some takeaways:

As the public square has moved online in the 21st century and technology companies like Facebook, YouTube and X have grappled with objectionable content, new dilemmas have arisen over the scope and meaning of free speech.

Florida and Texas enacted laws limiting the ability of large internet companies to curate what appears on their platforms, in part in response to what some conservatives considered censorship of right-wing views by Silicon Valley in the name of combating hate speech and misinformation. One of the most notable examples: The decisions of some platforms to bar President Donald J. Trump after he repeatedly posted on social media to falsely claim that his loss in the 2020 election was the result of fraud, leading to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

An association of technology companies called NetChoice sued, arguing that platforms have a right to moderate content on their sites a practice that it said was crucial to keeping them attractive to users and advertisers. The coalition won preliminary injunctions blocking both states from enforcing the laws while broader First Amendment issues are litigated.

Both liberal and conservative justices signaled that they would prefer to have a more developed record about how the law would operate, raising the possibility that the Supreme Court could return the case to lower courts for more fact finding.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., a conservative, pointed out that there were no lists of which platforms were covered by the Florida statute or of all the functions those services perform. He raised the possibility of sending the case back down for more discussion at lower-court levels on issues like whether and how the law applies to other tech services, such as direct messages and email. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a liberal, indicated that she was inclined to do the same.

Solicitors general for Florida and Texas defended their states laws and argued that big internet companies operating social media platforms that are essentially public forums should not be allowed to discriminate based on political views. They portrayed content moderation as censorship.

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Takeaways From the Supreme Court Arguments on Social Media Laws - The New York Times

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Florida anti-free speech bill targets 'liberal media' but guess who's really mad at it? - KeysNews.com

The Supreme Court heard arguments Monday for two lawsuits about how social media giants should or should not be able to regulate speech on their platforms. Justices went back and forth with state solicitors general and their opposing party, making what may seem like far-fetched comparisons between social media and everything from bookstores to parade organizers and wedding planners.

Facebook's 2016 election problems will be the same in 2024 | What's Next for Meta?

The two cases in question one from Florida, one from Texas were brought by NetChoice, a trade association that represents social media sites like Metas Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, and more. NetChoice said two state laws in Florida and Texas that ban companies from censoring content on their platforms are actually forms of censorship themselves. Paul Clement, the attorney for NetChoice, argued that the laws violate the First Amendment because they compel speech, forcing platforms to host posts that violate their policies.

At the heart of NetChoices argument is that social media platforms are like newspapers, so editorializing content is their First Amendment right.

But Florida solicitor general Henry Whitaker said social media is more like a telephone company (pdf): If Verizon asserted a First Amendment right to cancel disfavored subscribers at a whim, that claim would fail.

The design of the First Amendment is to prevent the suppression of speech not to enable it. That is why the telephone company and the delivery service have no First Amendment right to use their services as a chokepoint to silence those they disfavor, he said.

Texas solicitor general Aaron Nielson had a similar argument (pdf), but likened social media to a public square. [I]f platforms that passively host the speech of billions of people are themselves the speakers and can discriminate, there will be no public square to speak of.

One concern of justice Amy Coney Barrett is that the state laws would consider algorithms to be editors, meaning that states could ban how algorithms are applied by online sites or other businesses that sell content. Florida solicitor general Whitaker said algorithms are just a means of sites organizing content, not editorializing it.

That led to more concern, though. Could Florida enact a law telling bookstores that they have to put everything out by alphabetical order? Coney Barrett asked.

Whitaker said, no, the state laws prevent social media sites from censorship, not how they organize their content.

But NetChoices Clement argued that algorithms are editors: These algorithms dont spring from the ether. They are essentially computer programs designed by humans to try to do some of this editorial function. That means that a Supreme Court ruling allowing the state laws to remain would open the door for lawsuits against how algorithms function.

Were not quite sure who it covers,justice Ketanji Brown told Whitaker about the Florida law.

So Whitaker said the Florida law would apply to sites like Etsy and Uber, meaning those sites couldnt ban user-generated content unless they provide thorough rationale. Meanwhile, Nielson said the Texas state law, which is narrower than Floridas in scope, wouldnt apply to platforms outside of classic social media sites.

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Supreme Court arguments over social media laws and free speech are defining social media itself - Quartz

Legislation introduced in Canadas Parliament would eliminate the use of belief in a religious text as a defense against hate crime charges.

Repealing the exemption in Canadas criminal code could criminalize sermons and messages using the Bible or other religious texts as the basis for critiquing other religions or addressing issues such as transgender rights, critics warn.

Yves-Francois Blanchet, leader of the minority Bloc Quebecois party, submitted the private members bill defined as a measure not sponsored by a Cabinet minister or parliamentary secretary in November and again last month. The measure received an initial reading in the lower chamber, but no action has followed.

Mr. Blanchet said when he introduced the bill that its purpose is to allow authorities to prosecute antisemitic speech. The measure is needed to refrain from giving inappropriate and undue privileges to people within a society who use them to disturb the peace and harmony, especially if those privileges enable people to sow hatred or wish death upon others based on a belief in some divine power, he told Parliament.

Two-thirds of Canadians surveyed Feb. 16-18 by the polling firm Leger said they support the measure.

But Jeff King, president of the Washington-based International Christian Concern, said Thursday the proposal is designed to silence people whose opinions differ from prevailing thought.

We cannot urge direct violence against somebody, he said, but free speech means we all have very different opinions in a democracy [and] were supposed to have vigorous debates.

He said the legislation could open the door to prosecuting anybody expressing sincere beliefs based on their religions sacred texts.

Under the proposal, he said, you cant say the Bible says so-and-so, or you could be arrested to be charged, you can be fined. Despite labels, Mr. King said, this [measure] has nothing to do with combating antisemitism.

Mr. Blanchet did not respond to a request for comment made through his spokesperson.

Freedom of religious expression has been under attack in recent years.

In Britain, several people have faced repeated criminal charges, with no convictions, for standing outside abortion clinics after business hours and silently praying. In Finland, a prosecutor is appealing the second acquittal of Parliament member Paivi Rasanen and a Lutheran bishop who were accused of hate speech for stating biblical beliefs on homosexuality.

In August 2022, a regional court in Germany said 40 Days for Life, a pro-life group that held silent prayer vigils near an abortion counseling center in Pforzheim could not be barred from holding such demonstrations. The ruling overturned a city ban on such demonstrations that the Pro Familia abortion counseling center had requested.

David Cooke, campaign manager at the pro-life Campaign Life Coalition, said the Canadian bill is really just a pretext to eliminate religious speech rights in Canada and that Mr. Blanchet told Parliament that Canada is a secular country.

Mr. Cooke said laws already exist under which genocidal speech can be prosecuted.

If, indeed, the government wants to crack down on that type of genocidal expression, there is already a provision in our Criminal Code, Section 318, which can be used, but theyre not calling for [that] to be implemented, Mr. Cooke said.

Instead, he said, Theyre using this [bill] as a pretext to clamp down on religious speech and to eliminate the protection we have in Section 319, which would allow people to share their beliefs and their values and biblical texts that relate to issues of the day, whether issues of faith or family or life, any number of issues. Its going to basically take away our ability to do that.

While the measure hasnt advanced in parliament, Mr. Cooke said Canadas lawmakers are moving ahead with an internet censorship bill that would create a bureaucracy to monitor online speech.

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Canadian measure would remove free speech protection for quoting Bible, sacred texts - Washington Times

The town green in this rural farm community has served as a gathering place for the free exchange of ideas for centuries.

SUFFIELD, Conn. A rural Connecticut town decided to table a proposed controversial policy after receiving pushback from residents and First Amendment advocates. Still, residents from the town of Suffieldsaid the fact that it was proposed in the first place speaks to a bigger issue.

The Board of Selectmen hit the pause button Thursday on a controversial proposal that some say would have put limits on free speech on the town green.

Suffield was settled in 1670. The town green in this rural farm community has served as a gathering place for the free exchange of ideas for centuries.

These types of places represent the best of American Democracy, said Aaron Terr of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

So last month, when the Board of Selectman issued a draft policy restricting its use, it raised eyebrows and ruffled feathers.

The Suffield Board of Selectman is trying to stifle expression from groups or individuals who would promote diversity and inclusivity. And anyone whos been paying attention to what's been going on in town can see that, stated Suffield resident Annie Hornish.

The policy stated that for any use of the town green, a person would first need to check with the first selectman and obtain $1 million in liability insurance coverage. Then the person would have to apply for a permit, which could be denied for a number of reasons. And depending on what event was planned, it may even be required to pay for a private police detail.

Thats absurd. Its overly broad and it invites an abuse of power, said Hornish.

The controversy caught the attention of FIRE - the nonpartisan nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. It sent a letter to the first selectman expressing concern that the draft policy trampled on peoples constitutional rights.

They are the type of spaces that Americans have historically used to protest, debate, discuss issues and engage in artistic expression and so the government really has very little authority to limit expressive activity within these places, explained Terr.

First Selectman Colin Moll agreed to sit down with FOX61.

I would argue that its only controversial because some people made it controversial, said Moll.

When asked if he is a supporter of free speech Moll replied, Absolutely. 100%.

Moll told FOX61 the policy was simply a draft for which they welcomed public input and were open to amending the language.

The goal was just simply to ensure we had a liability policy and I think we lacked one, he said.

Moll said the concept was taken from the neighboring town of Enfield.

We have off-duty contracts with the police all the time when police are working on the sides of the road so why should we pay for the police when they need to control traffic for a large event, he added.

And though the town has decided not to move forward with the idea for now, Moll disagrees with those who say it would have trampled on the First Amendment.

It limits none of that and I would ask them what examples specifically it limits, said Moll.

This isnt the first time Suffield has been the subject of a censorship controversy. Last year the library director resigned saying that she was under pressure from town leaders to remove and put warning labels on certain books discussing the LGBTQ+ community.

Matt Caron is a reporter at FOX61 News. He can be reached at mcaron@fox61.com. Follow him onFacebook,XandInstagram.

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Suffield scraps plan to restrict the use of the town green following pushback from free speech advocates - FOX61 Hartford

The Menard Center for Constitutional Studies hosted an event exploring free speech and artificial intelligence. The event occurred on Monday, Feb. 26 and involved three panelists, all leading experts in their respective careers.

The event was discussion-based and dove into topics regarding AI and free speech, the implications of AI within the workforce and academic and political settings. The event also went into detail about some of the history of AI and how it has and continues to develop.

The three panelists included Dominique Lazanski, Jacob Mchanagma and Rahul Gomes. These three members are leading experts in technology, free speech, AI and its societal impact.

Lazanski works at the University of Pittsburgh and is the owner and director of Last Press Label. Lazanski is an expert in internet policy, telecommunications standards and cyber security policy. She has worked with companies such as Apple, Yahoo! and eBay.

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Mchanagma is a Danish lawyer and Vanderbilt University professor, human rights advocate, global expert in free speech and social commentator. He is the founder and director of Justitia, a Copenhagen-based think tank focusing on human rights, the freedom of speech and the rule of law.

Ghomes is a UW-Eau Claire computer science professor who advocates for artificial intelligence and its potential advancement in technology and healthcare fields.

The three were very open to the idea and use of artificial intelligence within the workforce, academic world and even everyday life. Techno optimists was the term Lazanski used to describe this view.

The panel was also very open to the idea of generative AI having free speech under the correct pretenses and in the future.

I think theres no bigger issue confronting free speech than generative AI, Mchanagma said.

The relationship between AI and free speech remains hazy within the world. Its a gray space with no laws stating what rights or how the two are related within America.

In the European Union, however, laws and regulations regarding AI have already been put in place. The largest is the AI Act, approved on Dec. 8, 2023.

Its also a way to be geopolitically relevant even though your own companies cannot innovate to the same degree that American companies can, and that will have downstream effects on the practical exercise of free speech for Americans, Mchanagma said.

Mchanagma also highlighted that Americans should potentially push back against these types of free speech norms.

On Feb. 6, the United Kingdom released its approach to AI and its implications within society and free speech.

They are in this middle ground between over-regulation and not enough leeway for innovation as well, Lazanski said. Theyre looking to come up with parameters in terms of when they would act and when they wouldnt act, which to me seems technocratic and potentially cooling for free speech.

The panel also dove into topics such as deep fakes and their relationship to the situation, the future state of the workforce and job security. Also highlighted by the panel was the use of AI within the classroom.

We cannot stop our students from using ChatGPT, Ghomes said. What we can tell our students is to think critically about what they are analyzing and reading.

Ghomes also uses ChatGPT as a way to generate discussions regarding information within the class. It helps Ghomes gauge what materials might be useful to discuss for his students.

We [teachers] have become facilitators. We want to make sure students get the knowledge, Ghomes said. Theres a GPT or a language model giving students the knowledge now so how can we as teachers make your experience better.

As we continue to develop and grow within the AI field, free speech and other topics remain to be a gray space.

Voelker can be reached at [emailprotected].

Correction: A previous version of this story did not specify the discussion in the headline. Changed for further explanation.

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Menard Center and pre-law club host discussion regarding AI and Free Speech - UWEC Spectator

Elon Musk departs the Phillip Burton Federal Building and United States Court House in San Francisco, on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023. Benjamin Fanjoy/AP hide caption

Elon Musk departs the Phillip Burton Federal Building and United States Court House in San Francisco, on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023.

A federal judge in San Francisco appears poised to toss a lawsuit brought by Elon's Musk's X against a nonprofit that found the platform allowed hate speech to spread on the site once known as Twitter.

Last year, lawyers for X sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate, claiming the group improperly scraped X to prepare damning reports about the proliferation of hate speech on the site.

But in a hearing over Zoom on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer appeared highly skeptical of the case, devoting the majority of the proceeding to grilling Musk's lawyer over why the lawsuit was brought at all.

Jon Hawk, X's lawyer, said at core the suit is about honoring data security agreements to protect the platform's users.

Breyer was unconvinced.

"You put that in terms of safety, and I've got to tell you, I guess you can use that word, but I can't think of anything basically more antithetical to the First Amendment than this process of silencing people from publicly disseminated information once it's been published," Breyer said.

"You're trying to shoehorn this theory by using these words into a viable breach of contract claim," the judge added.

X contends that the CCDH violated the platform's terms of service by using a third-party tool called Brandwatch to analyze posts on the site to prepare reports critical of X.

The social media company argued that, in the process, CCDH gained unauthorized access to nonpublic data.

Much of Thursday's hearing turned on what exactly constitutes scraping and whether the center did indeed violate X's terms of service by collecting data for its reports.

X is seeking damages from the center, arguing that the platform lost tens of millions of dollars from advertisers fleeing the site in the wake of the nonprofit's findings.

But in order to make this case, X had to show the group knew the financial loss was "foreseeable" when it started its account and began abiding by Twitter's terms of service, in 2019, before Musk acquired the site.

X lawyer Hawk argued that the platform's terms of service state that the rules for the site could change at any time, including that suspended users whom the group says spread hate speech could be reinstated.

And so, Hawk said, if changes to the rules were foreseeable, then the financial loss from its reports on users spreading hate should have also been foreseeable.

This logic confused and frustrated the judge.

"That, of course, reduces foreseeability to one of the most vapid extensions of law I've ever heard," Breyer said.

John Quinn, an attorney for CCDH, said the researchers' use of the third-party search tool never accessed non-public posts

"This idea that this is about data security, this is about user data, there was something to investigate, is implausible," Quinn said.

Among CCDH's reports was one highlighting how X took no action against 99 out of 100 users it flagged for posting hate, including racism, homophobia and Neo-Nazism.

Research into the uptick of hate speech on X has in part fueled an exodus among advertisers on the platform that has so kneecapped the company that Musk himself has repeatedly floated the possibility of bankruptcy.

Late late year, major advertisers like Walmart, Apple, Disney and IBM stopped advertising on X after Musk endorsed an antisemitic post that claimed Jewish communities push hatred of white people.

In response, Musk lashed out. He told companies: "Don't advertise" and used the F-word on the stage of a public event to curse out firms that distanced themselves from the platform.

CCDH, through its spokespeople and staff, has tied its legal battle with Musk to last year's boycott.

The group has portrayed X's lawsuit as Musk's attempt to silence criticism, and in Thursday's hearing, the group cited California's so-called anti-SLAPP laws which protect people and groups from frivolous lawsuits aimed at suppressing free speech.

"Everything in that statute recognizes that very often the litigation itself is the punishment," Quinn told the judge. "We are representing a non-profit organization here being sued by the world's richest man."

Near the end of the hearing, the judge asked why X didn't bring a defamation suit if the company believes its reputation has been harmed by the nonprofit organization.

But one cannot win a defamation suit, he noted, if the statements being challenged are true.

"You could've brought a defamation case, you didn't bring a defamation case," Breyer said. "And that's significant."

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Judge skeptical of lawsuit brought by Elon Musk's X over hate speech research - NPR

Israeli philosopher, biblical scholar and political theorist Yoram Hazony delivered a lecture in the Hesburgh Library auditorium Monday on free speech on university campuses in the wake of the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas. Outside the library, students held a vigil for Palestinians who have died in the subsequent war.

Hazony, who serves as president of the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem and chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation, urged universities to be more active in prohibiting speech advocating for violence against Jews.

In his remarks, Hazony offered a scathing critique of elite universities, claiming they have been captured by Neo-Marxist ideologues and have been the driving force behind the return of open anti semitism in America since October 7th.

Hazony described the reaction to the October 7th attack as a rude awakening for Jews who did not think antisemitism was a prevalent problem in the United States. In the wake of the attack, protests against Israel erupted throughout campuses. At the same time, the United States saw a 400% increase in antisemitic incidents, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

University presidents across the country were criticized by many for not forcefully condemning antisemitism on their campuses enough. These criticisms reached their zenith when the presidents of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology refused to definitively say whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated their codes of conduct.

Hazony argued the actions of Hamas on October 7th are not morally equivalent to collateral damage inflicted upon the people of Gaza by the Israeli army.

If we're not allowed to say, Look, what's happening over there in that part of the world is radically evil and therefore the university shouldn't be defending it, then I feel like we've lost our humanity, he said.

Hazony argued because many students and faculty at prominent universities began their protests immediately after October 7th, before Israel began its invasion of Gaza, they were motivated primarily by antisemitism. Hazony said antisemitic remarks have been excused on the grounds of free expression and fit into a worldview which designates certain groups as oppressors and justifies any action to overthrow these groups.

Hazony explained one reaction to this phenomenon has been to call for more free speech, including allowing calls for the extermination of any race or group. Hazony described such proposals as naive, arguing that the protestors have jettisoned the old boundaries of legitimate debate.

Free speech cant help where speech is being used in order to destroy free speech, or to eliminate the possibility of an exchange of honors and mutual respect, he said.

Hazony accused these groups of employing threats, aggression, deception and a wide variety of forms of abuse in order to intimidate and silence anyone who descends from their views.

He added that these groups rely on faculty members who do not discipline their actions.

In order to remedy this problem, Hazony called on universities to punish faculty and students who threaten others or call for violence against any ethnic, religious or political groups and to hire more intellectually diverse faculty.

Hazony drew a distinction between restrictions on speech which explicitly calls for violence and restrictions on speech that can simply be interpreted as offensive, which he argued are often used to discriminate against conservatives.

Hazony praised efforts by politicians such as Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida to use state power to combat or change the structure of universities promoting what he views as radical ideas and questioned the wisdom of giving government funding to such institutions.

The idea that these institutions, which with every passing decade become more viciously hostile to America's traditions, to its traditional faith, to its constitutional order, to the traditional family, to God and Scripture, to the basics of what America was until not very long ago need to have tens of billions [of dollars] directed to what's effectively the the peaceful overthrow of the American regime is completely crazy, he said.

Students hold a vigil commemorating Palestinian deaths outside Hazonys lecture on Monday.

While Hazony delivered his lecture inside Hesburgh Library, a group of students gathered in front of the library to hold a vigil commemorating the Palestinians who have been killed since the start of the war.

According to the Gaza health administration, which is run by Hamas, 29,692 Palestinians have been killed, with two-thirds of them being women and children. Israel claims to have killed 10,000 Hamas militants, according toThe Guardian.

The vigil began at 4:30 pm. and lasted until 6:30 p.m. During the event, different people took turns reading names from a list of the children who have been killed in Gaza. Some students held signs urging students to pray for Palestine and organizers passed around flowers.

Francesca Freeman, a graduate student who helped organize the vigil, explained the event was in solidarity against the hatred promoted at the Hazony event. However, she clarified that the main purpose of the event was to mourn the lives of the Palestinians who died and not to protest.

Freeman said the group wanted to express messages of solidarity to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, to express our support for a ceasefire. Freeman described Israels military operation in Gaza against Hamas as a genocide and referred to those Palestinians who have died as martyrs.

Fadwa Kamari, a first-year graduate student who attended the vigil, said it was important to humanize those who have died.

I attended the vigil because its important to remember that the stats we see in the news and on social media are more than just numbers. Every number has a name, and every name meant the world to someone, she said. We shouldnt become desensitized to the loss of life.

Sarah Seto, a graduate student who also helped organize the vigil, described it as "emotionally devastating." After 45 minutes of reading names, she said, the group had only gotten through the names of all the infants and one-year-olds.

Freeman and Kamari urged the University to divest from companies that provide support to Israel and specifically condemned the Universitys association with Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin has sponsored Notre Dame career fairs in the past.

Calling for a ceasefire isnt enough, Kamari said, referring to a recent statement by University President Fr. John Jenkins calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Freeman said the group did not receive permission from the University to hold the vigil. She said members of the Notre Dame Police Department watched the vigil for most of the two hours, but did not intervene.

Freeman described the vigil as a place of remembrance, mourning, and solidarity, with no space for hate and violence.

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Israeli philosopher Yoram Hazony lectures on free speech, antisemitism while students hold vigil - Observer Online