On free speech, the Lower Merion School District still doesn’t get it

Late last year, the Lower Merion School District removed two articles about Israel/Palestine from a student newspaper. According to district officials, the articles had upset members of the community.

But all meaningful expression upsets someone. And the district is continuing to censor it, which is the most upsetting thing of all.

Witness the episode last month at Harriton High School in Lower Merion, where a student affixed “Free Palestine” stickers to an artwork they had produced for a display in the school lobby. Other students reported the stickers to school administrators, who promptly removed them.

We can all imagine symbols and phrases — say, a swastika or a racial slur — that the school ought to prohibit. Indeed, Lower Merion bars students from distributing materials that “incite discrimination” based on race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation.

Did the “Free Palestine” stickers incite discrimination against Jews? Not according to the Anti-Defamation League, America’s foremost organization for fighting anti-Jewish sentiment and behavior.

As Harriton principal Scott Weinstein wrote in a letter to parents, the ADL told the school that it did not deem the “Free Palestine” stickers antisemitic. Lower Merion superintendent Steven Yanni confirmed that the district reviewed “all relevant facts” and decided that “the sticker incident did not constitute an act of antisemitism.”

So why were the stickers removed? According to Weinstein, they violated Lower Merion’s policy requiring anything posted in schools to receive prior approval from school administrators. He also quoted a second district policy, which says that students “have the responsibility to be aware of the feelings and opinions of others.” The stickers, Weinstein added, sparked “hurt and fear” among “some of our Jewish students and their allies.”

So let’s try a little thought experiment. Suppose the Harriton student had put “We Stand With Israel” stickers on their artwork. Would the school have moved so quickly to remove them, because they caused hurt and fear among Palestinian students and their allies?

I doubt it. If you echo the majority viewpoint in American schools, your speech is protected. And if you don’t, you get censored.

That’s what happened in Edina, Minn., where two Somali-American girls were suspended for three days for chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” during a student walkout. According to a local representative of the Jewish Community Relations Council, the slogan is “hurtful.”

I’m Jewish, and I agree with him. A part of my family has lived in Israel since the 1930s, before it became a nation-state. I regard the river-to-the-sea phrase as a demand to remove Jews from the region. And yes, that hurts.

But I also know that Palestinians have been hurt by remarks and rallies in support of Israel, which has killed roughly 30,000 people in Gaza since Oct. 7. If you censor one form of hurtful speech, you’ll have to censor the other. And eventually, we won’t be able to talk at all.

If you censor one form of hurtful speech, you’ll have to censor the other. And eventually, we won’t be able to talk at all.

We’re close to that point already. The student who tipped me off about the Harriton episode asked me to keep their identity secret, which speaks volumes in and of itself: Put simply, our young people are afraid to speak. And that can’t be good for their education as future citizens, who should be deliberating the big questions of their day.

Theoretically, at least, the Lower Merion School District endorses that same goal. “The school, as a diverse center of learning, invites the open exposure and exchange of ideas and issues to and by students,” its policy declares. “It is therefore the right of any student to question, examine and debate any issue relating to the world community or the functions and proposals of the school.”

The controversy over the “Free Palestine” stickers relates both to the world and to the school, of course. So it also represents a great opportunity for the district to put its policy into practice, if it can summon the courage to do so.

What if Harriton convened an assembly, where representatives of the Muslim and Jewish communities debated whether the Free Palestine stickers should be allowed in the school? And then teachers continued the dialogue in their classrooms, so everyone had the opportunity to engage in it?

Watching the angry exchanges about Israel/Palestine on our college campuses over the past few weeks, I’ve been struck by our inability to communicate across our differences. College might be too late to teach that skill. We should start when students are younger, so they get the practice they need.

I’ve got my own views on the Harriton stickers — they should have been protected — but I’d be eager to hear other ones. And debating the issue would give everyone at the school a vital lesson about democracy, which requires us to grapple with upsetting — and, sometimes, hurtful — ideas.

The biggest question is whether we have enough faith in our students — and in ourselves — to make that happen.