BATON ROUGE, La. (KALB) - A Louisiana bill seeing outcry from college officials and students aims to redefine what is considered “protected speech” for protests on college campuses. Under current law, “expressive activities” is considered as, “any lawful verbal or written means by which individuals or groups communicate ideas to one another.” The law’s definition applies to all forms of peaceful protest, assembly and petition circulation. Senate Bill 294 by State Senator Valarie Hodges would keep the current law’s definition and instead change the term “free expression” to “free speech and First Amendment-protected expressive activities.” SB294 would additionally create free speech exclusions for protest groups being monetarily funded by organizations that are designated by the U.S. Dept. of State as a “foreign terrorist organization” or “foreign adversary.” The proposed legislation would also expand the protections of college students from “student-on-student discriminatory harassment” by granting the protections of the “protected class” to all students. Hodges said the pro-Palestinian protests seen across the nation were not protected under free speech, calling the protests “riots.”
“We’ve seen the riots, the protests across the nation where innocent students were being terrorized, where they're blocking access to classes and taking over buildings. And this is not protected free speech, this is criminal."
State Senator Valarie Hodges, (R) District 13
Central Louisiana State Representative Charles “Chuck” Owens commented on the bill during a House Education Committee hearing, saying the state is not obligated to allow a terrorist organization to support a protest group on a college campus.
“We are not obliged as a state to allow the material support of terror organizations, of criminal activities, that are funded from outside this country, who want to come in here and they want to do things on our property.”
State Representative Charles “Chuck” Owens, (R) District 30
The bill saw testimonies from several state university professors and students, who argued the proposed law was “not the right answer” and could curb protestor rights to the First Amendment. The bill unanimously passed through the House Committee on Education and has been referred to the Legislative Bureau. You can track the status of the bill here.