Clubs, Free Speech, and You

Written by Rob Lee

In the spring of 2024, one Boston College student went “straight into a depression.” After being physically injured and arrested by a Boston police officer at a demonstration for Palestinian rights, the student—who preferred to remain anonymous due to privacy concerns—was placed on disciplinary probation by the university. “Academically, I started to sort of lose my mind,” they told me. “Emotionally, I have become very dejected and spiteful. I don’t like being on this campus, no matter how beautiful it is, just because I’m reminded of the way Boston College has failed me.”

This is not unexpected from a campus that recently ranked 251st of 257 on the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s college free speech rankings. It is surprising for a school whose principal mottoes—“men and women for others” and “go set the world aflame”—encourage its students to attend to the needs of others and make a difference in the world.

Student advocacy groups routinely stare down the paradox of being told BC is devoted to free expression as they navigate its restrictive speech policies. In particular, progressive organizations and their members face increasing isolation due to institutional interference. The aforementioned student described the university’s encroaching into pro-Palestinian events in detail, including at a “non-disruptive teach-in” in October 2024. This event was attended by members of the Division of Student Affairs and Dean of Students office, who “stood outside the door” in a perceived attempt to “shut down” the event.

University officials were also reportedly present at a February 2025 rally at O’Neill Plaza, as were members of the Boston College Police Department. The student I spoke to, who co-organized the event, specifically requested that BCPD not attend, only to be told by the university that plainclothed or undercover officers would be in attendance. Administrators insisted on the presence of BCPD officers even though the protest was clearly peaceful and non-violent. The fact that organizers provided their own “less aggressive” security likewise failed to dissuade administrators from establishing a police presence.

Even the process of setting up a protest on campus is fraught with restrictions. According to BC’s Student Demonstration Policy, all public demonstrations must be approved ahead of time by Colleen Dallavalle, the Associate Vice President for Student Engagement and Formation. Ahead of the February rally, the anonymous organizer said they communicated primarily with Dallavalle and the Dean of Students, Corey Kelly, to register the protest—a process that reportedly took about 80 days. By contrast, a 2023 BC Hillel-organized vigil commemorating the Israeli victims of the October 7 Hamas attacks took place just five days after the attacks.

Dallavalle and Kelly forbade the rally’s organizers from using amplified sound such as loudspeakers, saying “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”; or exceeding a strict 45-minute time limit. More onerously, the university demanded that the organizers disclose the names, email addresses, and Eagle IDs of all speakers. Dallavalle also emailed organizers federal guidelines containing “contemporary examples” of antisemitism, including “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.” The organizer I spoke to called the email an attempt to “intimidate us into not speaking about Zionism as a racist project.”

Kelly and the Division of Student Affairs did not respond to requests for comment on their involvement in these demonstrations.

While pro-Palestinian advocacy has come under intense institutional scrutiny, other progressive causes on campus are also subject to BC’s suspicion. Most notably, Climate Justice at Boston College was put on probation for one year after organizing a Valentine’s Day letter-writing drive directed at University President Fr. William Leahy. Of hundreds of valentines, fewer than five contained inappropriate language, which served as the justification for the club’s probation. About a decade ago, members of Eradicate Boston College Racism faced disciplinary sanctions for unregistered protests.

Institutional suppression is not the only obstacle to progressive organizing at BC. “I feel like it’s actually worse than apathy,” the organizer I spoke to said when they described BC’s political climate. “I feel like people have opinions and they care about things… [but] I think people are generally lazy. I don’t think people feel any motivation to take political action.” The organizer, who is also the founder of Eagles Against Genocide—a student advocacy group that tables for Palestinian rights and promotes mutual aid for civilians—also suggested, “I think there’s some sort of generational trauma going on at Boston College. Once upon a time it was a pretty [politically] active campus, like most other campuses… but now it is just so out of place, and now proven to be so dangerous to be a politically radical student on the left.”

Both points have merit. BC may have a rich history of campus activism—from picketing an appearance by Vice President Hubert Humphrey over his support for the Vietnam War to successfully demanding divestment from apartheid South Africa—but this history is practically foreign to students today. One can only expect so much from a predominantly wealthy, white, and apolitical campus because, as the organizer told me, “students who are going to care the most are probably very vulnerable, whether that be they’re undocumented, have mixed statuses in their families for citizenship, Black and brown students, Arab and Muslim students, [or] poor students.” This is a fact of life no matter the year, the ruling party in Congress, or the name of the president—in Washington, D.C. or Chestnut Hill.

Boston College has no excuse for suppressing, targeting, and isolating activist groups and the students who represent them. The university could reverse this systemic behavior, if not the damage it has done to some of its students, by adopting common-sense reforms to its demonstrations and free speech policies, particularly its enforcement of speech restrictions. The Undergraduate Government of Boston College could pass a resolution demanding that the school adopt its version of the Chicago Statement, modeled after the speech policies at the University of Chicago. University administrators could honor the requests of student organizers by withholding, or at least significantly reducing, the number of BCPD officers at peaceful protests. They could drop their insistence that organizers, especially for Palestinian rights, disclose their personal information and censor their speech.

But administrative reforms will only be meaningful when paired with a transformation of Boston College’s political culture. Our university’s culture of apathy, from its shameful free speech ranking to the current listlessness of our student body, should appall anyone who believes in the educational mission of our school: to be a person for others and not a slave to inherited wealth and ignorance of the marginalized. Creating a culture of conscientious activism at BC is much harder than rewriting a few lines in the Code of Conduct, but it is not impossible. Past generations did it once, twice, and countless times over. We can do it again.