On the surface, the bill sounds cut and dry.

Proposed by members of the Maryland Legislative Jewish Caucus, the CAMPUS Act is meant to curb hate and discrimination of all kinds at colleges and universities. But the bill quickly became controversial, with student groups organizing caravans from their campuses to Annapolis to testify against the proposal at hearings. The Maryland Office of the Council of American-Islamic Relations is hosting an “emergency interfaith vigil” Thursday, partially to oppose the legislation.

The bill would require colleges to publish and enforce restrictions on the time, place and manner of “expressive activity” — usually protests. Opponents believe it would hurt freedom of speech, unnecessarily increase the police presence on campuses and target pro-Palestinian activity.

Their testimony appeared to have worked — the CAMPUS Act did not make it out of the House of Delegates before a major deadline, meaning it has very little chance of reaching the governor’s desk this year.

The backlash to the bill demonstrates the fine line that lawmakers and college officials must walk between curbing antisemitism and protecting free speech.

State Sen. Shelly Hettleman, a Baltimore County Democrat who co-sponsored the bill, said it “didn’t get the kind of attention it needed and deserved.”

She, along with colleagues in the legislature’s Jewish caucus, modeled the legislation on an Ohio bill passed last year. Though the Maryland bill includes language about curbing racial and ethnic hate, the only supporters of the legislation that spoke to lawmakers earlier this month were Jewish.

“There are a lot of students who are feeling and experiencing hate bias incidents on campus,” Hettleman said. “This bill is about clarification and trying to create a coherent set of policies and procedures across universities in Maryland.”

But the students and faculty against the bill aren’t convinced of the benefits. They worry about restrictions that could limit protests to certain times of day and places on campus, and even cap the number of people who could participate.

“These are not just harmless restrictions,” said Malka Svei, a graduate student at the Johns Hopkins University. “To have increased scrutiny on the exercise of political expression, especially in this climate, is a really bad idea.”

Svei, who is Jewish, said that campus protests related to the Israel-Palestine conflict are ways for students to create dialogue. She said the CAMPUS Act would suppress free speech.

“A bill that says, ‘You can protest at this place, at this time, in this area,’ is essentially siloing off protesters,” she said. “It won’t allow us to engage in a really robust political life.”

The current conflict was sparked on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants crossed into southern Israel, killing more than 1,000 Israelis and taking another 250 hostages, some of whom have died. Israel responded by launching air strikes and an offensive into Gaza. Since the war started, more than 50,000 Palestinian civilians and combatants have been killed.

Many of Maryland’s college campuses experienced unrest last spring, when pro-Palestinian encampments broke out at Johns Hopkins and Goucher College. Protests also rocked campuses around the state, like the University of Maryland, College Park.

The bill would require colleges to involve campus security or law enforcement officers in response to protests if they are considered disruptions to educational activities or threats to public safety. That’s worrisome to some students, who say that an increased police presence could harm students of color.

“Whenever the police are deployed, it endangers my Black and brown classmates,” said Hershel Barnstein, a Jewish student at the University of Maryland, College Park who was against the bill.

Even some students who are in favor of the CAMPUS Act acknowledged the added police presence as a potential setback.

Benjamin Slifkin, a Jewish student at UMD who supports the legislation, called it “flawed.”

“There’s always a legitimate concern on increased policing on campus,” he said. “But if you’re not committing a crime, you don’t have anything to worry about.”

He added that the increased security was important to curb hate speech, which is typically considered speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, or another similar category. Hate speech is generally protected by the First Amendment.

“It’s not about saying ‘Free Palestine,’ it’s about saying ‘Death to all Jews,’ ” he said.

But hate speech, like “Death to all Jews,” is not mentioned in the bill. Critics of the bill say that students could report hate speech as a disruptive event, even if it’s not at a protest, given that disruptive events were also not defined. The blurred lines, said Barnstein, are concerning.

Slifkin said he has experienced antisemitism at UMD, especially in the architecture program. The college junior said that he’s had his desk defaced, heard antisemitic language and seen offensive posters littered across the College Park campus.

“I’ve experienced a lot of hate on campus, and the CAMPUS Act promises a more streamlined reporting process and increased police activity,” he said. “It seems like a no-brainer for me.”

The bill would allow students to report complaints anonymously to their colleges, which appealed to him, because he feared retribution from classmates.

Some of the discomfort around college protests and differing points of view defeats the point of college, according to Nikki Morse, a professor of gender studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

“A college campus is a place where we encounter people who disagree with us,” they said.

They came to UMBC from Florida Atlantic University, where Morse says they regularly encountered state laws that barred free speech.

“The first bill that I witnessed be passed that limited free speech on campus was in 2019, and it banned professors from criticizing the state of Israel,” they said. “Then, a few years later, we got the ‘Don’t say gay law.’ ”

Hettleman disagreed with concerns that Morse and other activists brought up. She said the sponsors of the bill worked with a First Amendment lawyer to preempt any concerns about limiting free speech.

“It’s not about people’s First Amendment rights — it’s about their behavior on campuses,” she said. “People should be held to account for disruptive behavior, not for differing beliefs.”

Though there’s little chance the bill will become law this year, Hettleman said there is a “strong possibility” that she will introduce the legislation next year.

“My guess is these issues aren’t going to go away,” the state senator said. “There’s a lot of things going on on campus these days that are worthy of these continued discussions, and I look forward to doing just that.”

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.