Where Free Speech Ends and Lawbreaking Begins | The Free Press

In drawing the line between speech and conduct, some cases are easy. 

Beating someone up, as has happened at Columbia and Tulane, is assault. Crowding around someone in a threatening manner, like a group of Harvard students including an editor of the Harvard Law Review did to an Israeli student who filmed their protest, is commonly known as the crime of menacing. A pattern of actions designed to frighten and harass someone, like forcing Jewish students into the Cooper Union library while pounding on the doors and windows, is stalking. Defacing someone s property by spray-painting swastikas and slogans, as happened at American University, is vandalism. So is tearing down posters at least on private property and in most campus settings. And masking at a protest, also a hallmark of events sponsored by the Students for Justice in Palestine organization, is illegal in many states a remnant of the battle against KKK intimidation.

The proper response to such behavior, regardless of how expressive someone may claim it to be, is the same response we d have to instances of assault, stalking, intimidation, and other crimes in any other context: identify, arrest, and prosecute the perpetrators. And in the campus setting, expel them. 

via www.thefp.com