At public colleges and universities, the law requires that the full freedoms of the First Amendment apply without limitation. And thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision regarding flag-burning, this means it is entirely legal—in the name of free speech—to set the American flag ablaze at the place like San Francisco State University.

And while I am unaware of any case where San Francisco State has attempted to punish students for burning the American flag, the school is poised to punish students for lesser forms of flag desecration:

This story starts with an “anti-terrorism rally” held last October on campus by the College Republicans. To emphasize their point, students stomped on Hezbollah and Hamas flags. According to the college paper, the Golden Gate (X)Press, members of Students Against War and the International Socialist Organization showed up to call the Republicans “racists,” while the president of the General Union of Palestinian Students accused the Repubs of spreading false information about Muslims.

In November, the Associated Students board passed a unanimous resolution, which the (X)Press reported, denounced the California Republicans for “hateful religious intolerance” and criticized those who “pre-meditated the stomping of the flags knowing it would offend some people and possibly incite violence.”

Now you know that there are students who are opposed to desecrating flags on campus — that is, if the flags represent terrorist organizations.

But wait — there’s more. A student filed a complaint with the Office of Student Programs and Leadership Development. OSPLD Director Joey Greenwell wrote to the College Republicans informing them that his office had completed an investigation of the complaint and forwarded the report to the Student Organization Hearing Panel, which will adjudicate the charge. At issue is the charge that College Republicans had walked on “a banner with the world ‘Allah’ written in Arabic script” — it turns out Allah’s name is incorporated into Hamas and Hezbollah flags — and “allegations of attempts to incite violence and create a hostile environment,” as well as “actions of incivility.”

At an unnamed date, the student panel could decide to issue a warning to, suspend or expel the GOP club from campus.

[...]

The university’s response? Spokesperson Ellen Griffin told me, “The university stands behind this process.”

And: “I don’t believe the complaint is about the desecration of the flag. I believe that the complaint is the desecration of Allah.”

Robert Shibley notes:

SFSU has actually put in place a regime in which the Hamas and Hezbollah flags would receive more protection than the flag of our own nation, simply because they bear the name of a religious figure.

A good observation, but I suspect the Allah angle is just an excuse. What really matters here is the group bringing the complaint and the group on the receiving end of it.

Over the years at SFSU, the administration has repeatedly demonstrated that free speech is only afforded to the university’s favored groups. Several years ago, 13 police officers had to be called in to protect students manning a College Republicans information table that had been set upon and vandalized by a mob of some 300 people. The police did not attempt to disperse the crowd; instead, they informed the College Republicans that their safety could not be guaranteed and forced them to shut down their table.

And before that, a female Jewish student passed by a pro-Palestinian protest where she was bombarded with shouted slurs like “Hitler should have finished the job.” The woman, a 53-year-old continuing education student who emigrated from Russia, told her tormenters that they should “go fuck a pig.” She was promptly brought up on hate speech charges, but the students who said that Hitler should have killed all the Jews—and not just some 6 million of them—faced no punishment at all.

It’s interesting what actions are considered protected speech by the people who run San Francisco State.