Pro-Palestine influencer sues Ohio State after disenrollment

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(The Center Square) – A former Ohio State student says the university violated his free speech rights when it disenrolled him for social media posts about the conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas.

Backed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, Guy Christensen filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against Ohio State, saying he was disenrolled without a hearing after controversy arose following a series of videos he posted on his personal social media pages.

The ACLU says the videos and opinions on the post do not incite or threaten unlawful violence, and Ohio State’s actions were unconstitutional.

“The ACLU of Ohio condemns political violence and threats of all forms, but the plaintiff’s pure speech manifestly did not cross that line,” J. Bennett Guess, executive director of ACLU-Ohio, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. "And although accounts of rising antisemitic and Islamophobic sentiment on campus and in broader civic life are deeply disturbing, school officials can condemn political violence and build a supportive educational environment by doing their work as educators, not by expelling a student for expressing disfavored views."

Ohio State Assistant Vice President for Media and Public Relations Benjamin Johnson told The Center Square the university would not comment on pending litigation, and that Ohio State is committed to to protecting freedom of speech and expression.

The complaint calls Christensen, who finished his freshman year in April, a political activist who posts his views on Palestinian rights and independence on social media, where he has millions of followers.

The suit says that over the summer, he posted a video that withdrew his condemnation of the gunman in the May 21 shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C.

In another post, he graphically denounced U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., for what Christensen called Torres’ support for Zionism and associations with pro-Israel political groups.

The lawsuit also says Christensen posted subsequent videos that he did not incite or threaten unlawful violence. None of the videos mentioned Ohio State.

The suit says the Trump administration threatened to investigate Christensen and Torres publicly accused Christensen of antisemitism and asked the U.S. Capitol Police to investigate.

Christensen wants the court to declare his speech protected and his disenrollment a violation of the First Amendment. He also wants his student records expunged, along with costs, expenses and attorney’s fees.

“At its most basic level, this case is brought to vindicate a public university student’s First Amendment right to engage in quintessential, protected political speech,” said Freda Levenson, legal director of ACLU-Ohio. "More broadly, the case is to push back against the Trump administration’s sweeping agenda to extinguish the ideas and points of view that it disfavors at universities and colleges across the country. The university caved to this pressure. Someone needs to push back on the side of the Constitution and the rule of law."