Bernie Moreno, the Republican nominee in the Ohio U.S. Senate race, called out incumbent U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) for encouraging pro-Palestine protests on college campuses across the nation and in the Buckeye State, saying such demonstrations are “lawless and go far beyond free speech.”
On Wednesday, Axios published an article titled, ‘Democrats enter panic mode as Gaza protests erupt,’ which featured a quote by Brown who said that while he is “not going to talk about the politics” of the protests, he said he believes “[p]eople always have the right to speak out and should.”
We need law and order on our campuses immediately, not continued mass chaos. pic.twitter.com/wSWjmgw6vK
— Bernie Moreno (@berniemoreno) May 1, 2024
Moreno, in a statement responding to Brown’s comment on the protests, said, “Peaceful protest is a fundamental American value and our 1st Amendment is sacred to me, but the vile, violent, antisemitic, pro-Hamas demonstrations that we are seeing on our campuses are lawless and go far beyond free speech.”
“These activists aren’t just using their right to free speech to spew pro-Hamas and antisemitic garbage, they’re acting violently, intimidating and targeting Jewish students and professors, disrupting educational spaces, setting up dirty and disgusting encampments and destroying public property,” Moreno continued.
“It is absolutely shameful that Sherrod Brown has wholeheartedly endorsed these vile and violent antisemitic demonstrations. Ohio deserves a Senator who doesn’t bend the knee to antisemitic radicals. We need law and order on our campuses immediately, not continued mass chaos,” Moreno added.
Brown’s campaign, in a later follow-up statement to Axios, added, “There’s no place for antisemitism or hatred in our state or in our country. Every Ohioan has the right to speak out and make their voice heard and need to do so in a way that doesn’t threaten others.”
At Ohio State University last week, the group Students for Justice in Palestine held a protest at the Ohio Union, where hundreds of student and non-student protesters gathered and set up tents before police began to break up the demonstration and arrest those who did not comply with the university’s disbursement order.
The protest came days after students at the university openly called for Jewish students to be removed from the university, and graffiti featuring anti-Israel rhetoric, including “Free Palestine till we die” and “Globalize the Intifada,” was seen on the university’s campus.
While other universities and colleges across the nation have canceled commencement ceremonies for students amid protests, Ohio State University President Walter “Ted” Carter Jr. has declared, “Ohio State’s campus will not be overtaken in this manner.”
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Ohio Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Bernie Moreno” by Bernie Moreno. Background Photo “Ohio State University Protest” by Becker1999. CC BY 2.0.
