Additional response on Oct. 20 to inquiries about some on-campus activities this week

There are long-standing, content-neutral rules and regulations governing conduct and events on campus, considering factors such as: (a) compliance with law, (b) safety on campus, and (c) national security.

Furthermore, as both federal law and our own Commitment to Freedom of Expression recognize, there are exceptions to protected speech. Accordingly, true physical threats or incitement to violence or imminent lawless action, including but not limited to those made in the context of promoting antisemitism or terrorist activity, are not protected speech and will not be tolerated at Purdue.

Based on the assessment informed through the constant vigilance of local police and federal law enforcement agencies and with the advice of legal counsel, we are told that, at this time: (a) even speech of the most abhorrent kind expressed on Purdue’s campus in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on Israel is nonetheless protected speech, (b) there is no police-validated threat to campus safety, and (c) there is no FBI-validated threat to U.S. national security from the current events on campus. 

With an open campus environment and with the terrorist organization Hamas holding U.S. citizens hostage, these assessments by legal counsel and by law enforcement are updated continuously and could change any minute. Anyone with evidence of incitation of “imminent lawless action” or evidence of physical threat to either our campus or our country, please notify the Purdue University Police Department immediately. The university will take action the moment that any campus activity ceases to be protected speech.

In the meantime, since Oct. 10, when President Chiang visited Hillel, the university has been deploying resources to provide additional safety protections on campus, including to Hillel, as there will be zero tolerance for antisemitic violence, indeed any violence, at Purdue. Programming that celebrates Jewish culture is also being organized.

Based on the Chicago Principles and the Kalven Report, Purdue’s Commitment to Freedom of Expression states: “It is for the individual members of the University community, not for the University as an institution, to make those judgments for themselves, and to act on those judgments not by seeking to suppress speech, but by openly and vigorously contesting the ideas that they oppose.” We will ensure safe environment for such contesting.

Unlike some other universities, Purdue does not have the tradition of making institutional statements on important sociopolitical issues. For this university, this is not a newfound or selective habit, and it will continue in the future:

(a) we cannot compel good speech, even speech that condemns the most barbaric terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas, and

(b) we cannot censor legal speech, even speech that equivocates, justifies, incites or glorifies evil acts against humanity — speech that is clearly contradictory to the values of this university at this grave moment of barbarity vs. civilization.