Virginia has an anti-mask law that prevents masked demonstrations, but colleges aren’t enforcing it against masked pro-Hamas demonstrators who protest on campus. These leftists are being allowed to flout the law by progressive college officials.
In the past, when right-wing demonstrators appeared in college towns like Charlottesville, law enforcement and the press were quick to remind the public not to appear masked in public, because that’s illegal except for narrow exceptions (like wearing a Halloween costume) in Virginia.
In Charlottesville during the Trump administration, the press warned the public in advance of right-wing demonstrations that “Law enforcement will also be enforcing Code of Virginia § 18.2-422 – Prohibition of wearing of masks in certain places: ‘It shall be unlawful for any person over 16 years of age to, with the intent to conceal his identity, wear any mask, hood or other device whereby a substantial portion of the face is hidden or covered so as to conceal the identity of the wearer, to be or appear in any public place…However, the provisions of this section shall not apply to persons (i) wearing traditional holiday costumes….'”
But campus police are not enforcing this law against pro-Hamas protestors, because progressive college officials don’t want them to. As a George Mason University law professor notes,
Below is a picture that a friend forwarded to me from a Students for Justice in Palestine rally at my university’s Fairfax campus. The organizers advised students to wear face coverings to hide their identities (one post specifically about this rally advised the students to wear face coverings, another post on general protest advice told students to hide their identities, including their faces).
Like many states, Virginia has a law, aimed at hate groups like the KKK (and, for that matter, SJP), prohibiting the wearing of face coverings in public, except for theatrical or medical reasons or during a state of health emergency (which does not currently exist in Virginia): “It shall be unlawful for any person over 16 years of age to, with the intent to conceal his identity, wear any mask, hood or other device whereby a substantial portion of the face is hidden or covered so as to conceal the identity of the wearer, to be or appear in any public place, or upon any private property in this Commonwealth without first having obtained from the owner or tenant thereof consent to do so in writing.” Virginia statutes § 18.2-422.
Are such laws a good idea? Are they constitutional? I am ambivalent on both counts. There is significant value in allowing for anonymous protest, and also significant value in not allowing masked hate groups to intimidate others–I’ve been told by a reliable source that Jewish students at Mason were terrified to be out and about during this rally–and potentially cover up criminal behavior by masking their identities in public. Some courts have upheld these laws in modern cases, others have found that they violate the First Amendment. It’s a genuinely difficult issue, I think.
But regardless of my views, the law is on the books, creates a felony, and has been upheld in a decision of the Virginia Court of Appeals. The police should not get to pick and choose which laws they enforce and against whom.
I know from my friend that several people called the George Mason University police in advance to inform them that a masked rally was scheduled to occur, that wearing a mask at such a rally is a felony, and that they want the police not to arrest the students or quash the rally, but only to require them comply with the law and not wear masks. Obviously, the police did nothing, apparently telling people that since the rally was peaceful, they weren’t going to interfere. Surely, however, if a KKK or neo-Nazi rally was taking place on campus, no matter how “peaceful,” the police would have enforced the law. That’s what’s known as selective enforcement, and it’s a real problem.
The local prosecutor, a progressive Democrat, presumably would not prosecute them, either.
George Mason University is in Fairfax County, where the elected chief prosecutor is leftist Steve Descano. Descano unseated a mainstream liberal incumbent in the Democratic primary, after left-wing billionaire George Soros spent over a million dollars on Descano’s campaign to defeat the incumbent Commonwealth’s Attorney, according to the Washington Post. (Soros prefers Descano because left-winger Descano is softer on crime than a mainstream liberal would be).
Selective enforcement of rules to protect some protests but not others violates federal court rulings like Police Department v. Mosley (1972) and Dwares v. City of New York (1992). Some pro-Hamas students also do things like painting graffiti and tearing down posters of kidnapped Israeli children.
Colleges may also be applying campus rules against inappropriate remarks in a selective fashion. Washington University in St. Louis investigated a professor for anti-Hamas remarks that some people viewed as dehumanizing toward Palestinians. But at Cornell University, there has been no investigation of a professor who called the Hamas terror attacks “exhilarating” and “exciting.”
A diversity and inclusion director at Cornell University supported the Hamas terror attack, writing that Hamas was “fighting for life, dignity, and freedom…against settler colonization, imperialism, capitalism, white supremacy, which the United States is the model.”
Universities that routinely speak out against microaggressions, Supreme Court decisions, Republican legislation, and things like students wearing sombreros to Halloween parties could not bring themselves to condemn either the Hamas terror attacks that killed at least 1400 people, or campus protests that explicitly praised the terror attacks. One university claimed it must remain neutral about “geopolitical issues and news events.” Such universities have often taken sides on political issues, such as climate change policy, and spoken out about news events, such as the death of George Floyd.
Northwestern University, which publicly criticized the Supreme Court for ruling against race-based college admissions, refused to “make an institutional statement” about the terror attacks by Hamas that killed relatives of some of its students.
Hamas kidnapped many civilians, including small children, seizing them as hostages. This hostage-taking came after the Biden administration agreed to pay a $6 billion ransom to Iran in exchange for the release of five American hostages. Hamas admits Iran gave it weapons it used in its attack on Israel. The Biden administration released millions of dollars to the Hamas-controlled government of the Gaza strip.
