Nearly a year after his speech was disrupted by an angry mob of student protesters, Kyle Rittenhouse will return to the University of Memphis on Wednesday evening to talk about the Second Amendment and his controversial 2021 trial.
The University of Memphis chapter of Turning Point USA re-invited Rittenhouse to speak after the university and Rittenhouse's lawyers worked out a deal to ensure an adequate security presence this time, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) attorney Mathew Hoffmann told Fox News Digital.
"The bottom line is universities cannot allow hostile students and other people to shut down speakers that they don't like," Hoffmann said. "That's enshrined in Tennessee law and the First Amendment. The mob forced him to cut his speech short, and he left not being able to communicate his message."
Intervening on Rittenhouse's and TPUSA's behalf, ADF sent a demand letter in October asking the university to reschedule the event and "reimburse TPUSA an unconstitutional security fee it was forced to pay after the event was shut down." The university did reschedule it, but did not refund the $1,600 fee "for security that stood idly by and allowed the mob to shut down the event."
"They did change their security fee assessment system. The university has committed in advance of the event to give a short statement about promoting respectful dialogue and how disruption will not be tolerated," Hoffmann said.
Rittenhouse was acquitted during a high-profile case in 2021 of five charges after fatally shooting two people and injuring a third during unrest in Kenosha on Aug. 25, 2020. His defense attorneys argued he acted in self-defense after being attacked. The decedents, Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, both had criminal records, including allegations of domestic abuse, child molestation and disorderly conduct.
An anti-Israel student group at Georgetown University's law school planned to hold an event on campus headlined by a Palestinian terror group member convicted for his role in the killing of a 17-year-old Israeli girl.
But the event was postponed by the university. Now, a Jewish legal advocacy group is calling on the law school to formally cancel the event.
Flyers on campus, captured in images taken by a Georgetown law student and shared with Fox News Digital, show that Georgetown Law Students for Justice in Palestine organized an event with Ribhi Karajah for Feb. 11.
"Palestinian Prisoners, an evening with Ribhi Karajah, student activist and former political prisoner," the flyer states, adding that Karajah will speak to students about his "arrest, detention, and torture in the Israeli military judicial system."
Karajah, a U.S. citizen, was arrested, along with two members of the U.S.-designated terror group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and spent 3½ years in prison for his involvement in an August 2019 roadside bombing that killed a young Israeli named Rina Shnerb and seriously injured her father and brother. Karajh was informed of intimate details of the attack by associates within the PFLP and subsequently admitted in a plea agreement he did nothing to stop it.
Karajah also spent several months in an Israeli prison in 2017 while attending Birzeit University, a school known to be a hotbed for terrorist sympathizers. According to Jewish activist Adar Rubin, the director of mobilization at End Jew Hatred, Karajah has promoted PFLP leadership on social media and spoken at PFLP-sponsored events.
While the student group cited inclement weather on social media as the reason for postponing Karajah's event, it said in a statement that, two days before the event, the law school instructed the student group to postpone the event so that the university "could conduct a thorough investigation into serious safety and security concerns that had arisen in connection with the event."
Now, The Lawfare Project, a legal advocacy group that supports students facing antisemitism on campus, is calling on the university to cancel the event. In a letter sent to the dean and vice dean of Georgetown's law school Wednesday, The Lawfare Project cited federal law against providing material support for terrorism.
"Under 18 U.S.C. § 2339A, the term ‘material support or resources’ includes, but is not limited to, expert advice or assistance, lodging, training, personnel, and services. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project (2010), upheld a broad interpretation of this statute, ruling that even seemingly benign support, such as providing a platform to an FTO member, can further terrorism and violate federal law," The Lawfare Project said in its letter to the dean of Georgetown's law school, William Treanor.
"By permitting Karajah to speak on its campus, GULC risks providing material support to a known terrorist operative. … The fact that this event was organized by a recognized student group does not absolve the university of liability."
The Lawfare Project is also calling for Georgetown to reveal whether any law school administrators were aware of Karajah's affiliation with the PFLP before approving the event. As of Thursday, the group told Fox News Digital it had not heard back from the university.
During Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent trip to the nation's capital, he met with several U.S. college students and recent graduates who have been at the front of rising anti-Israel sentiment on college campuses. During the discussion with these students, Netanyahu was told about the event by Julia Wax Vanderwiel, founder and president of Georgetown Law Zionists.
"[Netanyahu] had a very visceral reaction to my speech," she told Jewish Insider. "He’s appalled [about the upcoming event]. He said he knows exactly who [the murdered 17-year-old] is. He’s met the family. He said that we need to stay strong. He genuinely listened, cared and wants something done."
Vanderweil added in comments to Jewish Insider that Karajah's "presence on our campus threatens the security of all Jewish students."
