Idris Robinson, a tenure-track assistant professor of philosophy at Texas State University, is suing several university officials for violating his constitutional rights after they told him he would have his contract terminated in May, because of complaints about a talk he gave last year “on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict off-campus in another state where a fight broke out,” reports The Guardian.
The Guardian reports:
Robinson gave the talk, titled Strategic Lessons from the Palestinian Resistance, on 29 June 2024, in Asheville, North Carolina. At no point during the event did he reference Texas State, or his affiliation with the school, he told the Guardian.
The talk was never finished, as a scuffle broke out after several minutes, when an audience member alerted the room that several pro-Israel attendees were livestreaming the event. Robinson was led out of the room by an audience member. Police responded to the fight. A 44-page Asheville police department report concluded six months later and seen by the Guardian does not mention Robinson, either as a witness to the fight or as a suspect.
Robinson, however, found himself the target of pro-Israel social media campaigners. The first post appeared on Instagram on 5 June 2025. That same night, Robinson’s supervisor, department chair Craig Hanks, contacted him to say that “strange calls” were coming into the university, according to the complaint.
A day later, senior vice-provost Vedaraman Sriraman emailed Robinson to inform him he was being put on administrative leave, “following the receipt and internal assessment of multiple complaints and allegations regarding an incident that occurred in the summer of 2024”, according to the lawsuit. The following month, on 8 July, the administration sent him an email telling him his contract would be terminated in May of this year.
Robinson appealed against the decision and the school denied the appeal. The Guardian has seen university emails from this timeline; the suspension, termination of contract and the denial of appeal did not offer a substantive explanation for each decision and make no reference to specific rules, regulations or laws that may have been violated…
Robinson alleges that the school’s actions violated his first and 14th amendment rights. He is also seeking a temporary restraining order to stop the university from firing him.
This is a blatant violation of Professor Robinson’s academic freedom and free speech rights.
More details are at The Guardian.
(via Jonathan Peterson)
where are the so-called academic freedom defenders now?
They’re busy censoring comments on this blog.
Since the linked Guardian article is dated March 25, 2026 — i.e., today — you’re not giving them much time to react, are you? Your working assumption would appear to be, roughly, that if an organization such as FIRE does not issue a statement or send a letter to Texas State within about ten minutes of learning the facts, it must be derelict in its duty. Why don’t you give them at least a day or two before posting snide comments? Same question re those who signed the open letter in defense of Cofnas’s rights: why not give them at least a day or two?
P.s. This is obviously, as the OP says, a violation of Robinson’s rights. I would assume the majority of defenders, “so-called” (to quote your phrase) or otherwise, of academic freedom would see it that way.
We gave the Harper’s Letter signers years and they failed to show up.
I’m not sure if you mean blog commentators or organizations like FIRE. In case it’s the former: Speaking personally, I didn’t comment on either Cofnas or this just because I promised myself I’d try to avoid commenting on politically controversial topics while I was chair of Pitt HPS (it gets more complicated when you’re seen as not just giving your personal view but in some way representing a department).
I think people who’ve read my comments on DN over the last decade or so will have little trouble working out what I think about either case.
Why do people say such things? The academic freedom defenders are almost infallibly appalled by such cases (I am), here and elsewhere (FIRE has been steadfast in its fight against such violation in the last year). It’s a really weird insinuation. Or do you mean so-called free speech warriors on the right?
What I have also seen is people defend academic freedom now that it threatens their own political in-group (good on them!) but not when it didn’t. It’s very clear where these people are now.
For information: I observe that Robinson has filed suit against Texas State and that he is being represented by FIRE. https://www.texastribune.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Robinson-lawsuit-against-Texas-State.pdf
did you see Wallace’s post below?
I won’t renew my APA membership if they stay silent on this.
Neither Robinson nor Cofnas should lose their jobs.
It is disappointing that this post doesn’t mention any of Robinson’s controversial comments (“Of course, we want to bring about divine violence”[1] “I definitely do not condemn the violence used by the Palestinian resistance”[2]) or the accusations against him (that he supports the Oct. 7 attacks), while the post on Cofnas leads with his most controversial comments and includes a characterization of him by his critics. Since the article on Cofnas includes a link to the accusatory letter against Cofnas, there might as well be a link to the accusatory post against Robinson (which includes in-class content): https://www.instagram.com/p/DKh734Ux8AQ/?img_index=8.
Make of it what you will.
Kudos to Justin for posting Cofnas’ reply to the post; the same should be offered to Robinson.
[1] https://www.instagram.com/p/DKh734Ux8AQ/?img_index=8.
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/25/professor-texas-state-university-israel-palestine
To be fair, calling for divine violence is par for the course if you’re the US Secretary of Defense these days.
to be fair, divine violence is a concept developed by Walter Benjamin (in 1921) that Robinson analyzed. he isn’t calling for literal divine violence, whatever you think that means.
So what is he calling for then? What does “divine violence” mean?
There’s some literature on Benjamin and the concept, you could look it up, for example here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/benjamin/#Politics
If you read that, divine violence seems to mean “violence that may end up being helpful, even though it’s not obvious how.” It seems that it’s being deployed to justify revolutionary violence:
“Benjamin seeks to deduce and so justify the possibility of an ethical use of violence that is distinct from all mythical inauguration of power and so identified as law-destroying force. In Kantian terms, the ‘Critique of Violence’ deduces such a possibility through the postulation of divine violence whose expiatory power, because it is connected to a higher sphere of justice rather than the law, cannot be known within human history. Only the assurance of such divine violence “furnishes proof that revolutionary violence, the highest manifestation of unalloyed violence by humans, is possible, and shows by what means” (SW1, 252).
That more or less captures it. It is an interesting theoretical concept in Benjamin’s work, but I think it’s often taken up in ways that are both conceptually loose and rhetorically inflated. In many cases, scholars use it less as an analytic tool and more as a way of gesturing toward a vaguely “justified” form of violence. That lack of determinacy is part of the point in Benjamin, but it also makes the concept easy to overextend.
As a result, it’s often treated as if it carries normative weight that it doesn’t actually specify. The idea is fun to play with intellectually but critical scholars often invoke it as something that can meaningfully ground claims about when violence would be ethical or justified. Personally, I regard work that does this as performative theorizing detached from the material realities of violence (one could argue it is irresponsible in the present political climate).
That said, this is a separate issue from academic freedom. People are entitled to engage with and loosely deploy the concept in their work. On that front, the termination of Robinson’s contract is troubling and unjustified.
That’s fair. The term “divine violence” is potentially misleading, especially if someone might interpret it as the sort of thing to which ISIS subscribes. I’ve seen absolutely zero evidence that Robinson subscribes to any theologically based violence, and I apologize for any unintended implication otherwise. In simple terms, the prima facie landmarks of ideas for general orientation are anarchism, revolution, decolonialism, etc. “Divine violence” is complicated (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/benjamin/), but for what matters here, it may not even entail violence, although that is contested. Nonetheless, the second quote of Robinson (from the Guardian) is “I definitely do not condemn the violence used by the Palestinian resistance.” To be fair, whatever this should count as with respect to Hamas goes further than various MAGA figures (that I would characterize as having been rightfully condemned for refusing to condemn Nick Fuentes) go with respect to Fuentes, and most of them do eventually condemn Fuentes (though I think people are correct to not put much stock in condemnations that require such pressure to extract).
The full context of the quote above, at least as presented in the Guardian article:
Nonetheless, to reiterate, I don’t think Robinson should lose his job. My original point was merely the absence of Robinson’s controversial statements in this DN post, in comparison with their inclusion in the DN post about Cofnas.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/25/professor-texas-state-university-israel-palestine
Things could be worse. It could be Queensland, where you can now get up to two years in jail from saying “From the river to the sea” or “globalize the intifada”. According to more recent events than the one I link to here, this can include re-sharing posts on social media, though as far as I know, no one has been arrested for that yet: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/mar/11/two-protesters-arrested-on-first-day-of-queenslands-from-the-river-to-the-sea-ban-ntwnfb
On its face, ‘globalize the intifada’ means ‘physically attack Jews, everywhere in the world’ — hate speech, surely (bracketing the merits of criminalizing hate speech).
on its face, ‘globalize the intifada’ means ‘physically attack Jews, everywhere in the world’
Counterpoint: it certainly doesn’t mean that “on its face”, and it doesn’t mean that it many actually uses, either.
I wouldn’t say that ‘no it doesn’t’ rises to the level of ‘counterpoint’.
It’s precisely at the level of your point: an assertion without argument.
This, plus it’s apparent on it’s face that “globalize the intifada” doesn’t mean “physically attack Jews, everywhere in the world”, so you don’t need an argument to show that that’s not what the phrase means on its face, and it’s also simply obvious to anyone who has paid any attention at all that lots and lots of uses of the phrase don’t mean that, either.
If you read the face of “Globalize the Intifada,” it looks like Benj is close to the truth.
And “All Lives Matter” means that every life is important.
I don’t think this comparison comes off well for you: see below.
What does it mean, if something else? And what is wrong with the analysis of ‘yeesh’, which helpfully makes explicit the basis of my understanding?
“Intifada” means “stuggle” or “shaking off”. “The Intifada” is an attempt to shake off or struggle against the occupation of Palestine by Israel. That has sometimes been violent and sometimes not, but it’s not inherently violent, and it especially doesn’t necessarily have to implications that “yeesh” suggests it does. Note that there is nothing about “Jews” there – it’s against Israel. (I had supposed it was supposed to be anti-semitic to equate Israel and “Jews” more generally, so it’s interesting to see that presented by you here.) To “globalize” this means to extend the struggle against Israel’s occupation and and oppression of Palesetine beyond the borders of Israel and Palesetine. That can, and obviously does, mean things like cutting aid to Israel while it continues to engage in bad acts, divesting, and other things along those lines. It has zero obvious implications of “physically harm Jews worldwide”, though of course some (bad!) people might understand it that way.
Think of an analogy here. I think we should globalize the movement to force Russia out of Ukraine. But by that I do not mean that other countries, let alone other indivdual people, should use force against the Russian state – rather, they should support Ukraine, place even more restrictions on Russian state assets, etc. And, such a claim would not meant that individuals, or states, should harm individual Russian citizens, let alone “ethinic Russians”. But if your reading were the right one “on its face”, than a claim that we should globalize the oppositiont to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would clearly mean those later things. But it doesn’t, and it doesn’t in the case of “globalize the intifada”, either.
Thanks Matt.
Part of what is interesting about the slogan is that it is read differently by different people, where we can locate three salient groups (this is not a partition of humanity: the distinction is neither exclusive nor exhaustive): (A) Jews; (B) those who wish Jews ill; (C) “leftie online youth” (a convenient label for those with a tendency to side in disputes with groups they have labeled ‘minoritized’ over those labeled ‘oppressors’, and armed with a verbal facility for articulating finely drawn ambiguities and other delicacies of usage).
For those in (A)-alone (so: not also either (B) or (C)), talk of “*the* Intifada” calls to mind images of militants performing acts of violence within Israel, directed against individuals acting as agents of the state of Israel, as well as against individual Jews. They (your ‘(bad!) people’?) hear the slogan with the “facial meaning” I suggested for it — not unnaturally, for “the Intifada”, that is to be globalized, has been used for many decades in the media for the movement within which those militants took their violent acts.
Accordingly, the use of the slogan, with whatever intent, serves to intimidate those in (A)-alone. This is so whether it is used by those in (B), who also hear it with my “facial meaning” and intend to use it with that meaning, or by those in (C)-minus-(B), who hear it with some more delicate meaning, perhaps along the lines you have drawn.
Among those who are liable to use the slogan, members of (C)-minus-(B) presumably vastly outnumber those in (B). But I would not say that this redeems the slogan, in the way you suggest: rather, it means only that those few in (B) have found a force-multiplier for their intimidatory intent, in the (perhaps, “well meaning and for that reason gullible”) far larger number of those in (C)-minus-(B).
I’m a member of (A)-alone, and I don’t interpret the slogan with the “facial meaning” (lmao) you have put forward, nor do I find it threatening.
Maybe none of those groups are monolithic, and maybe you don’t have the epistemic authority to assign them beliefs/interpretations, to ‘speak for us’ as they say.
In light of the membership you purport, I’m sure you recognize as well as I do that your stance is a highly rarified one among the group we share. (‘Monolithic’ is your unreasonable imputation to me, as I am sure you also recognize.) It surprises me, though, that a Jew who does not wish other Jews ill should be so callous about how, say, Grandma would feel about the exhortation to bring “the Intifada” to her neighbourhood, without an extensive background in linguistic self-deception — so my most charitable take is that you are an unwitting (A)-plus-(C). I would be happy to learn more about what you have in mind, if you would care to move your contribution past the rock-throwing phase.
should be so callous about how, say, Grandma would feel about the exhortation to bring “the Intifada” to her neighbourhood
I guess I find this about as persuasive as I do people who get freaked out about “defund the police” or “black lives matter”.
Ok, so your view is that ‘globalize the Intifada’ is *desirable* hate speech. That’s where I anticipated this was going. Thanks!
That doesn’t follow from what I’ve said, nor is it my view. (I do think the idea that the expression is “hate speech” is laughable, but that’s a different issue.)
You obviously aren’t among those at whom the hate speech is directed (after all, as you have made abundantly clear, you think the hate speech is perfectly acceptably directed at ‘bad’ Jews; exactly in line with my accusation; disclaimed yet again without substantive dialectical engagement) — so, regarding what is or is not ‘laughable’, maybe stay in your lane?
I reckon that there is little further to learn from you. Toodle pip
you think the hate speech is perfectly acceptably directed at ‘bad’ Jews
No, rather, I don’t think these phrases are plausibly hate speech, no matter who they are directed at, even if some people mistakenly believe they are. (This is like how “black lives matter” isn’t anti-white, even if some white people believe it is.)
Again, stay in your lane
And then there’s this: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/30/world/europe/european-antisemitism-hybrid-warfare.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
Well, my assertion without argument was such as to reduce the context set, whereas Matt L’s was only a baseless refusal of my assertion. That marks at least some difference in pragmatical merit; but that is a side issue to the one in which you have intervened, which is that a refusal to admit an assertion is not a ‘counterpoint’.
Fair enough. I suppose I was just looking for more of an argument, which the ensuing comments have since helped to supply.
On that, though, I have a question, sincerely: Is there a ‘no true Scotsman’-type worry here? I take it you’re saying that the phrase is hate speech at least in part because people in the relevant group are intimidated by it, due to a certain interpretation of it that they have. But when someone pointed out that they were in that group and yet share neither that reaction nor the interpretation, your response seems to be that they must be making some sort of mistake. Maybe that’s not quite a ‘no true Scotsman’ but something nearby–you’re not saying that they aren’t in the relevant group, just that since they are in the group, they must be wrong to not share the belief/reaction. But don’t we need an argument for why it’s a mistake (besides just saying that they are unwittingly part of the “leftie online youth”)? I guess you think what’s doing that work is basically what yeesh is saying, but Matt L cast doubt on that argument in his reply.
Am I misunderstanding something?
Hi Esteban, fine questions. Three observations, the third of which addresses your question directly.
(1) The slogan is inherently ambiguous: with only three words, one of which is not in English and one of which is ‘the’, no surprise. Speakers of Arabic recognize the literal, weak meaning of ‘intifada’; others must go by either (a) what they have been told, or (b) associations they have formed antecedently. Sure, (a) can get us to a “weak meaning”, a sort of generalized “struggle against oppression”; while (b), via associated imagery of throwing of rocks, kidnappings, and ignitions of IEDs, gets us to the “strong meaning” (the meaning that is foremost to me).
(2) This ambiguity enables the slogan to be protected by “motte-and-bailey” manoeuvring: those who hear the strong meaning can be pooh-poohed by pointing to the weak meaning, as with Matt L and No Thank You. This manoeuvre would be available even to those who intend it with the strong meaning, or who are fully aware that it carries both meanings, but are indifferent to (or, worse, experience frisson from contemplating) the strong meaning (perhaps sharing Matt L’s apparently expressed callous indifference to the effects of hate speech, in the present case). Indeed, one might anticipate that such manoeuvring would be especially attractive to such folks (for through it they can take delight in bamboozling the targets of the strong meaning, with the help of a strong dose of bad faith).
(3) Regarding your question about ‘no true Scotsman’, I wouldn’t pitch the issue here as embroiled with what is essential to Jewishness. Rather, there are two questions: (i) how will most Jews regard the slogan? and (ii) would this be reasonable of them?
On (i): I would say that a very broad majority of Jews — like the very broad majority of any non-Arabic-speaking anglophone who has watched the news since the 1980s — will immediately see the strong meaning; those who are savvy may well also recognize the weak meaning, but those who are savvy and share attitudes with the very broad majority of Jews on these issues will still see the strong meaning as most salient.
On (ii): my view would be, of course! After all, among the core popularizers of the slogan just after the October 2023 pogrom were groups whose antipathy toward Jews — and also toward Israel — has been made abundantly clear. Sure, infantile motte-and-bailey legerdemain, of the sort employed by Matt L, can be invoked in attempt to purloin the strong meaning. But such clumsy use of this general purpose little debating trick is so obvious as to deprive it of any dialectical power.
Thanks Benj. I have a different, much less critical view of Matt L’s comments. But I do understand your position better now.
I’m curious how this intersects with the Cofnas case. Does anyone think that Cofnas should lose his job, whereas Robinson shouldn’t?
Is this a defensible view? I’d think they should either both be protected or neither–as first-order moral theorizing since they’re obviously in different legal jurisdictions.
The comments are very anti-Cofnas and very pro-Robinson–which I can understand from the *substance* of the speech, but have a harder time understanding on academic freedom grounds.
I agree neither should be fired, but there are some important differences between the two cases, and Robinson, I think, has the stronger argument. I say this because those calling for Cofnas to be fired are at least appealing to a legitimate reason for keeping someone out of an academic job when they claim his work is pseudoscience. There are questions in play here about who should decide this, and appealing to how many people sign a letter is not how it should be done. Unfortunately, equally credentialed people within the relevant disciplines arrive at diametrically opposed conclusions here, and even more unfortunately which conclusion an expert arrives at can be reliably predicted by their political convictions. But at least we know what a good argument for firing Cofnas would look like.
Based on the Guardian account, I can’t find a remotely compelling reason to fire Robinson that is consistent with the principles of academic freedom. We’re at the point where they’re not even pretending. There also seems to be a clear failure to follow procedures. And his firing seems almost as obviously a violation of his first amendment rights, academic freedom aside. We can only assume the university is willing to pay him a lot of money to go away rather than face the wrath of the external powers putting on the pressure.
That’s a thoughtful answer; thank you!
I’m actually not sure we know all the facts yet in the Robinson case. All we have so far is his version of the story, and the University’s lawyers would have presumably thought of the 1A argument. So I don’t think it’s going to be as simple as it seems, but we’ll see.
We will see, yes. I’ll just add that I wouldn’t underestimate the willingness of legal counsel to recommend a losing case knowing that a university can afford a long fight while an unemployed philosopher can’t. Their job is to serve the institution’s interest, not to be fair and just.
I mean, or for leadership to say ‘thank you for your recommendation, we are going to proceed as we are actually the decision-makers not you.’
The number of times people hide behind ‘legal made me do it/wouldn’t let me do it’ (not saying you’re making that claim) makes me crazy.
Another source accuses Robinson of “inciting assault”, but their claim appears largely unsupported. (Some more details are offered in a prior article.) Their most damning claim appears to be that “At no point did he deescalate the situation,” which you might think a speaker ought to try to do if politically-aligned members of his audience initiate assault after he invites them to decide what to do about the politically-opposed bystanders livestreaming his talk.
I wonder how this relates to the timeline in which the Guardian reports that “Robinson was led out of the room by an audience member.” What violence had occurred by that point, and how had Robinson reacted to it? It seems like those details could make a difference.
I’m curious how you think this could make a difference. Is it a fireable offense to fail to intervene to stop violence at one’s talk?
Not on the most innocent construal, but I could imagine details that would make it less clear-cut. It also seems less straightforwardly an “academic freedom” issue if the concern is with the speaker’s conduct regarding a specific violent event rather than with the content of their talk.
(Of course, it’s very possible that there are no such genuine “concerns” and these are just being pressed as a way to punish the speaker for their views, in which case I 100% agree that it’s an academic freedom violation. But that’s why I think the details matter.)
I can at least imagine difficult cases where a speaker with anti-X views encourages hostility towards members of X in their audience, this results in actual violence in their presence that they could easily prevent, but they instead implicitly communicate approval. I’m not sure what I think about that sort of case. Maybe the risk of false accusations is just too high for it to be a fireable offense, regardless?
Perhaps I shouldn’t have commented at all, since I don’t want to give the impression that I think firing Robinson was warranted. (I don’t think that!) I was just a bit surprised to see everyone else treating the case as a clear-cut academic freedom violation, when I could easily imagine other cases matching the known details of this case which (given further details) would turn out to be murky. Sorry if I’m just being unhelpfully contrarian!
Thanks for providing the added context–I think it does make a difference. As you say, there is at least some kind of argument the university might be able to make.
I agree that we easily can imagine circumstances in which the conduct of a speaker constitutes a firing offense. But considering that, according to your reading of the accusations, the worst thing Robinson is accused of is not de-escalating the situation, I wasn’t sure what, exactly, you had in mind vis a vis his case in particular (as opposed to whatever cases we can imagine). In any case, thanks for your response, which makes sense.
For some context, here is an excerpt from Idris Robinson’s book “The Revolt Eclipses Whatever the World Has to Offer”:
“A life that is unable to risk itself in the heat of revolt, a life that cannot dare death, is not a life at al–it is a living death. Amidst the generalized spectacle of pseudo-life and pseudo-death, the martyrs of the George Floyd rebellion were the first of our peers to cross the threshold. Therefore. the poet laureate of Exarchia, Katerina Gogou, is right to remind us that even upon acquiring the maturity to acknowledge life’s eventual end, the sheer immensity concentrated within a single drop of the martyr’s blood can still impart additional weight to the fallen […] Framing this decision within the context of more contemporary realities, a resistance leader [Yahya Sinwar] would likewise boldly proclaim: “I say the biggest gift the occupation and the enemy can offer is to assassinate me and to die as a _shahid_ by their hands to the Almighty. I’d rather be martyred by an F-16′ missile than die of coronavirus.” […] It is in the figure of the martyr that everything comes together for us: reason and revolt, philosophical contemplation and practical activity, but in a way that encompasses the entirety of both life and death, the thrownness of existence and the void of non-being. This book thus repeatedly returns to the question of martyrdom insofar as it opens upon the revolutionary dimension of the classic existential humanist problem. Overturning any division between subject and object, it entails wholly losing oneself in revolt, while at the same time rejecting all the false alternatives that this shattered world presents, whether as capitalist nihilism or religious dogmatism. Indeed, as the words of Muhammad Iqbal show us, it is the path of the _shahid_ that is alone capable of seizing the essence of life in a way that defies its otherwise inherent finitude: “If the self is self-reflexive, self-creating, and self-comprehending, it is even possible that you won’t die from death.” This is why it is always a mistake to confuse martyrdom with sacrifice, since that which reached out to eternity can never be constrained by any form of resignation or surrender.” pp. 23-25.
Ah yes, Sinwar, a real role model.
I hope you are being facetious. One never know anymore.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C82YiNvJEcl/?igsh=N2k1c3dmM3UyOG0y
Here’s the video if anyone cares. I don’t think hes doing anything that terrible or that he should be fired for it but I also wouldn’t want to have to be the lawyer whose job it is to argue in court that this is protected speech. You dont get to call for a vote on whether people with a presumptive right to be in a public place should be “allowed to stay”. Very borderline. And clearly hes not just talking about Palestine and expressing his political views when the it starts to go down
Everything he says in the video is clearly protected speech, nothing borderline at all.
No, I think its false that it a clear. You dont have a right to hold a vote on whether a crowd should collectively engage in an imminent crime. In any case its definitely misleading to suggest that all he did was discuss the politics of the I/P conflict. He was speaking to the crowd specifically about what should be done to people who a. Had a right to be there and b. Ended up being assaulted as he carries on about this and at no point does he say “hey thats not what I meant “. Sorry, thats not *obviously * protected speech. You have to really dig into how events unfolded.
I’m not a First Amendment lawyer (is anyone here?), but I just cannot see how this isn’t protected speech. If he had incited escalation that would be different . And sure, maybe he could have used his position to try to defuse the situation (I’m convinced that wouldn’t work). You could argue he had an obligation to try, I guess? Maybe? But what he said, based on this video, is clearly (to me) protected.
How is he not inciting escalation by taking a vote on whether to act violently? What else can his vote mean?
Because the conclusion has been decided in advance of course!
For example, if some people in the crowd were already on the way to violently ejecting someone and you called for a vote because you thought either (a) the vote might go against the people about to commit violence or (b) the process of talking about the vote and voting might cool things down.
I don’t know whether that is what happened here because I do not have an Instagram account and cannot view the video, but I think it is pretty clear that asking for a vote for X is not the same thing as inciting X. For example votes are often called in legislative contexts precisely to prevent the thing that is to be voted on from happening.
Thats the opposite of what happened.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/04/22/their-chaos-is-our-peace-fighting-zionist-repression-in-texas-and-beyond/