We take First Amendment rights rather seriously in these quarters, as journalists tend to do. If someone asks whether Americans have the right to protest, our first instinct is that, yes, of course, they do. That applies to whether they are standing up for motherhood and apple pie or they are members of the National Socialist Party of America, famously marching in 1977 in Skokie, an Illinois town that, at the time, included thousands of Holocaust survivors. Free speech isn’t about whether you are expressing a popular opinion. As Frederick Douglass once observed, no right was “more sacred than the right of free speech.” He called it a “moral renovator,” meaning it provided the means to repair our society and government — a matter that seemed particularly urgent to the abolitionist leader when he was once prevented from speaking in Boston on how to end slavery 164 years ago.

Yet we will also admit we were briefly taken aback by U.S. District Judge Peter Messitte’s recent decision to allow a pro-Palestinian student group at the University of Maryland, College Park to conduct a campus vigil on Oct. 7. That’s the one-year anniversary of the day Hamas terrorists, entering Israel from Gaza, killed nearly 1,200 people, most of them civilians, taking hostages and, as a United Nations panel later concluded, committing rape and “sexualized torture.” That this anniversary also falls amid the Jewish High Holidays further underscores the sensitivities involved. UM President Darryll Pines rightfully sought to cancel the event sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine — along with all other student events that day — given the real possibility of violence at McKeldin Mall or beyond. Only a federal lawsuit, joined by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and Palestine Legal, reversed that circumstance thanks to Judge Messitte’s opinion and order released Tuesday.

Let’s be clear. Reasonable people can differ in their views on Israel and the Palestinians. Those who are rightly outraged by Oct. 7 are sometimes wholly unsympathetic to the terrible suffering of Palestinians and vice versa. Many others hold more nuanced views. As much as we like to think that campuses are a safe space, we must also recognize that these young men and women have constitutional rights just as their parents and all Americans do. And none of these rights is more important than the right of free speech. None.

No right is unlimited. With any right comes responsibility. Those who bother to read Judge Messitte’s order will note that he specifically warned protesters of some of those limits. They cannot, for example, incite imminent violence, make physical threats or damage property, illegally occupy buildings, or defy “reasonable” crowd control measures set by law enforcement.

Students for Justice in Palestine would probably find their protest more effective if they treated their Jewish peers with respect. We’re not talking about giving any blanket endorsement of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or the actions of the Israel Defense Forces. But in case the students hadn’t noticed, Israel is under attack from Iran, at least in part a product of Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah in Beirut last week. Tensions are high.

Given the rise of antisemitic activity, concern for personal safety is not just some theoretical matter. A Gallup poll released this summer shows public concern about prejudice against Jewish people has risen sharply since 2003. Some 81% see antisemitism as either a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem compared to 57% two decades ago. Police reports and an uptick in crime back up the concerns. This is why, in recent years, synagogues and other Jewish organizations in the Baltimore area have installed various security measures, from cameras to alarms to fences.

Real conversation is possible. People can be open to new ideas. But whether in College Park or at Johns Hopkins University’s Homewood campus, where a pro-Palestinian encampment was allowed to remain in place for weeks during the last academic year, we have found the most effective dialogue features respectful conversation between individuals and not shouted through bullhorns at crowds. Aggressive slogans, especially those that imply violence, may stir passions but seldom change minds.