Another wave of disruptive anti-Israeli campus protests is coming.

Administrators had better be ready to enforce reasonable regulations of them.

With the start of the new school year, it seems certain that America’s college campuses will endure another round of aggressive anti-Israel protests. In addition, we can expect harassment, or worse, of Jewish students.

What should colleges and universities do in response?

One thing they shouldn’t do is ban speech, other than that which calls for violence or makes violence likely. Thus, I disagree with banning use of the word “Zionist.”

Meta has banned this word when used to refer to Jews or Israelis rather than to supporters of the movement to establish a Jewish polity. It seems that student groups at Columbia and NYU violated this new policy and had their accounts deleted as a result.

Meta can ban what it wants to, but colleges and universities shouldn’t ban or punish those who use the word “Zionist.” I’m not sure that “Zionist” is an unfair description of those who live in or support Israel. And though it clearly is poor usage when applied to Jews who do neither, and can be viewed as anti-Semitic in that context, it isn’t speech that advocates violence or makes violence likely.

As for what colleges should do, the editors of the Washington Post (of all people) have some sensible thoughts. The editors support reasonably “regulat[ing] protests’ time, place and manner to preserve public order,” and they applaud public universities that have done so:

Some, such as the University of California and the California State University systems, the University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Denver, are explicitly prohibiting tent encampments such as those that protesters erected across the country in the spring. Indiana University and the University of South Florida are requiring prior approval of temporary structures. Vanderbilt is also prohibiting demonstrations that would require participants to gather or sleep overnight. Encampments pose safety, health and sanitation issues, and they prevent other students from using campus grounds for extended periods.

Indiana University is banning any protests within 25 feet of building entrances and prohibiting demonstrators from blocking access to facilities such as driveways.

Some are adopting time limitations: Vanderbilt says temporary displays and structures will only be allowed between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. or sundown, whichever is earlier, and only for three consecutive days. The University of South Florida is banning all protests after 5 p.m. and during the final two weeks of each semester.

Others are requiring demonstrators to seek advance approval for the use of bullhorns or other sound equipment and limiting the hours during which they can be used.

Universities should prohibit uninvited or unauthorized outsiders from joining campus protests. The University of California’s new rule prohibiting demonstrators from wearing masks and disguises, and requiring all protest participants to reveal their identities when asked by school authorities, will help keep out people who aren’t part of the university community.

These are all reasonable measures and some combination of them should be used. However, they won’t amount to much unless they are enforced.

Enforcement means two things: (1) using the police or national guard to break up protests that violate time-place-and-manner rules and (2) prosecuting violators where appropriate.

Do college administrators have the spine to call in the cops? Some, such as Dartmouth’s president, do. Others, not so much.

The problem isn’t just the sympathy so many of them have for those protesting the war in Gaza. It’s also that anti-Israeli faculty members can be expected to exact a price on administrators who enforce reasonable limits on protests. Some professors can even be expected to join the protesters in confronting the police.

Both happened at Dartmouth. Its president, Sian Leah Beilock, did what the weasels and leftists in charge of other elite institutions were so hesitant to do. She had the local police break up a demonstration that violated the college’s rules and arrest the violators. For this, she was censored by the faculty. In addition, Dartmouth students voted “no confidence” in her.

During the police action at Dartmouth, Annelise Orleck, who teaches about the “Jewish American experience,” put herself in the middle of the fray. She was knocked down and arrested.

This was no less than what she deserved, in my opinion. In fact, colleges should discipline professors who violate the time-place-and-manner rules and/or who try to obstruct the police. They are older and, in theory, more mature than their students. They should know better.

My point, though, is that administrators can lay down all the reasonable rules needed to maintain order on campus. If they try to enforce the rules, they will pay a price. I question whether many of them will be willing to pay it.

It’s true that administrators are under pressure to deal with anti-Semitism. Some colleges have been sued for not doing enough to protect Jewish students. Some apparently are being investigated by the federal government. However, I don’t think the same legal jeopardy extends to tolerating peaceful, but highly disruptive protests, as opposed to violence and harassment.

Even if administrator’s are willing to break up disruptive protests, there’s still the question of whether those arrested at the protests will be prosecuted. If, in appropriate cases, they aren’t, colleges can expect additional waves of disruption this Fall.

The Post says that this past Spring:

More than 3,000 students (and many nonstudents) were arrested. In most cases, charges were dropped. That’s a reasonable call by prosecutors. But violence or property destruction, such as that which accompanied the takeover of Hamilton Hall at Columbia, deserve criminal sanction; suspension or expulsion is appropriate for serious violations of university rules.

I don’t think it’s reasonable to drop charges against protesters just because they don’t commit violence or destroy property. The mere act of occupying a college building, for example, should be enough to warrant prosecution. (When I non-violently occupied Dartmouth’s administration building in 1969, I was sentenced by a judge and punished by the College.)

The war in Gaza will probably end sometime this school year. But unless colleges and universities deal forcefully with the coming disruptive protests, the end of the war won’t mean the end of such protests.

The hard-left wants to parlay the current protests into a lasting, vigorous campus protest movement, just as anti-war radicals like me wanted to do in the early 1970s. We wanted to be able to shut down colleges at will, the way Mexican students seemed to be doing at the time.

The end of the Vietnam War and the military draft were big enough deals to mark the end of the 1970s protests. I question whether the end of the war in Gaza, with victory for Israel, will have a similar effect.

College administrators shouldn’t wait to find out. They should show radical students and radical professors that they will enforce reasonable time-place-and-manner regulations to prevent protests from disrupting their campuses.