The First Amendment gives U.S. Citizens the right to free speech. They can even protest peacefully in things they believe strongly in or against.

However, this amendment does not give people the right to break the law.

This is the case we are seeing on college campuses across the country. These “students” are vandalizing statues, buildings and other property. They are illegally setting up tent colonies and are causing health concerns. They are spray painting historic statues and buildings and causing other damage.

I put students in quotations because it has been revealed that many of the protesters on these college campuses are not even students of those colleges and universities. They are outsiders who are brought in to help instigate the students and fire up the protesters.

It makes you wonder who is supporting them financially.

Although I was young when they happened, these protests and near riots when law enforcement try to do their jobs remind me of those in the 1960s. Many of those protests were against the Vietnam War and during the Civil Rights Movement.

Not only are these protesters taking over many college campuses, but they have illegally taken over buildings.

They have also disrupted classes where many schools have had to initiate online classes. Students who have tried to get an education cannot even go to class and listen to their professors or instructors.

The dissidents even disrupted the graduation ceremony at the University of Michigan. That is going too far.

As I noted earlier, we are in the thick of the largest campus unrest since the 1960s. The war between Israel and Hamas has triggered this. But the anti-Semitic prejudice against the Jewish people is just plain wrong.

Some of these “protesters” are wearing masks. If they were peacefully trying to get their voice heard they would not need to hide their faces. It is obvious that some of the people at these illegal encampments have ulterior motives.

Fox News reported that a journalist who was attacked by alleged Antifa members this past week at the University of Washington warned that trained “militants” have infiltrated college campuses across the country. They added that they recognized some of his attackers from the Black Lives Matter riots from four years ago.

Are these violent protests politically motivated? It makes one wonder.

Parents and students spend thousands of dollars to get a top college education at some of the country’s most prestigious schools. Now they can’t attend classes or even have a graduation ceremony due to these protesters.

Something is wrong with this picture.

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Riley Gaines’ battle against the NCAA

Former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines was among more than a dozen college athletes who filed a lawsuit against the NCAA recently. The suit accuses the NCAA of violating Title IX rights by allowing transgender woman Lia Thomas to compete at the national championships in 2022.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, details the shock Gaines and other swimmers felt when they learned they would have to share a locker room with Thomas at the championships in Atlanta.

It documents a number of races they swam in with Thomas, including the 200-yard final in which Thomas and Gaines tied for fifth, but Thomas, not Gaines, was handed the fifth-place trophy.

Thomas swam for Pennsylvania. She competed for the men’s team at Penn before her gender transition.

Gaines told Newsweek she feared for her life after speaking out over the participation of transgender women, whom she considers to be biological males, in women’s sports.

Gaines was assaulted at a speaking engagement in San Francisco.

The issue recently got national attention in West Virginia when five middle school girls would not participate in a shot put event with a transgender athlete in a county competition.

Those girls bravely stepped down and took a zero on their score in unison against something they believe in.

Now that is a great example of a peaceful protest. Good job young ladies.

(Kyle Lovern is a longtime journalist in the Tug Valley. He is now a retired freelance writer and columnist for the Mountain Citizen.)