Students at San Francisco State University showed their disgust with terrorist Hamas and Hizballah flags by stepping on them, and were then threatened with disciplinary action because the flags had the Arabic word “Allah” on them. The school said they were “creating a hostile environment.”

I wonder how many US flags have been stomped, burned, and otherwise desecrated at San Francisco State University, without a word of protest from the administration?

But a federal magistrate has ruled that the College Republicans were engaged in constitutionally protected free speech, and the school is wrong to persecute them: CSU students not ready to make nice - and they don’t have to.

The 417,000 students at California State University’s 28 campuses are expected to be civil to one another, the university says in its policy manual. It sounds innocuous - but a federal magistrate says it’s an unconstitutional restriction on speech when the policy is used to investigate or discipline students, such as the College Republicans whose members stomped on two flags bearing the name of Allah during an anti-terrorism rally at San Francisco State last year.

“It might be fine for the university to say, ‘Hey, we hope you folks are civil to one another,’ ” U.S. Magistrate Wayne Brazil said last week at a hearing in his Oakland courtroom. “But it’s not fine for the university to say, ‘If you’re not civil, whatever that means, we’re going to punish you.’ ”

Brazil said he would issue a preliminary injunction barring the university from enforcing the civility standard in any disciplinary proceeding. He said the university can continue to enforce another rule disputed by the College Republicans - prohibiting intimidation or harassment - but can use the rule to punish students only for threatening someone’s health or safety, and not merely for offensive statements or conduct. …

At the anti-terrorism rally in October 2006, members of the College Republicans stepped on flags representing the militant organizations Hamas and Hezbollah, each with Allah written on them in Arabic. A student later complained that the organization had engaged in “actions of incivility” and had tried to incite violence and create a hostile environment.