With the new school year starting, universities across the country anticipate a new wave of protests around the war in Gaza, now in its 10th month. To offer broad perspective, Zócalo brought a panel of scholars and practitioners to the ASU California Center Broadway last night to discuss the history, legality, and art of American protest.

The Zócalo event—which asked “When Does Protest Make a Difference?”—took the form of two back-to-back panels, both moderated by KQED correspondent and “The California Report” co-host Saul Gonzalez.

The first panel was made up of academics: urban journalism professor Danielle K. Brown, former director of the ACLU LGBT Project Matt Coles, and First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh. They discussed what makes an effective protest movement, the media’s role in legitimizing protest in the eyes of the public, and what forms of protest the First Amendment allows.

Coles, known for his work in the LGBT rights movement—notably, authoring San Francisco’s first sexual orientation nondiscrimination law—shared his thoughts on what it takes for protesters to make real change.

First, he said, think about what you want to achieve: Are you trying to energize your constituency? To persuade people generally of something? To change policy?

Reflecting on the anti-war movement of the ’60s and ’70s, ACT UP’s AIDS demonstrations of the ’80s and ’90s, and LGBT protests more broadly, Coles, now a constitutional law professor, pointed to successful strategies. Particularly at the start of a protest, he said, it’s important to catch public attention with an action “that feels arresting, whether that’s norm-defying or convention-defying.”

To make change you also need “concrete articulated goals” that allow “you to make change over time,” Coles said. One more key thing? Organization “to keep a movement sustained.”

Sometimes protests are “simply there to signal their capacity to other people,” added Brown, the journalism professor. The goal could be getting a politician to recognize that an overlooked issue matters to their constituency. Or it could be to impact “the hearts and minds of other people” more broadly, she said.

Brown’s research focuses on media representations of protests and social movements—particularly, Black Lives Matter. “Most people don’t go to protests, most people learn about protests through the media,” she said. That’s why the way media coverage approaches protests is important, she argued. What biases does the coverage reflect? Does it present protesters as a legitimate part of the electorate? Does it portray them as having an agenda with concrete goals and demands?

Volokh, the legal scholar, spoke about the limits of First Amendment protection. “Movements may be successful or not,” he said, “but they all have to comply with the law or else face both the risk of criminal punishment [and] the risk of civil liability.”

A great deal of protest is constitutionally protected, he said, but some conduct is not. “Many decades of litigation” established that officials cannot restrict protests based on the ideas they express. But authorities can crack down for other reasons: noise level (say, if people are protesting at night), or picketing in a residential area. Protesters who block highways illegally can be jailed or fined.

“Before you figure out what you’re going to do, you need to figure out what the lines are and what the risks are,” Coles affirmed.

The evening’s second panel featured activists and a law enforcement official: National Day Labor Organizing Network co-executive director Pablo Alvarado, Los Angeles Police Department former assistant chief Sandy Jo MacArthur, and immigrant rights and labor justice activist Victor Narro. They mused on responses to protests, what a “well-policed” protest might look like, and joy in protests.

Narro, who has engaged in activism for decades, said that witnessing police repression as a kid growing up in New York City was a formative experience. His friends and neighbors were unjustly targeted, he said, not just because of law enforcement attitudes but “because [the NYPD was given] the green light from the mayor.” It’s important to recognize how officials’ “perception and viewpoints” translate into law enforcement conduct, he said. “We have to hold them accountable as well.”

MacArthur, who is retired from LAPD, now works at the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office teaching law enforcement agencies de-escalation skills. There are things police can and should do to prevent needless violence, she said. “Our fundamental duty is to be out there to protect and to allow those people to have the right to assemble,” she said. Through training, experience, and working with organizers, officers can understand “at what point to engage.” If it’s too late, she said, “there’s too much going on.” If it’s too early, “then we create the storm.” Offering regular training to help officers know what to expect on protest days and placing seasoned supervisors in the field are tools that can de-escalate future situations, she said.

Alvarado, who came to the United States from El Salvador in 1990, near the end of that nation’s 12-year civil war, organizes low-wage workers. He spoke about finding joy in protests, including during a 2010 fight against an anti-immigration law in Arizona. Alvarado’s organization was protesting against a local business that had hired off-duty sheriff deputies to patrol neighborhoods and arrest workers. Armed counter-protesters showed up—”people with swastikas and really ugly messages against immigrants”—supported by then-sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Rather than escalate the situation, Alvarado’s group decided to infuse their protest with arts and culture. Bringing in mariachi bands, eloteros (people who sell corn on the street), and brass bands helped to dial down the hostility, he said, “not only on our side but on the other side.”

Martin Luther King taught us how to fight with “peaceful tension,” he added.

Both conversations concluded with audience Q&A. One of the audience members asked panelists about “keyboard warriors.” Are digital protesters effective?

“There’s nothing more powerful than physically holding up that protest sign, that picket sign, or that banner,” Narro said. But digital media can feed into how we physically come together. “You can never go wrong when you get activists together in solidarity to make their message heard.”