As students return to campus for the fall semester, universities can learn from the Democratic National Convention about how to handle the return of disruptive pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

Pro-Palestinian groups had threatened huge, confrontational demonstrations at last week’s convention. The DNC’s organizers, rejecting an appeasement approach, erected a massive metal barricade that kept protesters, who had vowed to march on the convention site without permits, blocks away. When some protesters broke down part of a barrier, the Chicago Police Department quickly arrested them.

The DNC did not allow a Palestinian-American speaker to address the convention, which deprived the protesters of media oxygen. Chicago 1968 it wasn’t.

The DNC was helped by a low pro-Palestinian turnout, and the DNC made small concessions, such as allowing a forum on Palestinian grievances off the main stage.

Not all of the DNC’s tactics from a four-day convention can be easily emulated by universities. They cannot erect metal barricades around sites of........

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