More Campus Palestine Protests, More Arrests, More Viral Video
Photo by Palestine protests
Protesting is all the rage, it seems, as the spring term winds down at campuses nationwide.
Students protesting against the Israel-Gaza war continued to be met by police across the United States on Monday night, as a New York University encampment was cleared by the NYPD and students barricaded themselves inside a building at California State Polytechnic University Humboldt, following dozens of arrests at Yale University.
University campuses across the country have seen a surge in antiwar demonstrations in recent days, including students moving into tents in protest encampments. Some of these, including at Columbia University on Thursday and NYU on Monday night, were cleared by police called in at the request of the institutions.
At Columbia University, where the latest wave of campus unrest began, the university sent an email to staff and students on Monday requiring many classes at its Morningside main campus to be hybrid where possible for the rest of the semester. “Safety is our highest priority as we strive to support our students’ learning and all the required academic operations,” the university added in the email, seen by The Washington Post.
College leaders are facing intense scrutiny over whether they are doing enough to protect students, faculty and staff against alleged antisemitism and other bias since the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attack and subsequent conflict — even as they confront scathing criticism from those who say they are denying students’ right to speak out and censoring political protests.
At California State Polytechnic University at Humboldt, the campus will be closed through Wednesday after student protesters barricaded themselves inside a building, Siemens Hall, the university said late Monday. It added that buildings are “locked down” and that “key cards will not work.”
The university urged people to stay away from the “dangerous and volatile situation” at the hall and said it was “deeply concerned about the safety of the protesters.” It urged them to “listen to directives from law enforcement … and to peacefully leave the building.
From a legal standpoint, Columbia did not do anything illegal probably. Columbia is private university and New York, to my knowledge, does not have a law that extends Free Speech protections to private campuses. California has a law that does so.
From a public relationship, standpoint, Columbia fished up big time and burned a lot of bridges in the most ham-fisted way humanly possible. This encourage a lot of non-students to come and join the protest and Columbia has even less control over them. They appear to be the ones going out for more aggression against Jewish students, staff, faculty, etc.
So good job Columbia. Also it appears to be spreading to other universities in solidarityReport
Universities are between a rock and hard place in dealing with the Pro-Palestinian activists. Credible accounts show that many are, or are being used to, menace Jewish students, staff, and faculty. At the same time, they also know how to use harsh actions against them to their benefit. So either Jewish students, staff, and faculty need to be told to deal with it or you crack down on them to get them to behave and hurt yourself.Report
I’m old enough to remember the campus protests of the late 60s and early 70s. So are many of the administrators who have been arresting, suspending, and expelling protestors. I am not surprised that their efforts have caused protests to spread. They shouldn’t have been either.Report
Why is there some greater duty owed to the students that want to LARP revolutionary than the ones paying good money for an education, and who are being denied it by these sorts of antics?Report
Free speech and assembly are protected in the Constitution, paying good money for an education is not.Report
Oh come on. You know the time, place, manner deal. Hang in the quad all night long with signs and chant to your heart’s content. Taking over a building is not, never has been, and never could be protected speech.
Besides, part of civil disobedience is getting arrested and prosecuted.Report
I agree with the last sentence. I’m not personally sympathetic to the protestors but I don’t know if the Pro-Israel faction has the best strategy for making our arguments known. People might find the Pro-Palestinian protestors too in their face but they are making sure they aren’t being forgotten. The large but much less frequent rallies favored by the Pro-Israel side don’t seem to be making an argument.Report
Freedom of speech doesn’t give you the right to force me to listen.
Freedom of association doesn’t mean you can force me to associate with you.
“Getting in my face” means “threatening me personally”.Report
Not on private property without permission of the property owners. And even on public property, there are time, place, and manner restrictions. You can’t nullify crime by attaching a speech act to it, or by calling it one.Report
This might be legally true but the optics of a private property owner exercising their right might not always work to the benefit of the private property owner.Report
Yeah, let’s not forgive student debt.
Maybe go to class a little more often and you’ll find yourself with the skills that employers are looking for, kids!Report
Depends on the class:
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As with all statements by police, this needs to be interrogated.
How do people whose hands are chained together act “aggressive” towards police armed with clubs and guns?
Snapping and baring their teeth?Report
Is it possible to act aggressively in comments to a blog?Report
Today’s example of multiple things can be true:
1. Congressional Republicans are acting in bad faith;
2. Columbia University Admin committed a massive self-own and made their own situation worse by coming down on the protestors as hard as they did;
3. The new protests are now bigger and this allows for malicious actors to let their anti-Semitic freak flags to fly and menace Jews or people they think are Jews;
4. The new protests are big enough to allow other Jewish protestors to have a Seder in peace at the center of it all where things can be more contained as # 3 happens at the margin.Report
Re-reading #1… what does that have to do with Columbia? I went through the post and the comments and this comment, Saul’s comment, is the first one talking about Congress at all.
Columbia is a private college and they can do whatever they want without interference from the Feds.Report
The “malicious actors” view themselves as mainstream pro-Palestinian. They may have the numbers for that.Report