I wonder what posters think Columbia University should actually do about the current fiasco? To me they are caught in a very tough position. On the one hand, the documented incidents of anti-semitism on campus are completely unacceptable - but also there are shades of the anti-war protests of the 1960s where students were denounced for being commies etc (and of course some were!) but historically they are seen as broadly correct in their cause. Heavy handed policing of legitimate protest is oppression and unconstitutional. I saw on social media the analogy of Trumpian neo-nazis from Charlottesville was raised. These types were allowed to complete their studies! Personally I lean towards a tougher line on speech (IMO the situation with threatening speech in the US is absurd). If you impose consequences, people will learn to be responsible But the irony and challenge is that Universities are currently under attack for being too woke and suppressing conservative speech (e.g deplatforming neo-nazis and white nationalist bigots, antisemites etc) So what should they do exactly? I think in practice it is easy to say this is unacceptable, but harder to enforce. The whole "imagine if this was a black professor" type of thing falls down in the face of reality that other minorities and women are frequently targeted and not much appears to happen to the white nationalists who do that stuff.
Columbia university should have the NYPD arrest anyone occupying its property, after being given sufficient notice to disperse. Anyone arrested should then be given notice that they are banned from university property going forward. For students, the university should also subject them to its own disciplinary process. This isn't particularly hard- these protestors are engaging in illegal acts, and should be punished accordingly if they refuse to leave.
I refer to the Iranian protests in the late 70s (Students abroad at that), Cultural Revolution, and Khmer Rouge. Students are not particularly wise or virtuous, the causes they protest for have often been bad, and any individual protest movement should be evaluated on its own terms rather than as part of a cult of youth.— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) April 23, 2024
I guess my answer to that is we don't want the reactionary bosses have all the freedom to decide which protests are good and bad. We've had a taste of that in Germany where the police ban the climate protests, while allowing the farmers to block the streets. Personally I think both should be allowed, because I don't want the government deciding for me.
Honestly the best solution is to meet with the students. You kind of have to be clear what is acceptable descent and what crosses into hate speech. These students have rich and powerful parents so lawsuits are a concern. Maybe mail letters to their parents explaining their rules.
I'm a lot more inclined to support pro-Palestinian protestors than you are (barring anything pro-Hamas or anti-Semitic), but this is soooooooooooooooo true. When I was a senior in high school, a bunch of my classmates staged a walkout protest over a popular 12th grade Government teacher getting fired. He had driven off school campus during his lunch break to smoke weed and got pulled over by a cop on the way back to campus because he had a broken taillight. As a dumb teenager, while I didn't participate in the walkout, I remember thinking, generally, yeah, weed should be legal, no one should get in trouble for smoking pot. As an adult, I'm like....buddy, you cannot get any type of intoxicated when you are legally responsible for the safety of other people's minor children. What the HELL were you thinking? That protest was so cringe. Of course ************************ got fired.
A question my mom would ask me for this sort of thing went along the lines of, "Are you doing this because you believe in it or are you doing this just because?" With student movements, the answer usually tends to be the latter. As for the pro-Palestine people, my exposure didn't come till college. Going to school in an area with a large Arab population, I was exposed to a lot of it. But one of the reasons I'm not as inclined is some of the rhetoric I'd hear would border on suspect to yikes at times. I think the only protest I ever did in my school years was in college and to support the faculty strike. And that was because there was a bunch of shenanigans during the GFC. Last protest I took part in was last year and it was mainly to counterprotest some homophobic people.
The issue isn't whether student protests are bad. The issue is that maybe we shouldn't take students (Most aged 18-23) seriously just because they're protesting something. Especially on matters like Israel-Palestine that require complex thought and years of study. It's a habit in media (and for a lot of people) to think the kids are alright and they can do no wrong.
I see these pro-Palestine protests a lot like how @Dr Wankler characterized BLM, too decentralized and allowing for stupid elements to infiltrate and cause shit, undermining the whole thing. I wasn’t alive for it, but at least in the retelling of the protests about the Vietnam War, there seemed to be much better message discipline and coherence. The pro-Palestine goes from Cumbaya to Praise Hamas! and some really disgusting antisemitic speech.
This is one of the problems with blaming the Democratic party for everything that happens in the activist space. It's seen a lot in the climate space. Plenty of climate people don't like extinction rebellion for example - because it is nihilist and unhelpful to the cause. I'd argue aspects of it were quite similar. The movement was denounced as a bunch of long haired hippies and commies. And of course many of them were hippies and commies! Its only the long run of history that sees them as just. The actual problem for the administration then was similar to now - the pictures that Americans saw on the nightly news told their own story. I've argued since October that those rolling images would be the thing that turned public opinion - not these protests.
Does everyone really do that though? Much coverage is what you'd expect from the establishment - the kids are idiots who don't know anything. Same as it ever was
I wonder if this kind of stuff is going on? But yes I agree. I think you have to deal with people who cross that line.
Who do you regularly talk to, read, watch, or listen to who has beliefs that you or your friends describe as "republican"?
You haven't given any examples of individuals or groups you are familiar with other than what you see on the internet/TV about Trump. I can only assume that you have dehumanized this group of people because you don't know any better, and that would be giving you a grace and the benefit of the doubt. You basically came up with a list of the worst things you could think of to excuse your dehumanization of this group of people. People with the level of total dehumanization you are displaying here tend to participate in abuse and even genocide. I assume you don't know any better because to assume that is a calculation would be exceptionally dark.
I do think it silly that the demand from the Columbia protestors is for the university to divest from Israel. I get that it is something concrete that can be done, but it is purely symbolic.
Well, idealistic college students... Is there any more purely symbolic group of people? I spent a lot of time back in the day demanding that Virginia schools divest from South Africa. My job was to find high school pension funds with SA investments.
Covering much of the last page or so... First, in general, non-violent protests should be allowed. If they disrupt classes, then they do. Some of those experiencing disruption will get pissed, others will stop and understand. But it will cause a conversation to many who have not yet had that conversation. Second, along with those protests, there should be guidelines put out by the university of what is acceptable and what is not, with the acknowledgement that there is a lot of grey area. Just pointing to the campus guide book is not good enough. And I agree that meeting with the students will be valuable, and some effort should be made to do it at the protest(s). Why does anybody have a problem with non-violent sit-ins? That is a tradition we have had for at least 60 years. And if it disrupts a class, then it does. It is an act of civil disobedience. Counter protest areas should be designated, with Columbia already has. Education should be done on recognizing clipped and/or biased social media. There are a couple of pro-Jewish X accounts that I despise because they make all acts and protests they post to be antisemitic, and therefor everybody against Israel (or even pro-Palestine) is antisemitic. And I am quite sure there are pro-Palestinian X accounts doing the opposite (making all those who are pro-Israel to be anti-Palestinian). With that, there should also be efforts made to criticize the media (mostly MSM) coverage, particularly from within the protests.
Message discipline has been a problem for the hard left for ages going as far back as Vietnam, flying the flag of Hanoi for instance or waving banners of Che Guevara. It's not a good look. And they're also action first and end up becoming Maoist parodies (Which is what the current pro-Palestine movement is turning into). And it's why the current left hasn't really won anything. As for the bold text, I went to a school that had a significant Arab and Muslim population, a lot of them first gens or immigrants, some of the stuff I heard, yikes. Which is why I've always been distant from Palestine when it comes to that argument.
My point is that youth shouldn't be taken at face value just because they're young and it happens to be a cause you agree with. See Greta Thunberg or the various youth movements over the last 100 years.