As of late Thursday night, 13 Columbia students and alumni had joined a Facebook group titled, "YES, I was there when Gilchrist was rushed faster than CUFT's Quarterback."What is the argument that these things are not "admissible"? This is public speech. It could be faked, but so could reports from eyewitnesses. To use the material in an investigation is not to presume it is conclusive proof of something. What makes people think that if they do something in a place that makes them feel confessional it somehow doesn't count? The students storming the stage also seemed to feel entitled to act out. That doesn't make them not responsible for what they did. They can't say oh, we were surrounded by friends who all thought this was just fine and we felt in charge of our own space. Really, these are intelligent college students. Why do they feel a special immunity from being observed in a public place?
"I don't [agree with the decision], but there's nothing we can do about it," Patric Prado, SEAS '09 and creator of the group, said. "I was there, and it's fine that they want to incriminate people who actually started violence. ... Yes, we were stupid, but we got our message across that we weren't going to accept this on campus."
Universities, employers, and law enforcement agencies have widely contended that materials posted on Facebook-including posts, photos, and personal information-are admissible in investigations. Hornsby emphasized that screening Facebook was just one of several methods that the University would employ to conduct its investigation.
The linked article describes the incident in a way that is quite sympathetic to the students. In the opening paragraph it refers to "Wednesday night's Minutemen brawl" -- as if the Minutemen were the main actors in a free-for-all. The fourth paragraph has this:
The investigation comes after a violent protest broke out in Roone Arledge Auditorium during a speech by Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, an organization that patrols the U.S.-Mexican border for illegal immigrants. Shortly after the speaker took the stage, several audience members rushed onto the stage with banners, sparking a physical conflict and prompting the early cancellation of the speech"A violent protest broke out"? That's purged of human agency. A protest happened, as if a protest is a thing with a mind. "Several audience members rushed onto the stage with banners, sparking a physical conflict"? Here we get human actors, but they simply "rushed onto the stage" -- they didn't rush the speaker. And they came up to show their banners -- as if it's a festive "more speech" sort of thing. This then "spark[s] a physical conflict," so the speech of the banners ignites fighting. You can't tell who introduces the fighting ("physical conflict"). Again, the human agency is scrubbed out of the prose.
What really happened? Powerline has video and an eyewitness written description. Here's another -- shorter and more vivid video:
It's not that easy to see violence in the video, so it's especially hard to tell who's doing what, and there's no way to tell whether any given individual -- unless he's a banner-holder -- is for or against the speaker. I'm not taking a position on who's responsible for the chaos, but clearly the University needs to investigate, and what people have written on line is not out of bounds. I will say though that I find it ironic that students who are passionate about the cause of helping the poorest people are also passionate about their own privileges as affluent college students feeling immune in their Facebook realm.
UPDATE: The NYT has a substantial article about the incident:
[Columbia president Lee Bolliner said], “There is a vast difference between reasonable protest that allows a speaker to continue, and protest that makes it impossible for speech to continue.”Sriram's point sounds so good that you might hypthesize that Gilchrist supporters took advantage of the situation by provoking the violence instead of tolerating a peaceful, silent vigil. Does the video support that interpretation? It seems as though it was an organized effort to shut Gilchrist up. Here's another video that seems to be taken outside the auditorium (found by searching YouTube for "Columbia" and "Minutemen"):
Monique Dols, a senior in history at Columbia’s School of General Studies, said she had mounted the stage in protest and unfurled a banner but that at such events in the past the speakers had kept going.
“We have always been escorted off the stage and the event continues,” she said, adding that this time the protesters were attacked.
“We were punched and kicked,” she said. “Unfortunately, the story being circulated is that we initiated the violence.”...
[Freshman Anusha Sriram] said she was upset that by keeping Mr. Gilchrist from speaking, the protesters had unwittingly turned the tables of the discussion against themselves.
“That just undermined the entire protest,” she said. “Now everyone looks at the protest in a bad light instead of him in a bad light.”
A speaker loudly brags about successfully shutting down the speech: "It's not about his free speech. It's about our free speech." That part is after a speaker goes on about the "rights" of "economic refugees" and tries to lead a chant: "Cops out of the hood/Troops out of Iraq/Workers unit and fight back."
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Eesh! I can't tell who started what either, but there's definitely something creepy about the Two Minutes Hate cheering of those college students. Since when is preventing an opposing point of view from being heard a cause for celebration?
What I can't figure is where the security was. Didn't they have security? When Ann Coulter and Mike Adams came to our campus (not at the same time) to speak, the university provided security, and hecklers were immediately ejected from the auditorium. Had something like this happened, campus police would have arrested them, and there would be none of this trying to figure out who they were.
When I read the story, I wondered if "conspiracy" could be added to the charges - especially if any significant injuries occured.
The man couldn't have incited violence by his speech - it was interupted in less than 5 minutes. If 20-30 people were rushing towards him, "self-defense" isn't only a reasonable plea from him, but an understandable response from he and his security detail (if such a thing exists).
So, if the students and alumni planned it and there was a reasonable expectation that violence could result, could those individuals be held liable even if they didn't personally cause the injury?
I question whether these were "intelligent" college students. The IQ points may be there, but they do not appear to be functioning.
I have read that Columbia security personnel were present and did nothing. If that is true, they should be fired -- after the students are expelled. Maybe it's time for Columbia to institute a required freshman-year course covering the fundamental points of civics that these spoiled kids somehow missed in high school.
Despite it being glaringly obvious that they are not, many people persist in thinking of the online communities they belong to as being in the private domain. They think of getting together on Facebook as equivalent to gathering together in someone’s dorm room or a friends apartment for a bull session. I’m reminded of a posting I saw on a blog a few weeks ago were the blogger was complaining that he felt that his “private corner of cyberspace” had been sullied because a link from NRO had led (I paraphrase) “unspeakably nasty evil rightwing nut jobs” to his blog, apparently causing his immortal prose to become sullied because right wingers had read it with their unclean eyes. Or maybe they think of their Facebook postings as the equivalent of private papers and believe that the authorities should need a warrant to access them. In either case there is a technical term for such people; idiots. Or maybe they’re just young and the idea that their actions could have consequences hasn’t penetrated their heads yet.
Below is an extract from a New York Times article, where protester Monique Dols basically says that mounting the stage with a banner is part of the usual drill and doesn't usually disrupt speakers, and the protesters were attacked. So they were exercising their speech rights and are victims. Sounds like BS talking points to me, but I'd be interested to hear comments.
NYT excerpt:
"Monique Dols, a senior in history at Columbia’s School of General Studies, said she had mounted the stage in protest and unfurled a banner but that at such events in the past the speakers had kept going.
“We have always been escorted off the stage and the event continues,” she said, adding that this time the protesters were attacked.
“We were punched and kicked,” she said. “Unfortunately, the story being circulated is that we initiated the violence.”
I find it ironic that students who are passionate about the cause of helping the poorest people are also passionate about their own privileges as affluent college students...
Ann, since you and I are similar ages, I suspect you also found it familiar.
This is an interesting thread. We've got "left wing fascists" and "spoiled little commies." Whatever we call them, the multicultural left is violent, intolerant, and ignorant. Their facebook communications should be considered a public forum -- there's no expectation of privacy when posting to a social networking site. I took particular umbrage at the Columbia melee. I live in California's 48th congressional district, and I voted for Gilchrist in the special election last December to replace former U.S. Representative Christopher Cox, who's now Chairman of the SEC. Gilchrist's rousting could have taken place at any university campus, really. UC Irvine has had all these "free-speech" debates whenever a controversial speaker visits the campus. John Yoo spoke a year a two back, and apparently security was sufficient to allow the former Justice Department attorney to make his case (though I'd argue that college campuses should be considered enemy terrority for visiting speakers championing mainstream conservative causes). Perhaps Gilchrist should have known better. University officials, in any case, have a lot for which to answer, and I hope arrests of the student perpetrators are forthcoming (Gilchrist was knocked to the ground and lost his reading glasses, so perhaps there's some battery charges that could be handed down against these violent multicultural anarchists).
Burkean Reflections
Have a manual trackback.
Facebook provides users with a range of Privacy settings for various sorts of materials. Some scribblings be set as available to anyone in the user's entire University Community, ie anyone whose email originates at the same .edu domain.
Material posted with the Privacy setting at "friends" only would, I'd think, carry as much Expectation of Privacy as is set out in Facebook'policy, and require at least a subpoena if the authorities want to stretch the incident to a Patriot Act threshold, or a warrant if we're looking at the parameters of a traditional criminal matter.
College Democrats (for that matter, most Democrats) believe in their moral superiority. Their every action is justified because the cause they serve is just. It is impossible to convince them otherwise - there is no logic, just conviction. Debate with them is like wrestling jello. (From first-hand experience.)
(You could argue the same is true of evangelicals, but at least there is the recognition of non-rationality.)
Luckily, most snap out of it after entering the real world, paying taxes, getting mugged/cheated, and competing in the global population for jobs/flats/mates. The effect is particularly pronounced for self-identified feminists.
The video had the feeling of one of those John Belushi movies about a frat house out of control. It looks like a bunch of kids who haven't learned how to live in a diverse community, no doubt in large part because they don't, and conduct themselves with all the maturity of those Belushi-like characters. As many have already noted, the whole thing is abetted by the prevailing attitude, fostered by the supposedly adult element on campus, all to the effect that the university campus is "our territory," meaning a lefy playground, and anyone who rejects the lefty rules of the game cannot to be invited to play.
As for Ann's comment about "intelligent kids," that's probably true only in the test-taking sense. If these kids had any understanding of the wider world, they might have figured out that the big winner here was the Minuteman Project -- it got lot's of free publicity casting the Minutemen in the always-to-be-cherished position of "victim," its opponents are now self-defined as a bunch of immature nutjobs, and outrage has been duly expressed about viewpoint suppression even by the university admin-types who detest the Minutemen, etc., etc.
Not a bad day's work for supposedly intelligent kids.
I would agree with posters who link this phenomenon to the '60s. The left stayed on after graduation, became professors and administrators, and transformed the university as a safe place for themselves. The now institutionalized hatred for America was what, strangely, led me to abandon my liberal identification.
The students today feel entitled to a free pass for violence because they have been indoctrinated with the ideas of Marcuse and praxis, that "speaking truth to power" or intimidating offensive people is fine, even required, behavior. The majority of these demonstrators will leave the movement once they get a dose of reality, like "the pigs" reading their FAcebook entries, but the true believers will live on. What the end game will be, I can't fathom.
I've done my share (or more0 of leftish heckling, and, after trial (and error) settled on a modus operandi which distinguishes between commentary and 'shouting down.'
So long as the featured speaker is actually speaking, don't interrupt. A pause for breath opens the floor for a brief (~15 second) interjection.
I'm unaware of caselaw parsing the distinction, and draw these limits on esthetic values. The Speaker gets to have their say, the unfriendlies in the audience a chance at counter-narrative.
"Taking over" the stage is always counterproductive. If you don't have the theatrical chops to steal the scene from your seat, leave the job to someone who does.
Back onto the general subject of Facebook and MySpace etal.
These kids really don't understand that their ranting and bragging has long term consequences. Not only is their self confession of anti-social behavior (or drunken binging, or drug use, or sexual escapades) out there for Police to view, but also grad school admissions folks, Federal securiy clearance investigators and corporate recruiters. It's becoming standard for firms to screen facebook entries of applicants. Who needs folks with drug/alcohol binges or who participates in very risky behavior of any type.
College exacerbates the disease of adolescence. The hormones are raging, and the victims are exposed to "new" ways of thinking unleavened by experience. Also, parents aren't there to rescue them from the consequences of their folly. Ivy League kids have it the hardest (said with only the mildest trace of sarcasm) because they've always been on top and have never learnt humility. That will come later.
Most of us make it out of college without permanent physical damage or a police record. Some of these kids won't be so lucky.
For the love of God!... those students are stupid.
I am just fed the hell up with protestors nowadays. Volume has never been a suitable replacement for rational argument. Part of me wonders if this protest was more about those students feeling good about attacking "an oppressor" (scare quotes deliberate and intended) rather than actually accomplishing something constructive.
Also, as a digression: When the HELL did talking about illegal immigration turn into being anti immigration? I'm an immigrant myself; I was born in Manila. I have a probelm with illegal immigration. Does that make me anti immigration? What kind of stupid sophistry would that be? I'm all for immigration of the legal variety, that doesn't penalize people like my uncles, aunts, and cousins who take the time and raise the money to fly to Hong Kong to get the paperwork done in order to come to America. I am not for people jumping the line and getting the same or even better treatment by just running over the border. That penalizes those who try to do things the right way.
Also: I've yet to see a Minuteman say he was against immigration, only that they were attempting to help stem illegal immigration. And are they really thugs? I thought all they did was voluntarily patrol, then call the police or border patrol when they spotted a group coming in. How exactly is that thuggish?
So much protest today is irrational. It's just stupid and disgusting. And in academia too... (*barf*). There are days when I feel AskMom has got it right:
"Education used to be about teaching children to think; that is, to examine assumptions, test theories, cross-check facts, probe the chain of evidence, carefully construct the rationales, justify the connections and reference the final product back against personal experience, classic wisdom and opposing ideas or beliefs.
In recent decades, education has morphed away from this time tested method of turning short immature heathen into men. Now we slot our young into the temple of an unholy triumvirate alien to Christianity, real science and classic liberalism alike. The new holy grails are these: learning to blame and ignore if not actively hate traditional European history, ideas, people and religions; acquiring superficial self-esteem and vaporous unsubstantiated but virtuous sounding beliefs; and accepting victimology as religion, lifestyle and narcotic."
Link
Couldn't have said it any better myself.
In response to the "Eminent Fisting" link: Having a "social conscience" would include demonstrating proper respect for competing views. Campus multiculturalists are the true thugs, though they're entitled to their opinion. It'll all get sorted out in the marketplace of ideas, of course, and since they're mostly losers in that realm, resorting to violent thuggery is routine.
Burkean Reflections
What makes people think that if they do something in a place that makes them feel confessional it somehow doesn't count? The students storming the stage also seemed to feel entitled to act out.
You answered it: Entitlement. Specifically, Entitlement to Privilege, which can roughly be translated into plain English as "the right to be an ignorant asshole who corrupts the ideals I pretend to hold dear."
Poseurs.
What's depicted in those videos is appalling.
Oh. my. out of the mouth of babes.
LOL.
My son is sitting next to me "working" on his computer as I'm working on my laptop this morning. Apparently, he's been listening as I've been reviewing these YouTube videos (the little multi-tasker). Note that I've been keeping my comments strictly inside my head.
He just said:
"What the heck is that guy going on about? He sounds arigo pathetic to me."
LOL. First, I don't know what he means by "arigo." (I'll ask, in a minute.) Second, of course his question is literal, in that he's asking what the guy's talking about.
Still. What a giggle.
The "whoosh and plop" you hear is the apple falling from the tree and hitting the ground--speaking of ANOTHER Althouse thread this morning.
And OF COURSE I'll explain the situation fairly and dispassionately , on principle, but in my head, I'll be thinkin'... .
vh: mrohx
Tim Sisk said... "Ann: Legal question. What is the criteria generally (although aren't you a member of the New York bar) for convicting someone of inciting a riot?"
Yes, I'm I member of the NY bar -- retired from the practice of law, however, since the 80s. I'd have to do research to answer the question.
I can say that I don't think heckling and holding up signs presents a "clear and present danger" within the meaning of the First Amendment.
I went by the Fisting site to check out the comments and was struck by a phenomenon I hadn't noticed before. A number of times people stated an opinion and then cited a far-left site's editorial post as though doing so was a proof of their opinion.
Now, I've used cite sources before, of course, but always for specific numbers or studies to support an arguement. Even then I search news stories from sites that people in the opposition would tend to feel confident in. For example, I might cite a UN study or CNN.
This citing of an editorial as though that mattered troubled me. Is this type of thing a rarity on the left (or right for that matter) or is it becoming common?
The type of mental cocooning this behavior exemplifies could well explain why these students behaved as they did and does not bode well for the future of left/right relations.
The brownshirts sure don't like it when their victims fight back, do they?
Talk about whiny-ass titty babies...
Finally got around to watching the Youtube videos.
Hahaha. What a bunch of pathetic howling banshees. If they are the future of the Left, I can't wait for the future.
From the surprisingly candid NYT:
Mr. Bollinger, a legal scholar whose specialty is free speech and the First Amendment, quickly condemned this week’s disruption.
“Students and faculty have rights to invite speakers to the campus,” he said yesterday in an interview. “Others have rights to hear them. Those who wish to protest have rights to do so. No one, however, shall have the right or the power to use the cover of protest to silence speakers.”
Even the NYT realizes these idiots cannot be defended.
"The brownshirts sure don't like it when their victims fight back, do they?
Talk about whiny-ass titty babies..."
Amazing that you can successfully pass the Blogger CAPTCHA test in order to post your sticky dribble, pinkshirt.
Keep howling!
If you have ever been to an Ivy League campus, you would never feel threatened even in this kind of protest since the male students are 100% dweebs and geeks.
Ernst Blofeld said...
"What was supposedly the objective of the Columbia demonstration?"
If it was to silence speech that they found objectionable, they achieved it.
It's interesting, isn't it: as Tibore said, in leftie circles, being against illegal immigration is now seen as being anti-immigration, and both are seen as being racist, xenophobic or both. The really scary thing is that these people have passed an entrance exam for a postgrad degree course. Admissions standards are clearly in need of revising.
Vicious filth always sinks into the passive voice to disguise actions they support. Your college newsies are learning their lessons well and doubtless have lucrative careers ahead of them, lives without consciences.
being against illegal immigration is now seen as being anti-immigration, and both are seen as being racist, xenophobic or both.
It is an annoying habit of theirs to do that, yes.
But -- speaking as someone who is ardently pro-immigration and just as ardently anti-illegal-immigration -- they aren't entirely to blame for having that impression. Actually racist and/or xenophobic people are about as hard to find in anti-illegal circles as recreational pot users are to find in pro-medical-marijuana circles. If I had a dollar for every time someone started off complaining about illegal immigration and then drifted off-message into bitching about "Mexiforina" and the destruction of "our culture", I could afford to build my OWN border fence.
Anyone engaged in a riot (such as this) should be jailed for life. They have demonstrated an inability to live up to the basics of citizenship and should no longer be part of the polity. Such a policy would have jailed mnost of the 60s flower children permanently and served the country very well.
The major problem with Kent state is that they should have dealt with the violent leftists (who fire bombed a university building) much, much more harshly. Read the riot act and shoot all who continue, for A!
Anyone engaged in a riot (such as this) should be jailed for life.
I assume you're joking. I understand the sentiment, but I think a far more appriopriate punishment would be to give a written apology, which they would have to recite at a news conference, and agree to host a Minuteman speaker at their expense. Failure to comply would result in explusion from school.
Physical confinement isn't as effective as crushing their pride.
I know I'm terribly late to this discussion. Can any of Ann's readers recall or provide details of a similar (not so violent) incident on the Madison campus involving Eldridge Cleaver ca. 1981-3? I was a student at the time and recall his being shouted down by the left for some transgression or other
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