April 18, 2024

"Since Donald J. Trump’s election in 2016, many campuses have become especially volatile places, seeing an increase..."

"... in angry demonstrations over conservative speakers, some of whom have been disinvited out of fear for their safety. The Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel has sparked another wave of protests.... In interviews, they described encountering students who were unwilling to engage with administrators when invited to do so, quick to use aggressive and sometimes physical forms of expression, and often wore masks to conceal their identities..... 'When I talk to my fellow university presidents, everybody has the same experience,' said Daniel Diermeier, the chancellor of Vanderbilt.... 'They’re not interested in dialogue. When they are invited for dialogue, they do not participate,' Dr. Diermeier said. 'They’re interested in protesting, disruption. That’s different... This has nothing to do with free speech. That’s a red herring'...."

From "Colleges Warn Student Demonstrators: Enough/After years of tolerating unruly protests, some schools are starting to suspend and expel students, raising questions about where they should draw the line" (NYT).

Meanwhile: "Live Updates: Police Arresting Pro-Palestinian Protesters at Columbia/Officers began arresting students on Thursday, a day after university officials testified about antisemitism before Congress" (NYT)("The arrests, which drew a new crowd of students to support the protesters, came the day after university leaders pledged to Congress that they would crack down on unauthorized student protests tied to the war in Gaza").

44 comments:

PMD said...

It's just this damn war and that lying son of a bitch Johnson. Or Trump. Whatever.

Old and slow said...

"... aggressive and sometimes physical forms of expression" The word "violence" would have been a quicker way to express this.

cubanbob said...

If the Universities actually had competent adult administration, the protestors would have arrested and the students engaging in this behavior expelled. had this been the norm in the 1960's I rather doubt Universities would be so cowardly today.

From river to sea, Palestine never was and will never be, and free Kurdistan from Arab, Persian and Turkish oppression. Frankly all the progressive nonsense is reason enough to abolish the student loan program and the department of education and the abolition of the non-profit and charitable status universities and no longer fund state universities.

Enigma said...

Tag: The morning after hangover

As TDS fades, moderates continue to regain their balance and regrow their backbones. There's a chance that the moderates will cause a Trump blowout win and shut down all things Woke very fast, and a chance that the Deep State has already created a comprehensive vote-faking device with Sam Bankman-Fried's money and AI software made with COVID-19 and the DNA of his baby vampire wood elf girlfriend.

Emotional excesses in investing and politics always lead to a collapse, and collapses can be faster then the ramp up. The snap back can be more conservative and traditional than expected too.

pious agnostic said...

Good luck to them.

Also, expect a u-turn back to tolerance when Trump is elected.

BillieBob Thorton said...

It’s going to be a long hot summer.

Yancey Ward said...

We all know, don't we, why the pro-Palestinian protests are getting push-back from the university administrations? It is really very simple- the protestors are protesting against the policies being fronted by a Democrat executive branch. If Trump were still President and doing the exact same thing Biden is doing in this conflict, the protestors would be encouraged and actively supported by these same university presidents. It is very inconvenient to have the protestors actively protesting against Biden in an election year- very inconvenient.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Ilhan Omar's daughter just got suspended from Barnard for organizing pro-Palestinian (read pro-Hamas) protests.

https://nypost.com/2024/04/18/us-news/ilhan-omars-daughter-suspended-from-barnard-college-for-her-involvement-in-anti-israel-protests/

Howard said...

Free speech we don't like

Jamie said...

some [conservative speakers] of whom have been disinvited out of fear for their safety.

For whose safety? I've been hearing a lot about how "conservative" speakers (or feminists who don't want to share female-only spaces with trans people, or Jews, or people of color who don't toe the proper line) make the protestors "feel unsafe." I've been hearing that these disinvited speakers' words are "actual violence," that they are "literally killing" the protestors or those on whose behalf the protestors are protesting.

I suppose I have heard a little about how the protestors' entirely justifiable and protected speech, which may include bursting a speaker's eardrums using air horns or knocking a speaker's supporters to the ground or threatening a speaker's children with gruesome death or whatever, might be enough to give these speakers pause about keeping their speaking engagement - especially if they have to provide their own security because the visible presence of campus security could make the protestors "feel unsafe" and be "actual violence."

Darkisland said...

Google had a dozen or so employees arrested and then fired them Tuesday after they held a sit in in a manager's office.

As they should.

I seldom have anything good to say about Google but I'll make an exception here: Well done, Google.

John Henry

Darkisland said...

Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar's daughter, Isra Hirsi, revealed Thursday she has been suspended from Barnard College over her involvement in anti-Israel protests on Columbia University's campus.

"I'm an organizer with CU Apartheid Divest @ColumbiaSJP, in my 3 years at @BarnardCollege I have never been reprimanded or received any disciplinary warnings," the 21-year-old wrote on X.

"I just received notice that I am 1 of 3 students suspended for standing in solidarity with Palestinians facing a genocide."


Good on Barnard

John Henry

Iman said...

Down with P0TATUS Biden!!!

Darkisland said...

On the other hand, Columbia University president Nemat Shafik raised her hand in a National Socialist salute when sworn in to give testimony in a Senate hearing on anti-semitism.

https://media.babylonbee.com/articles/662015ef27d4b662015ef27d4c.jpg

Per our national newspaper of record.

I don't know if it is real or not but it is funny

John Henry

PM said...

So far, the Pro-Pals who shut down the GG Bridge for half a day won't be charged with a crime, according to the SFDA, Brooke Jenkins. That'll teach 'em.

RJ said...

I started college in 1963, and expulsion was a rare but occasionally used tool in the kit.

Once the Vietnam draft was hanging over all the male students, leftist administrators stopped expelling students to ensure they could keep their student deferment.

wendybar said...

Notice it is the crazy TDS left that is crazy....again?? As usual?

Jupiter said...

"... university leaders pledged to Congress that they would crack down on unauthorized student protests tied to the war in Gaza."

Nice little collection of house negroes you have there. It would be a shame if someone checked their academic publications for rampant plagiarism.

n.n said...

Do these protesters make me look progressive? Are my liberal liabilities at risk?

That said, the pro-Hamas et al protesters had nearly a century to push the Jews into the sea. Even with the aid of the German socialists, they failed.

Murder, rape, and torture are no ethical vice. However, we must draw the line at college insurrections. Abort.

n.n said...

Obamacares secured medical industrial prices and profits. Bidencares secured academic industrial prices and profits. Perhaps these preeducated Peace-mongers were left out of the redistributive change schemes with day after regrets.

Joe said...

Make Bullying Great Again.

minnesota farm guy said...

What the hell does Trump's election have to do with the mess on campus? This has been coming for 30 years or more since the schools instituted such critical majors as gender studies, etc. As I wrote the other day the I would not trust any of the recent nominees to Harvard's Board of Overseers to run any large organization. This state of affairs has been coming on us for years.

Rory said...

Same playbook for 60 years of my life. Soviet disinformation took root in the US.

Hassayamper said...

Internecine tribal warfare is fun to watch when it's not your tribe.

Adherents of the Jewish faith are wildly over-represented among academic leaders, holding something like 34 of the 36 top spots in the Ivy League last time someone was bold enough to publish a count. Every single one of them is undoubtedly a pious liberal, filled with compassion for every downtrodden victim of the evil straight white Christian male menace.

When their students were smashing windows to protest vigorous policing of minority criminals, or canceling respected professors who hurt the tender feelings of gays or transsexuals, or violently shutting down campus events featuring Republican speakers, these fools were all on board with it. They were happy to let the kids run wild with a wink and a nod, applying kid-glove treatment even to arson and other felonious violence on their campuses, as long as it helped advance the corrosive left-wing sabotage of Western civilization.

But something new and strange has happened over the past few years. Jews came to be seen as white European colonialists by the TikTok generation, who feel quite free to attack them in a manner that would not have been out of place on the campuses of Freiburg or Gottingen in 1933. In some respects Israel is now a bigger bogeyman to the radical campus Left than Trump himself, and the hotheads are no longer making any distinction at all between the nation and the Jewish religion that animates it.

All of a sudden the eminent Jews leading our greatest universities, who were behaving up to now as mirror-image Martin Heideggers, are nauseously realizing that they are instead liable to be the next Albert Einstein or Max Born, run out of academia by howling mobs of book-burning, stone-throwing, hate-filled maniacs.

This attempt to enforce some minimal standards of campus behavior is undoubtedly their belated and ineffectual response to an outbreak of Jew-hatred that is no less venomous and dangerous than the hatred for Middle America that they previously ignored, tolerated, or in many cases, supported outright.

It is a spectacle to be savored by the rest of us with tranquil satisfaction. The more they fight, the better I'll like it. A pox on both their houses.

I hope the campaign of RFK Jr. catches fire on our campuses, and he pulls a majority of voters under 30, handing Trump a 40-state victory.

Jupiter said...

"Since Donald J. Trump's election in 2016, many campuses have become especially volatile places ..."

Yeah, it's appalling. I remember how peaceful and quiet all the campuses were for the preceding half-century. Downright somnolent.

Where does NYT find these hacks? Oh, right. The newly-volatile campuses of the Ivy League.

James K said...

Apparently Ilana Omar’s daughter was one of the Columbia protesters, and she was suspended. Not for the substance of her speech, but because of the “unauthorized encampment,” which they were warned had to be taken down. Still, it will be made out to be a free speech issue.

MadTownGuy said...

"'They’re not interested in dialogue. When they are invited for dialogue, they do not participate,' Dr. Diermeier said. 'They’re interested in protesting, disruption. That’s different... This has nothing to do with free speech. That’s a red herring'...."

As I said:
Destabilize.
Disrupt.
Dictate.
I'll add:
Dissemble.

PB said...

A lot more suspensions and expulsions are needed.

Quaestor said...

Free speech we don't like.

I am delighted by Howard's totally vacuous concept of free speech as envisioned by Locke, Diderot, and the Founders. It keeps him confined to the clown car.

P.S.
Howard can thank me for correcting his punctuation, that's twice on the same subject. If he's stuck for a suitable token, I like Remelluri Granja Rioja.

Jamie said...

This attempt to enforce some minimal standards of campus behavior is undoubtedly their belated and ineffectual response to an outbreak of Jew-hatred that is no less venomous and dangerous than the hatred for Middle America that they previously ignored, tolerated, or in many cases, supported outright.

Okay, I can't say that I feel any particular schadenfreude over this turn. I have been a supporter of Israel since high school (pace and RIP Gahrie, who was pro-Palestinian in those days) when I realized that they were the lone representatives of Western civilization in the Middle East despite history's literally having begun there (among a few other spots).

But. American Jews who have learned over the generations to feel free to discount and denigrate other ethnic groups, other economic classes, other faiths that were strongly held although they had lost their own - what comes to mind is:

"First they came for the..."

frenchy said...

It's instructive and telling how leftard "activists" are protected and admired in their rampaging through the streets with molotov cocktails and laser guns, but rightard protestors are declared "insurrectionists" merely for showing up.

frenchy said...

It's instructive and telling how leftard "activists" are protected and admired in their rampaging through the streets with molotov cocktails and laser guns, but rightard protestors are declared "insurrectionists" merely for showing up.

frenchy said...

It's instructive and telling how leftard "activists" are protected and admired in their rampaging through the streets with molotov cocktails and laser guns, but rightard protestors are declared "insurrectionists" merely for showing up.

Clyde said...

National Lampoon's February 1978 "Spring Fascism Preview" issue comes to mind. Everything old is new again.

Jim at said...

Free speech we don't like

Ever get tired of writing the same, stupid shit that isn't even remotely related to the actual situation?

JK Brown said...

When these "students" move to violence, they'll go after the university presidents and admin, some professors first. So we lose a dozen or so, no harm done to the greater scheme of life. Appease and you will be the first attacked.

RCOCEAN II said...

BLM is OK. Attacking whites people is OK, it will get a job as a Ivy League president or head of NPR. Trashing christianity is OK, and protected. Burning an American Flag is protected.

But....better not support Palestine or attack Israel or you'll be called Antisemite. And that is NOT protected. Israel supporters can demand everyone say "They stand by Irael" which means "Stand by Israel NO MATTER WHAT THEY DO". But saying "to from the river to the Sea" is somehow verboten. And so is "Israel is committing Genocide".

Sorry, I thought this was the USA - not Israel. Are we now a colony of Israel, and they can't be protested, except in a manner they approve? Guess so.

Onward Christians Soldiers,
Killing Kids in a War,
With the Cross of Jesus,
Going on Before.

Temujin said...

When you spend 10 years on a kid teaching them the most noble thing they can do with their lives is to be an activist you shouldn't be shocked when they finally tell you to fuck off and let them scream for their latest Cause in your city streets, on your campus, or at your home over a nice dinner party.

This is all they've learned since about 7th grade. They've been indoctrinated by a generation previously indoctrinated. They are all so sure of their causes, until of course, the next cause becomes The Cause. But make no mistake, to these people being an activist is the highest calling one can have.

Which is why you see so many hyphenated job position descriptors: Professor/Activist, Lawyer/Activist, Journalist/Activist, NGO President/Activist, and on and on. It's almost boring at this point. No...scratch that. Not almost. It's entirely boring at this point.

Can't wait for the Democratic National Convention, or...as I like to call it: The Victimhood Activist Ball.

James K said...

But. American Jews who have learned over the generations to feel free to discount and denigrate other ethnic groups, other economic classes, other faiths that were strongly held although they had lost their own

I have no idea who these "American Jews" are that this is referring to. Care to provide any examples? My impression is that American Jews are less likely to do those things than American non-Jews.

Big Mike said...

What the hell does Trump's election have to do with the mess on campus? This has been coming for 30 years or more since the schools instituted such critical majors as gender studies, etc.

@minnesota farm guy:
Step 1: The belated recognition that the campuses really are a mess.

Step 2: Blame Trump for everything that is not good.

If Step 1 had not happened then Step 2 would never have happened.

Jamie said...

RCOCEAN II, Gahrie was no less skeptical, shall we say, of Israel than you. He changed his mind because of, as he said before his untimely death, the Second Intifada. Is there anything that would sway your belief that Israel is committing genocide against an inexplicably growing population of "Palestinians"?

Randomizer said...

Since Donald J. Trump’s election in 2016, many campuses have become especially volatile places,

That line isn't even a little bit true. BLM and Occupy Wall Street started during Obama's presidency and bounced between campus and downtown. Obama isn't to blame for that.

Campuses became volatile places when Leftist deans and college administration allowed, and in some cases supported, disruptive activists on campuses because they supported the message.

Drago said...

Rory: "Same playbook for 60 years of my life. Soviet disinformation took root in the US."

Soviet disinformation, like the laughable claims of russki disinformation problems today, have never been a real problem.

The real problem has ALWAYS been the siren calls from the Frankfurt School and the cultural marxists working their Gramscian marches through ALL of the West's institutions, with America resisting the longest but eventually being overwhelmed by the 70's and 80's.

Im "movie speak", THE CALLS WERE ALWAYS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!

And here we are, with a fully weaponized deep state unelected 4th branch of govt fully aligned with the New Soviet Democraticals and probably 80% fully Sovietized Judiciary.

This Republic thingy based on that Constitution thingy has got to go via Cloward-Piven so that the rubble that remains can be refashioned into a leftist paradise.

mikee said...

Violence as a form of protest in America was dampened after its peak during the Vietnam War by two things: loss of Soviet sponsorship for dirty commie front groups, and the debacle at Kent State. American college students back then were many things, but they weren't gonna lead a movement without pay, and they weren't gonna follow a movement where getting shot was possible.

The more recent increase in political violence since Obama's OWS and subsequent BLM can be blamed on lack of prosecution of violence by the prog DAs where the violence takes place, deep blue urban prog enclaves. American college students today are many things, but they ain't gonna lead or follow a protest where serious jail time is offered as a deterrent to violence.

I, for one, look forward with deep regret to the dawning realization of Palestinian supporters in American colleges today that terrorist violence is no longer a line that should not be crossed. All it will take is a few shootings at campus Hilel centers and suddenly killing Jews will be all the rage again among the left. Take note that here in Texas, we shoot back, and have done so since forever.