I don’t think like this, certainly not to this degree. This isn’t the first left wing college protest, but it’s the harshest and most immediate crack down I can remember.
I think people reading a little too much into these academic administrations thought process. These the same people who getting out their fainting couches if students storm a basketball court or tear down goal posts. They just don’t like risk.
They don’t want to be the one blamed for not following university policy 100010.1 A3 governing the assembly of students on grass if some kids end up fighting each other and someone gets hurt. Obviously they must be scared of the politics of being accused of allegedly allowing antisemitic speech but I think a not insignificant part is these are just risk adverse people trying to do what their insurance/risk management says they have to do
But it’s a bigger one in recent memory, especially across so many campuses, unless (and this is certainly possible) there’s been stuff like this happening on other subjects that the media has ignored because it’s not a lightning rod like Israel?
But it’s hard for me to point to either option (“Israel shall not be questioned” v. “Palestinians aren’t people”) as the motivation for someone like Stefanik to want crackdowns, because she’s an amoral piece of shit who doesn’t care about any of those groups, and just wants to cynically use this to accumulate more power for her party. So I don’t think it’s that useful to divine the motives of the right-wing authoritarians whose primary hatred is probably of the students themselves and are looking for any excuse they can find to crack their skulls, but rather those of the feckless liberals who cave to Trump supporters’ bad-faith clutching of the Israeli flag.
Ooo I disagree with this. Like we literally saw people storming the court during the NCAA basketball season and clipping players (multiple times? I remember this happened to Caitlin Clark once and I think a men’s player too?) without any big crackdowns, increased police presence for future events, etc. And that stuff doesn’t even have any obvious first amendment counterarguments!
Well the immediate event is obviously time limited so they not hauling people off field as they know they will leave on their own accord but thought there were pretty substantial increases in security/police afterwards, enhanced retractable goal posts/etc after they get torn down somewhere all to make them less liable next time around. Just talking of the general fear of litigation driving a lot of irrational policy
Obviously it’s bullshit, but USC is a private school though.
California requires its private universities to respect first amendment rights of students
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Racists draining the pool again!
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I don’t think I have any idea where you went to college, but at least at many colleges with a decent lefty contingent, there is ~always a protest going on, some more meritorious than others. Unfortunately for my argument, the last major national protest movement was for George Floyd, which no doubt had a considerable campus contingent, but the overwhelming majority of media coverage was on urban centers, Minneapolis principally, and then Portland, Seattle, etc. so it’s hard to find particular stories about college protests on the subject and how they were treated. Most of the documented police abuse was in cities. But I don’t recall, say, Black valedictorians being pre-emptively deplatformed lest they dare mention the subject. Nor do students protesting e.g. climate change draw this kind of police response, even though those protests happen with little media coverage or fanfare or police response. I’m not sure there’s a good citation for the volume or vigor of campus protests across the US re: various issues over time, but this at least feels like it’s drawing considrably more attention and a bigger police response even compared with stuff like:
I do think this is drawing more attention, and I do think some of it is the factors you mentioned, but it’s also some stuff like the current political moment where the authoritarian right has leaned into culture war grievances and hating college students even more than they normally do.
But when it comes to this side of things, in liberal institutions:
This is where the motivations of the right just aren’t important, because they aren’t the decision-makers here; the question is, why does the president of USC (who does not seem like a conservative crank) give in to this pressure so easily? Or any of the liberals in charge at the number of universities across the country that are all calling up local cops and asking them to come beat down peaceful student protesters.
Maybe it’s the New York Times’ fault, since all these people read it and they’re pushing the “oh my god, is antisemitism running wild on college campuses?” angle as hard as the most MAGA Republicans.
Northeastern University brought in the cops after counter-protesters literally holding an Israeli flag chanted “Kill the Jews” (the pro-Palestine protesters booed them):
https://twitter.com/dsaworkingmass/status/1784223967995101251
The administration told an NPR reporter who asked about this, “well, it sounds like we all agree there was antisemitic stuff said at the rally, so that justifies what we did”:
https://twitter.com/tori_bedford/status/1784253324448928077
It’s sad how cynical this is. Antisemitism is a very real problem, but these counterprotesters, aided by the university, are happy to undermine it and add a fog of war to any antisemitic incidents just for the joy of seeing police crack skulls of the people protesting for Palestine. I’ve seen Jewish co-workers say that stuff like this makes them less safe (on top of their frustrations that the voices of anti-Zionist Jewish students, who are part of all these protests, are consistently erased to serve the narrative the media wants to tell).
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In totally unrelated news that has nothing at all to do with this subject, right-wing terrorists are marching in Charleston, WV without a cop in sight.
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If their other paramilitary skills are as bad as their marching, their enemies have nothing to worry about.
Pretty sure I see a bunch of cops.
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A surprisingly fair report from an NYT writer, that (not in the parts I’m quoting here) does go out of its way to highlight the parts of protests that have made some Jewish students feel queasy:
(I think that’s a gift link)
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Some disgusting behavior by cops in Columbus:
what a field day for the heat
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And this is the high school class of ‘20. No graduations for you.
See now I’m just envious.
“Haven’t you heard, it’s a battle of words” the poster-bearer cried
“Listen, son” said the man with the gun, “There’s room for you inside.”
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https://x.com/andrewjbates46/status/1784954583791399124?s=46&t=N0_fcOKIYYmlCS2e4YShsQ
Seems like they should be protesting hamas