2024 Campus Protests: Freeze Peach Under Attack (By Cops)

[goofy]

https://twitter.com/JoshuaPHilll/status/1785480782875955437

Reminder that the above is a policy choice compared to viable alternatives:

At Brown, a Rare Agreement Between Administrators and Protesters

[commonWealth]

Brown really making these other administrators look like total clowns. They got the protesters to pack up the encampment by agreeing to discuss it and hold a vote in October. But these other schools would rather call in the police to beat the shit out of their own students and faculty, arrest a bunch of them, ruin some lives, etc.

[boredsocial]

I’m sorry but their plan is to checks notes expel a bunch of checks notes again Columbia students. It’s like these administrators are not aware that the protestors they are dealing with are some of the most privileged people on planet earth.

They’re all going to graduate in the end, there are going to be zero career consequences for any of them, and the college is going to be meaningfully worse off in terms of prestige than it was when this started. Also everyone in the upper levels of administration is going to be gone in 24 months and their next job sure as shit isn’t going to be at a school anything close to where Columbia was before they fucked up.

Once again kudos to the kids they’re really putting on a PR clinic. Absolutely crushing it. They probably just single handedly ended the bad faith debates about ‘free speech’ in college, which were always 100% about white boys whose favorite book is Atlas Shrugged feeling safe just asking questions about whether X horrifying atrocity white people did was really that bad. Those people vanishing while other people’s free speech was totally trampled on was a glorious look that I’ll never let any of them ever forget should they ever fuck up and bring up ‘cancel culture’ to me again.

[goofy]

Finally found an instance of violence at one of these protests:

Pro-Israel Demonstrators Attack UCLA Student Encampment as Protests Continue...

Shortly before midnight, a group of about 200 pro-Israel counter-protesters arrived at UCLA’s campus and began attempting to tear down barriers surrounding the student encampment. Videos on social media show the group firing fireworks into the encampment, beating students, throwing objects, and shouting things like “second Nakba,” at the encampment — a reference to the 1948 ethnic cleansing and expulsion of Palestinians from the territory that now comprises Israel.

https://twitter.com/TeresaWatanabe/status/1785575610469007471

[commonWealth]

Biden needs to do something here. This is one of those situations where Democrats are at risk of being on the complicated side of something Republicans will make seem very simple. I don’t think arguing that this was a university and local police matter is going to do Democrats much good.

He should probably be leaning on university administrators to follow the Brown model, and then give a speech condemning violence and chaos, and urging both protesters and universities to agree to hold a public forum and then hold a vote through whatever the university’s process is on divestment. Say some stuff about how it’s not good for anyone to have students encamped on campuses when they should be learning.

[riverman]

The only way Biden wins swing states is with racist white people votes, he’s been dealt a horrible hand here.

[Surf]

I’m conflicted about it, I still think worth to keep his mouth shut until summer break and see if everything just disappears

[feedthabeast]

Such a weird timeline to have the racists defending the Jews. Most people I interact with assume I blindly side with Israel because I’m Jewish.

I hate it here!

[boredsocial]

It’s the worst seriously. I regret every person on earth who knows I’m half Jewish at this point.

[LouisCyphre]

@commonWealth

Biden needs to do something here.

I think this is a no-win situation. Impossible to please both sides and which ever side he leans to will greatly piss off the other side which has strongly held convictions. From a political strategy perspective I think it’s best to stay out of it as much as possible.

[commonWealth]

That argument has merit but I think a lot of people want a strong leader more than anything, and thus sitting on the sidelines hurts him too.

[CaffeineNeeded]

Politically the right answer, if you want to DO SOMETHING, is probably to crack down. At least, that’s the easy popular position. It’s not hard to make a few of these kids look like idiots, make them the entire movement, and then crush it

[goofy]

I’ve been tuning into Chris Hayes occasionally to see how he’s covering the protests and his segment today was really good:

Chris Hayes: Why campus protests are 'the easier debate'

[LFS]

@goofy

Finally found an instance of violence at one of these protests:

Not only that, but my understanding is that the attackers were actually outside agitators, not students!

[pvn]

[goofy]

Wow, it sounds like that video I posted from UCLA was only the tip of the iceberg there:

UCLA Chooses Violence Over Divestment | Defector

The next day, students at UCLA followed suit, occupying Dickson Plaza. The cops showed up quickly, and though they did not escalate as they had at USC, groups of counter-protestors began organizing. Over the next few days, the group of non-students instigated a few fights around the encampment, gleefully told protestors “I hope they rape you,” mocked warnings that a student in the encampment had a fatal banana allergy, breached barricades to push a woman to the ground, and released cockroaches and mice. They also began raising money: A GoFundMe launched two days after the encampment’s establishment has raised over $90,000, $5,000 of which came from Jerry Seinfeld’s wife. They used that money to erect a massive stage right across from the encampment.

UCLA security has mostly tried to keep the groups separate (broadly speaking, the UCs have tried to minimize police response to the encampments), though counter-protestors continued to escalate. Late Monday night, campus security repeatedly deterred groups of counter-protestors who tried to assault the encampment and threatened to fight UCPD. The administration then escalated things further on Tuesday when they declared the encampments unlawful and threatened students with suspension and expulsion if they didn’t clear out. It didn’t work, though the threats deftly set the stage for the counter-protestors, who attacked the encampment with the clear intent to hurt people. Just before midnight, they began setting off fireworks, throwing them into or aiming them at the encampment.

https://twitter.com/joeyneverjoe/status/1785560399716417718

(!!! what the fuck!!)

A reporter on the scene said students were attacked with skunk spray and bear mace. While private security barred themselves in a nearby building, and with the LAPD content to stand back, the 150-to-200–strong group of Zionists were allowed to do whatever they wanted. That included spraying students, breaking down barricades, and pulling students out of the encampment to beat them with pipes and other weapons.

Students held the line, and even after the riot cops showed up following a few hours of fighting, at around 1:40 a.m., they reportedly stood by until 3 a.m. before asking counter-protestors to leave. Over 100 people were treated for injuries, including some severe ones that required them to be carried out of the camp, though UCPD reportedly blocked emergency medical services from getting in and helping out injured students. The cops didn’t try to separate the counter-protestors from the protestors until after 3 a.m., and when they did, they didn’t conduct any arrests, merely clearing the area around the encampment and making sure the two sides were separated. The Daily Bruin, the UCLA student paper, reported that four of their reporters were followed and assaulted on their way back home from the violence.

You will see in the coming days the violent attacks on the peaceful encampment characterized as “clashes,” the valence of the assault and the specificity of the violence whitewashed away under the term “chaos.” You will be told that the specter of campus antisemitism, which is being taken so seriously that UCLA administrators will have to go to D.C. to get bullied by dead-eyed Republican lawmakers later this month, is a far more imminent threat than actual violence carried out against students. You will be told that protestors, who have made very clear their demands that their universities divest themselves from the death machine in Gaza and have in some cases packed up once those universities engage with them, don’t understand how these complicated things work. You will be told they are motivated by hatred, the desire to fit in, or inscrutable psychosexual frustration. You do not need to listen. Just watch the cops do Columbia’s bidding in New York, or watch the cops and university administration step aside and let a mob do the job for them in Los Angeles. Watch as occupation forces begin bombing Rafah, where the majority of refugees from Israel’s attack have sought refuge. Watch as new horrors are inflicted upon the people of Gaza. That should make it pretty clear why students are putting their lives and their futures on the line.

[goofy]

@goofy

You will see in the coming days the violent attacks on the peaceful encampment characterized as “clashes,” the valence of the assault and the specificity of the violence whitewashed away under the term “chaos.”

https://twitter.com/tyleroakley/status/1785876815372079541

[goofy]

Department of Education opens Title VI investigation into Columbia following...

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights opened an investigation into Columbia on Thursday following a complaint filed by Palestine Legal alleging a pattern of anti-Palestinian discrimination in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The investigation is the third that the department has opened into Columbia since November 2023.

Spectator obtained a copy of the letter sent from the Department of Education to Palestine Legal attorneys, which confirmed that the department will investigate whether Columbia “responded in a manner consistent with the requirements of Title VI to alleged harassment,” “violated Title VI by engaging in disparate treatment,” or “violated Title VI by engaging in retaliation” of Palestinian affiliates.

[pvn]

“Trump’s America will be exactly like Joe Biden’s America! VOTE BLUE!”

damn bro this shit sells itself

[boredsocial]

The people who are about to make a good faith effort to make the campus protesters face real consequences are making a huge miscalculation. They think that they personally have more power than a group made up of hundreds to thousands of Columbia parents defending their kids.

So much power lies inert because the people who have it have it pretty good and don’t want to rock the boat. You threaten their kids that’s different. You threaten their kids while legally being in the wrong and that’s real different. These people have all the rights.

These people are doctors and lawyers and business executives. They have their own personal networks and their kids are very sympathetic, particularly on an individualized level. Individually any of these people could be enough of a pain in the ass to get minor special attention from people in power. Collectively? Jesus Christ guys.

People get motivated over their kids futures being threatened over a little harmless political activism in college. That’s a normal right of passage for a certain type of rich kid! That’s a privilege they absolutely think they have! They don’t like it when people take that shit away, look at how the racists have reacted to that not being OK lol. You get Karen crusades over way fucking less than this.