Arrested Development

Is a student protest still a student protest when it’s not students who are protesting?

NEW YORK CITY — Overnight NYC police arrested approximately 300 pro-Palestinian demonstrators on the campuses of Columbia University and the City College of New York, including more than 100 who had barricaded themselves in a building on the Columbia campus.

The protestors taking over Columbia’s Hamilton Hall saying — before they were arrested — that they would not leave until their demands for the University to divest from companies that do business with Israel were met. Good luck with that. Looks like they wound up leaving anyway, in zip-tie handcuffs.

In response to the protestor’s demands, the University’s President, Minouche Shafik, has said repeatedly,  Columbia “will not divest from Israel.” Not to be deterred, the protest raged on — until last night, that is.

“Dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators were arrested,” reported the New York Times, “as police officers entered Columbia’s main campus, which was on lockdown, and cleared Hamilton Hall of a group who had broken in and occupied it the night before.”

After weeks of walking a fine line between tolerating protests (for which she was roundly criticized) or maintaining order on campus (for which she was roundly criticized), Columbia’s President Shafik again called on the New York City police — this time to clear a university building occupied by protestors.  Two weeks ago NYC police had cleared, albeit only temporarily, a pro-Palestinian encampment in the middle of the Columbia campus.

“By escalating their protest to the point where the university was unable to function,” Sharon Otterman wrote in the Times, “students forced the hand of administrators, who brought in the police to arrest them.”

Is a “student” protest without students still a “student” protest?

But was it really “students” who finally forced the hand of administrators? During a press conference this morning, New York City Mayor Eric Adams — a former NYC police officer — said that many of the so-called “student protesters” were not students at all, and were, in fact, professional organizers and agitators.

“You don’t have to be a majority to co-opt an operation,” Adams told reporters. “This is a global problem, by professional agitators.” The protests at Columbia, according to Adams, were “led by individuals not affiliated with the university,” and “were never concerned with free speech, they were concerned with chaos.”

Non-students at “student” protests is not unique to Columbia’s campus. Over the weekend more than 100 “student” protestors were arrested on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis — only 23 were either students or faculty. At that same campus protest, Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for President — and definitely not a student — was arrested for assaulting a police officer.

Maybe it’s time we started calling these “protests,” not “student protests.” And it also might help explain why so many of the protesters continued their demonstrations despite threats of suspension, or expulsion, from the university. While you can expel a non-student from campus, you can’t expel them from the university because they’re not students.

“This is not a daycare.”

College administrators have responded to campus takeovers in a variety of ways. At Northwestern and Brown they have mostly capitulated to protestor’s demands, agreeing to consider divesting from companies doing business with Israel, and creating “safe-space” for Middle Eastern students. You have to ask, do these same colleges have “safe-spaces” for Jewish students?

Vanderbilt University, in Tennessee, stepped in quickly when things got out of hand and shut protests down. You also might want to read a message from the University of Chicago’s President Paul Alivisatos to students and faculty on how that school is dealing with campus protests.

“The University of Florida took a different approach,” according to the Wall Street Journal. In a statement Monday evening the University said, “This is not complicated. The University of Florida is not a daycare, and we do not treat protesters like children— they knew the rules, they broke the rules, and they’ll face the consequences.”

A shift in tactics.

According to the New York Times, Mayor Adams said he had warned Columbia University’s leaders that “the police had seen a shift in tactics at the protests led by ‘outside agitators’ and that ‘you have more than a peaceful protest on your hands.’”

“They are attempting to disrupt our city and we are not going to permit it to happen,” Adams said. It has been reported, including on the news channel NewsNation, that Columbia has asked police to stay on campus through May 17 to ensure a peaceful end to the semester and to allow for graduation ceremonies. Some colleges, like USC, have cancelled their graduation ceremonies due to campus unrest.

In explaining her decision to bring police back to campus, President Shafik said “I know that many of our Jewish students, and other students as well, have found the atmosphere intolerable in recent weeks. Many have left campus, and that is a tragedy…The decision to reach out to the NYPD was in response to the actions of the protesters, not the cause they are championing. We have made it clear that the life of campus cannot be endlessly interrupted by protesters who violate the rules and the law.”

“We regret that protesters have chosen to escalate the situation through their actions. After the University learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalized, and blockaded, we were left with no choice. Columbia public safety personnel were forced out of the building, and a member of our facilities team was threatened. We will not risk the safety of our community or the potential for further escalation.”

Columbia University President Minouche Shafik

Shafik said she was also concerned that “student” protestors were not Columbia students at all. “We believe that the group that broke into and occupied the building is led by individuals who are not affiliated with the University.”

As I’m writing this a similarly tense situation is unfolding on the campus of UCLA. Pro-Palestinian protesters have barricaded off part of the campus and violence has erupted between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrators. Law enforcement has massed outside a makeshift fortification of plywood, boxes, and coolers constructed by pro-Palestinian protestors — walling-off part of the university campus. As of early this afternoon EST, they have not yet begun clearing the campus and arresting protestors.

Are you FOCNN crazy?

Despite the “intolerable” atmosphere on campus, and that many actual students, especially Jewish students, felt unsafe — some progressives were still critical of Shafik, Mayor Adams, and the NYC Police. “Left-leaning Democrats have criticized the mayor’s approach,” reported the Times, quoting Ana María Archila, a director of the New York Working Families Party, saying that the police response on Tuesday was “reckless, escalatory and put the entire university community in harm’s way.”

Is she FOCNN crazy? What’s reckless is the disconnect in logic — that believing protesters, led by non-students, who had taken over a university building, threatened a university employee, and disrupted the campus for weeks, were not putting the university community in harm’s way. While somehow the university’s efforts to address the “intolerable” atmosphere, the intimidation of Jewish students, and actual students being prevented from safely pursuing their education — that was what was putting the university’s community in harm’s way. The Illogic is stunning.

“Protesters chose to escalate to an alarming and untenable situation—including by vandalizing property, breaking doors and windows, blockading entrances, and forcing our facilities and public safety workers out,” Shafik wrote to students and faculty, “and we are responding appropriately as we have long made clear we would. The safety of our community, especially our students, remains our top priority.’