Should colleges crack down on pro-Palestinian protests?

Mike Bebernes

A wave of pro-Palestinian protests has spread to college campuses across the country, prompting some schools to call in the police to break up the demonstrations and adding more fuel to a heated debate over free speech rights in higher education.

Tensions over how universities have handled protests against Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza have simmered for months, but they've reached a boiling point in the past week as student demonstrators have leaned into a new, more disruptive tactic: Setting up encampments on college campuses.

The first encampment to draw national attention was at Columbia University in New York City, where more than 100 protesters were arrested last week after administrators called in police to break up a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” that had emerged on the school’s South Lawn. The camp was quickly reassembled and is still in place. Columbia has since closed its campus to all non-students and switched to hybrid instruction for the remainder of the semester.

Similar encampments have been established at dozens of colleges from coast to coast. Officers in riot gear moved in to disband camps on a number of campuses over the past few days, making hundreds of arrests and in some cases clashing with protesters.

On top of protesting the Israel-Hamas war, which has led to the deaths of an estimated 34,000 people in Gaza, some of the student groups behind these encampments say the protests are specifically aimed at convincing their universities to end their financial relationships that support Israel. While the demonstrations have been largely peaceful, there have been some isolated reports of intimidation, physical confrontations and open antisemitism within the camps.

While it’s impossible to separate the debate over these encampments from broader disagreements about the war itself, universities are still stuck with the much more specific question of what to do when a group of students sets up camp on their campuses.

Many activists, left-leaning politicians and political commentators have condemned the use of law enforcement to break up largely peaceful protests, arguing that it violates the students’ free speech rights and will only serve to heighten the risk of serious clashes. “Calling in police enforcement on nonviolent demonstrations of young students on campus is an escalatory, reckless, and dangerous act,” Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote on social media.

In their eyes, universities should give students ample space to express their discontent while reserving any punishments for individuals who engage in actual violence or overt hate speech.

But others say colleges have a duty to prevent a small subset of their student bodies from disrupting campus activities for everyone else. They argue that administrators must take firm action to stamp out protests that interfere with classes, activities or make others — particularly Jewish students — feel unsafe.

This view is especially prominent among conservatives, who widely view any criticism of Israel as inherently antisemitic and often mischaracterize all pro-Palestinian demonstrators as supporters of Hamas. Some Republicans have even called for schools to call in the National Guard to squash the encampments, despite the deadly history that proposal invokes.

With encampments being established at more colleges every day, there are open questions at numerous schools over whether they’ll be able to hold their upcoming commencement ceremonies or — like the University of Southern California — be compelled to cancel the events.

Harsh crackdowns will only lead to bigger, more contentious protests

“It’s becoming increasingly clear that Columbia University’s attempt to shut down protests has only brought them more attention — and spread the movement to different universities. If police crackdowns continue, the pictures and heavy-handed actions could echo protests over the Vietnam War decades ago, including at Columbia.” — Hafiz Rashid, New Republic

Administrators should shut the camps down or schools should find new leaders who will

“The liberal elites who run these institutions seem to lack the moral self-confidence to stand up to these student bullies. College presidents have to take charge, restore order and protect Jewish students, or the trustees should fire them and find someone who will.” — Editorial, Wall Street Journal

Protesters can’t be allowed to stop a college from functioning

“This isn’t an act of God — another pandemic — that’s impeding Columbia’s mission. Columbia and others have kneecapped themselves by failing to do their most important job — provide a stable, nurturing learning environment.” — Editorial, Chicago Tribune

Schools should root out the bad actors, but let everyone else express themselves freely

“There is a simple solution to the student protests at Columbia University and a growing number of other campuses over the Israel-Hamas war: universities should enforce their own student conduct codes and only ask for police help when a crime has been committed.” — Shan Wu, Daily Beast

Whether you agree with the protester’s view or not, they have every right to express them

“The right to criticize government … is not a mere aspect of the First Amendment, it is its very reason for being. The freedom to protest American foreign policy decisions is exactly what the First Amendment is all about.” — Juan P. Villasmil, The Hill

Camps need to be snuffed out before they can grow too big to handle

“From the moment that students invade a space for an unauthorized protest — from the instant the first stake is planted — security should be sent in and the students should face arrest and expulsion. A functional university cannot allow a tent city to be a permanent fixture on campus. This means that, at some point, any encampment will have to be cleared out. But clearing it out at the beginning is much easier and requires much less force.” — Philip Klein, National Review

Universities are where Americans express their discontent with those in power

“From the Vietnam War to apartheid South Africa, universities have been important places for open discussion and disagreement about government policies, the historical record, structural racism and settler colonialism. They have also long served as sites of protest.” — Paula Chakravartty and Vasuki Nesiah, New York Times

Acts of violence can’t be the only thing that prompts a strong response

“It is a frequent category error to imagine that such protests should be tolerated so long as they are nonviolent. … Protests need to be stopped not only when they become violent but also when they interfere with the ability of others to use the campus for their own purposes.” — Keith E. Whittington, Chronicle of Higher Education

It’s naive to pretend that there’s no harm being done by these demonstrations

“To allow such protests to go on … under the guise of the First Amendment is to gaslight observers about the seriousness of these events and to callously ignore rampant antisemitism, which obviously had been festering even before the awful attacks on Israel in October.” — Nicole Russell, USA Today

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