American college students should not be forced to give up their constitutional rights to free speech, to peacefully assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
That is what is happening today on college campuses across the country.
It began when protesters set up tents on the South Lawn of Columbia University and flew Palestinian flags. They held demonstrations in which they denounced the “genocide” in Gaza. Now students at dozens of universities have joined the protest.
In response to this demonstration of free speech, America’s universities have called local police onto their campuses to arrest all who will not shut up and leave. Law enforcement has used tear gas, rubber bullets, and physical force to remove peaceful demonstrators.
Watch demonstration footage, and you will see students drumming and chanting. Then you will see police in riot gear hell-bent on removing every protester from the campus. The police are violent, not the protesters. The police put students in danger. They do not protect anyone from harm.
These videos show police mistreating students and representatives of the press by throwing them to the ground and pinning them to trees. At Emory University in Georgia, you see an older female professor thrown brutally to the ground for asking the police, “What are you doing?” In Bloomington, Indiana, you can see snipers on the roofs overlooking the demonstrators. And now our speaker of the house has suggested we send in the National Guard.
This takes me back to 1970 at Kent State University in Ohio, where I was a graduate student. There were snipers on the roofs of buildings the day that the Ohio National Guard fired on unarmed protesters and killed four innocent students. Kent State students were protesting America’s bombings in Cambodia. Today’s students are protesting Israel’s indiscriminate bombings of civilians in Gaza.
The Constitution gives students the right to protest and petition the university to disinvest in companies that profit from the war in Gaza. The Constitution does not give universities the right to silence that protest. Today’s students have the right to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people. This does not make them anti-Semitic.
Now, Prime Minister Netanyahu has instructed America to crack down on the “anti-Semitic mobs that are taking over leading universities.”
There are no anti-Semitic mobs on American university campuses. At Columbia, students of all races and religions camped out on the college lawn to get the school’s leaders to take them seriously.
In an interview with Glen Greenwald, two of the group’s leaders, Jon Ben-Menachem and Mohammad Hemeida, stated clearly that there is no anti-Semitism exhibited at their camp. Hemeida said he had never felt so connected with Jews, Muslim, Blacks, and Latinos as he does today. Ben-Menachem states that Jewish students are an important part of protests on each campus. They both agree that claims that protesters are pro-Hamas and anti-Semitic are perpetrated by pro-Israel groups to discredit them.
These brave men maintain that their protest is less about free speech and more about Columbia’s investments in Israel. They want Columbia to disclose all of its investments, divest from Israel, and offer amnesty to the students and teachers who are being punished for speaking out for the Palestinians.
We must not let free speech die on college campuses. It’s time for us to speak up, too. Δ
Gale McNeeley writes to New Times from Santa Maria. Send a response for publication to letters@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Best of SLO County 2024.
Another ‘OK boomer’ post. Just curious, Shanti, if you have your own credit card, or have a developmentally disabled child not institutionalized, or are married to someone not cisgender. All these rights, fought for by boomers and others, are being taken away. Chances are anyone who participated in student protests in 1968 did not vote for Reagan. We can be divided and conquered by the same fascists from sixty years ago, or we can continue to fight together.
The biggest sin of the baby boomer generation was that they listened to too many liberal “experts” such as Dr. Spock, ignoring the discipline they learned from the “Greatest Generation,” and raised successive generations of whiners and malcontents who want the government to do what they can’t do for themselves. The boomer generation is sitting on $30 trillion of wealth. God help our country when that money is frittered away by their children and grandchildren.
@Michael Smith: Gosh, Mike, you’re turning into a cranky old conservative curmudgeon just like me. Maybe my columns are “taking”. Anyway, welcome to the club!
Sorry, but breaking into , occupying and trashing school facilities is not “free speech”. Indeed, to look at some of the pictures of the areas occupied, I’d I have to say it is plain and simple vandalism. Blocking others from using schools facilities is likewise not free speech. It is simple thuggery. Refusing to leave private property is not free speech. You may be having fun, but should be cleared out and arrested.
John, does breaking into, occupying and trashing Congress qualify as free speech?
@SteveFelten: No, it doesn’t. I just hope today’s rioters are prosecuted as vigorously as the 1/6 rioters appropriately were.
I thought I’d get a rise out of you Shanti Harris. You are exactly right. I have preached that line for ages. It’s basically why John Donegan sticks to his stupid culture, trans crap. Republicans know they do not have a viable economic message.
The way to help working class blacks and minorities is to put them to work in high wage jobs. For example, making chips in factories or working with tractor, shovel and rake to build infrastructure, etc.
Biden has done his best to restore New Deal policies, even with staunch opposition from corporate Republicans and idiot MAGA standard bearers.
BIden has worked to strengthen unions and has encouraged higher wages. That is really the only way to level the playing field unless you favor scrapping capitalism.
So that’s why I don’t understand why you would throw your vote away for RFK Jr. which is a vote for Trump. Surely you will reconsider. Unless you seriously think Trump will do something to help the working class.
And, yes, I am privileged, even though I came from working class roots I always knew I had an advantage. I guess I do gloat in my “perceived successes” and have been known to “swill top shelf wine.”
If I could vote for reparations, I would. But to throw the election to a bigoted crook like Trump is very short sighted on your part. And I really believe Trump will be president next year. I’m just too old to care if that happens. You can all go to hell then.
There are striking similarities between LBJ and Biden. Both had been behind-the-scene VP’s of more charismatic Democratic presidents, but not effective enough to build on their predecessors’ progressive agenda. LBJ’s heart was in the right place regarding civil unrest, seeking to address the underlying causes, but could not stand up to J. Edgar Hoover or Robert McNamara. Biden is beholden to the corporate-controlled DNC. LBJ’s despair led to a disasterous Nixon presidency, and if Trump is elected for a second term, we will be in the dark ages for generations.
I have no problem with peaceful protests.
I do have problems with the outrageous contemptible silence about the genocidal slaughter of Jews from those now hypocrytically protesting what is going on in Gaza. Imagine what would happen if the US were attacked, in say NYC and the Pentagon? We’d likely spend trillions and wage war for decades…
I was never a fan of Netanyahu, but I applaud his determination to exterminate Hamas.