I thought I’d simply show some photos of the encampment and its residents. Here’s a pretty good panoramic shot, but you’ll have to click on it to see the whole thing. Seven of the tents are the green-and-white jobs that you can see at other schools’ encampments, and are surely supplied by some organization, whether SJP National or someone else.
One of two large boards blocking the main sidewalk from the center of the quad to the administration building. The presence of these is of course in violation of University regulations.
There’s a fence around the encampment. I don’t know who put it up:
Two deans on call, who didn’t want their photo taken (I was told by a reporter that I could photograph anybody there as it was out in public. They simply observe the process and have no real power to do anything, though they can ask for IDs. I was told that no real member of the administration, including deans and the like, had even come down to the protest, but I don’t know if that’s true.
Below: one of the leaders of the protest at the welcome tent. He was giving instructions to the protestors, which you can see in the video below. I’ve never seen this guy at any other Palestinian protestors, so he may be an “outsider” not affiliated with the University. A reporter told me that he’d seen buses dropping off non-students at the protests in Northwestern, and clearly a large percentage of protestors here and elsewhere are non-University people. I just verified that by talking to a person who went through the encampment asking people if they were students, and most of them said “no”. (They could of course by lying.)
The putative leader tells the students not to interact with “Zionists.” How can he distinguish between a Jewish student and a Zionist? He adds “we’re keeping everyone’s identity private.” The wearing of masks by nearly all the protestors, but not by any of the Jewish students, shows that they are cowardly, for real practitioners of civil disobedience do not try to hide their identity, nor do any of the Jewish students.
A point: If the administration’s warnings are geared at students, and most of the protestors are not students, then they can hardly be expected to work.
If they are not students, then they are trespassing. They can be arrested.
If the administration pursued it.
If.
They have no intention to.
But the administration is supportive of Diversity and Inclusion.
We wouldn’t want to be against that, would we.
If they are breaking the law, arrest them. If they are violating university regulations, expel the students and fire the employees/staff/faculty. If they are in the US on a visa, deport them.
This isn’t difficult.
Appeasement and weakness lead to violence (and war).
This is what I don’t understand. If rules are being broken and laws violated, where is the “enforcement” part of the equation?
Either the administrators sympathize with the rule-breakers, or they are afraid of them.
Either way, they are incompetent!
And the longer these sorts of situations are allowed to go on without decisive action being taken, then the more bold the activists will become and the more likely there will be violence. Violence by them and violence done to them as it will take more force to remove them.
Well said. The people making this situation difficult are the spineless administrators. The rules are simple. The consequences are simple. As soon as a few students are expelled, a few outside agitators are arrested, and a couple of faculty are fired, the remainder will disperse.
The longer this is allowed to go on, the greater the risk of violence.
(Please note that I am referring only to the encampments that are in violation of university policy and those protestors preventing students from accessing common areas.)
For professional agitators, a charge of criminal trespass is a minimum level of street credibility. The Cook County DA doesn’t prosecute offences at that level of minor-ness, sort of like Arlo Guthrie being ostracized on the Group W bench for mere littering. But “causing a disturbance” got him hugs and backslaps.
That’s part of the larger problem. DAs need to enforce the law just as college administrators need to enforce the (viewpoint neutral) rules consistently.
It may be impossible for universities to exist in sanctuary cities where many laws go unenforced, not just those laws of concern to the university. A vigorous law-enforcement response to a crisis may simply not occur, because it doesn’t occur for anyone. That seems to be what the voters want, and there is no sign they will make an exception for the embedded community of scholars.
Bravo to the Deep Thought Police. I’m gone completely 180 on my dehumanizing political convictions from the clear presentation of the merit of the case through their emancipatory praxis.
Do they have free struggle session booths? Asking for a friend.
Lots of cultural appropriation on display…
Shhhh. Hypocrisy for the “right” cause is just fine.
Remember this is coming entirely from the “inclusive and diverse” Left. Which is actually racist, violent and completely intolerant.
It’s alright when we do it, as they used to declare at FTB.
I love most the scantily clad young women (with bare arms, shoulders and/or legs) wrapped in kefiiyas. If they show up this way in their beloved Gaza, the local law enforcement and citizenry would temporarily forget about the war and Israel in order to deal with them.
Check out updates from USC:
https://voicesagainstantisemitism.substack.com/p/newsletter-april-29-2024
Protesters are enjoying catered meals, etc. University continues its soft policy and does not enforce its own rules.
In my opinion these protests are mostly virtue signaling. I haven’t seen any polling, but my bet would be that the majority of the public has a negative view of it all. Worse, it is probably hurting Biden’s reelection chances. People don’t like civil disruption.
The anti-Vietnam demonstrations in the ’60s, contrary to popular perception, had no effect on US policy, which continued the war into the early ’70s. They arguably turned public opinion against Democrats, who lost in a landslide to pro-war Nixon in ’72.
It’s this generation’s Woodstock. They’re having the time of their lives. They can’t wait to tell their kids about how they were there.
“…my bet would be that the majority of the public has a negative view of it all.”
The public since ~1996 has been educated from K-12 with full critical pedagogy and since 1994 with Social Emotional Learning. That population is thus critically conscious. That does not exclude private school. Protest is like the call to action.
The Critical Turn in Education – From Marxist Critique to Poststructuralist Feminism to Critical Theories of Race
Isaac Gottesman
Routledge
2016
Holy crap. The paperback is thirty-six bucks on amazon at a 37% discount..these words indeed must represent thoughts of gold.
At least the library can get it. Unless I am lucky, I’m gonna have to pony up for Queering Critical Literacy and Numeracy for Social Justice : Navigating the Course
Summer Melody Pennell
2019
I guess it’s oversized and can’t be loaned out.
Didn’t mind the expense for a personal copy of the very unique softcover Routledge Atlas of middle east maps by martin gilbert.
I don’t know. It may be that the majority are simply young people virtue signaling, but I think they are probably just being used by well organized operatives of groups that have been working on this for a long time. ‘This’ being selling HAMAS and similar organizations as freedom loving do-gooders fighting for Palestinian freedom in order to gain public support for murdering Israelis.
How people can look at what HAMAS has done and look at what Israel has done, do the moral calculus and then find that HAMAS is good and Israel is evil, is beyond me. I know some are simply ignorant of the facts, but I think that anyone who is invested enough in this issue to join these protests can only be considered willfully ignorant, at best.
But I agree, despite how ‘visible’ these protests are the majority of the general public in the US does not support HAMAS over Israel.
A couple of modest proposals.
(1) The minority of students amongst the anti-Israel demonstrators are presumably too busy demonstrating to continue doing course work, to prepare for and take exams, and so on. When they flunk out of college, as they will, they should receive a certificate affirming that they camped at, rather than attended, the University.
(2) The University administration should send Deans-on-Call and Safety Ambassadors to Rafah in the Gaza Strip, where they can make themselves available to Hamas for advice about the correct treatment of civilian hostages.
“ When they flunk out of college, as they will, they should receive a certificate affirming that they camped at, rather than attended, the University.”
I’m not sure anyone actually flunks out these days; I’d venture some time with “counselors”, support animals and academic “help” takes care of that.
I will be readier to convict Alivasatos of spinelessness when and if the encampment morphs more definitively into denial of freedom of movement and speech of others or into substantial interference with the educational mission of the University. Occupatiton of a building would certainly amount to this, but the blockage of a sidewalk doesn’t quite rise to that level. The tearing down of the banners of the Jewish students does, but identifying the perpetrator of that action will likely be a problem, and I don’t believe in collective punishment.
It seems to me we are left with the violation of rules as the main reason for taking action at the present time. That’s a valid reason, but it cuts against the free speech principles that on this campus are supposed to be honored to the maximum extent possible. Shouldn’t permitting free speech, even hateful speech, trump a rule against pitching tents? That’s the calculus I believe the President is making here. Of course, if the demonstrators keep pushing the envelope and if events spin out of control here as at Columbia, it may seem a mistake to have let the tents get started. But that may be a necessary mistake. The decision at the present moment should be taken as a matter of principle, not a matter of strategy. Considered in this light, letting these somewhat petty present violations slide here at Chicago doesn’t seem quite like the cowardice and hypocrisy they were taken for at campuses with a less robust free speech tradition.
That is your opinion. The violation of these rules, which are not trivial (I presume you haven’t been there) simply heartens demonstrators to keep violating the rules. If other groups besides SJP did this, they would be removed. As you realize, violating rules that prevent free speech, including tearing down the banners of your opponents, is a palpable violation of Chicago’s principles. If you were one of those Jewish students, you wouldn’t think it was “petty.”
I presume you’re familiar with the failure of the University, despite its avowals, to mete out any punishment for illegal demonstrations. I’m pretty sure that that failure also made these demonstrators feel secure in their encampment.
I applaud the countering actions being taken by the Jewish students. I hope they are being joined by at least some of their non-Jewish fellow students.
I’m an alumnus and am very sorry to see my old campus succumbing to the fashionable tide of the times. You are on the scene, and I’m not, and no one could accuse you of being insufficiently committed to Chicago free speech principles. Perhaps you’re right and the hammer should be brought down.
What would happen if the “protests” were directed at “Send blacks back to Africa”? Or “Gays should be in mental hospitals”?
How long would that be tolerated?
There’s a fence around the encampment. I don’t know who put it up
Is there no CCTV footage to identify the miscreants?
Surely everyone notices the pop-Left cachet now associated with camping in tents on public spaces—a spillover from the phenomenon popularly known as “the unhoused”. Maybe the force behind the whole transformation of US public life is not
neo-Marxism, or applied postmodernism, or “liberatory” education, or anything of the kind—but a conspiracy by the manufacturers of tents. Might there be a connection
between the camping supply industry and Paolo Freire?
Thanks for a chuckle.
Ah! argumentum ad Made In China-um
[ Ouroboros ]
[ gif of Orson Welles clapping in Citizen Kane ]
Excellent!
I am told that some professors are teaching classes at the encampments and that the protesters are asking students to ask their professors to come to the encampments to teach there. Is this against university policy? What can we parents of students do to put a stop to this?
I doubt that this is against University policy so long as the classes offered in the encampment are also offered to students elsewhere? If you’re a parent, I’d be more concerned about the effect this encampment has on the campus in general, and on whether it makes students obey the rules. I would suggest writing to the Dean of Students, the Provost, and the President if you’re concerned.
Don’t forget that when the students turn 18, parents have no say in anything unless the student consents to their involvement.
Perhaps if enough faculty are holding classes in tent encampments on the campus lawns, a new approach to the college educational experience is forming before our eyes—finally making all those brick and mortar academic structures irrelevant, at least for teaching. This will put an end to the edifice complex so typical of university administrations until now. I suppose the admins will devise new projects to make the lawns more camper-friendly— for example, offering wealthy donors the opportunity to fund and put their names on campus lawn port-a-potties.
Slowly erect and secure at out of reach locations surrounding the quad with BT capbable audio speakers…
…then select repeat on a music provider app and blast the Hi Di High campers day and night with…
Barry Manilow’s¹ “Mandy”
Project the lyrics on the wall just because you can. Give it two days.
Then follow up with Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music album to finish off the job.
Both these artist have Jewish ancestry.
NO ONE will be left standing in the quad, students, protestors, staff, security.
Clean up, wall off quad.
Hand out brown paper bags to show you care.