After talking to someone who’s been in contact with the University administration here, I now believe that their “plan” for dismantling our pro-Palestinian encampment is this: DO NOTHING. I believe they hope the encampment will disappear on its own, even though the letters from the President and Dean of Students imply that if it doesn’t disappear within a few days, ACTION WILL BE TAKEN.
I would hope that this is true, but you know the old saying, “If wishes were horses, even beggars would ride.” I do not believe action will be taken, for it should have been taken by now.
The encampment violates a whole slew of campus rules; let me reprise them:
An illegal encampment with tents where people sleep overnight, rendering a large part of our Quad unusable
Many non-student participants who are guilty of trespassing
Palestinian flags stuck on lightpoles throughout the quad; this is illegal
Big wooden vertical slabs, painted with Palestinian slogans, blocking the main walkways in the Quad
Amplified sound played during hours when it’s prohibited
Vandalism and ripping down of legal banners and flags placed by the Jewish students
And now, pro-Palestinian graffiti painted on University buildings. Here’s a specimen I photographed an hour ago. Will the University remove it? I was told they’re in no hurry to do so:
Why doesn’t the University of Chicago enforce its own rules and do something about this? I suppose because they’re afraid of the publicity that might be attendant on removing the encampment. But this is short-sighted because lawsuits accusing the University of not obeying its own rules (and thus creating a climate of harassment for some students) could easily ensue. I simply don’t understand how a President and Dean who issue statements admitting that illegal activity is happening on campus refuse to do anything about it. It’s maddening and, as I said, for this first time since 1986, I am truly ashamed of my University. The shame I feel about our administration has been replaced by increasing pride in my Jewish heritage, and the resilience of Jewish students on campus. Were Bob Zimmer still President, the Encampment would have been removed before it had been set up.
Here are two batches of photos. One shows more bits of The Encampment, and the other the response of the Jewish students (I believe their group is called “Maroons for Israel”) to having their banners and flags torn down at about 10 pm yesterday by the camping bullies.
The Encampment has a library!
And legal advice should you be put in the slammer:
They will kindly let you walk through if you have a good reason to do so!
Political posters are everywhere. This is one of the illegal barriers that block the sidewalks. Behind it is Levi Hall, the main administration building. Notice that they are honoring “all our martyrs,” which of course includes those members of Hamas killed on October 7 while butchering Jews. They are HEROES!. It also honors other Hamas terrorists killed. Notice also the violent Islamist call to “Globalize the intifada.”
The Deans on Call are supposed to be on campus as observers of the situation, to prevent violence or destruction of property, and to report what’s happening to the administration. But can you trust a Dean on Call whose fingernails are painted in watermelon colors, the colors of the Palestinian flag? Some of these deans are not politically neutral and should not be monitoring this situation. Have a gander at this!:
At about 10 pm yesterday, pro-Palestinian protestors, in violation of University regulations, tore down eight large and expensive banners put up by the Maroons for Israel, as well as a large string of Israeli flags. The pro-Israel students didn’t miss a beat: at 8 a.m. today, they marched back to the quad with replacements for all the posters and most of the flags. They know well that tonight the thugs will tear them down again (the University doesn’t care a fig), but then they’ll replace them again. Here are the heartening (for me) photos showing the resilience of our Jewish students. They must care for each other since the University doesn’t appear to care for them:
The little flags going back up:
And a larger flag which, of course, will be ripped down by tomorrow:
And some legal chalkwork created by one of the leaders of this student group, the indefatigable Eliza Ross, seen in the background:
Is it possible to have some kind of formal faculty vote of no confidence in the president? It’s hard to see how such an ineffectual cypher hopes to retain any credibility after this.
One warning if rules are being broken, and if no compliance ensues, they should be sent down (that’s English for ‘expelled.’) That’s the only way to ensure students behave in the future.
Absolutely. This is such nonsense. It makes me furious.
Thank you for taking the time to post these updates. The university response (or lack of response) to this situation is upsetting.
OK, I gotta ask :
When’s the Drag Queen show supposed to start?
DIS-AP-POINT-ED
(In case that’s too obscure – I refer to the “Free Palestine!” drag queen story time video clip from last week or so.)
A disappointing response from the UofC authorities. It is hard to imagine any other students being disregarded like the Jewish ones.
This whole thing is making me anxious. It is all weirdly familiar. In the late 60’s and early 70’s I was a student at UW-Madison and participated in much of the campus turmoil of the time. There is always a fringe of the movement where the competition to show how committed you are pushes activists to greater and greater extremes. You end up with things like the bombing of Sterling Hall.
Expect buildings to be occupied next, as is happening at Columbia.
This doesn’t end well for anyone.
I never thought I’d see the day when elite students support antisemitic terrorists who represent the antithesis of everything that the West stands for. Their self-defeating irrationality and ignorance is mind-boggling.
🇮🇱❤️🎗️
It truly is mind-boggling, isn’t it.
It has to be an example of what the writer/psychologist Rob Henderson calls a luxury belief: one that signals your membership in an elite circle without consideration of any harm done to those not in that circle.
That sounds plausible. They don’t seem concerned about the real world ramifications of supporting Hamas terrorists – which is really quite shocking. And I find it really disturbing that so many otherwise normal seeming people could think that any amount of oppression anywhere could ever justify the truly monstrous behaviour that Hamas perpetrated on October 7. Shame on them!
Notice all the Arabic writing on the signs. How many students know & can write Arabic?
Too many.
Foreign visa students, remember?
True. Good point. Times have changed since my university days.
In 2020, was quite the fashion to support and celebrate dysfunctional violent criminals as heroes and martyrs, so there’s a consistent line behind this.
Good to see the Jewish students are standing up to the pro-Hamas crowd and not hiding behind masks. The posted Community Agreements is noteworthy in that it has a righteous vibe of “no debate/no discourse” to the cause. Number 1 clearly excludes Jews in their call for solidarity with Palestinian people. And number 6 excludes Jews who were raped and murdered by the terrorists on October 7th. But at least they are respecting the land and not littering.
I call this afternoon’s readers’ attention to Robert Wooley’s excellent Comment #3 in this morning’s Hili Dialogue referring and linking to a transcript of a Sam Harris podcast, “The Bright Line Between Good and Evil”. The hour-long podcast itself is at
Jerry: thank you for your excellent coverage and well researched and thought out commentary.
Why aren’t they doing something? A few answers suggest themselves: 1) The administration doesn’t want conflict (although they technically have it now); 2) The do not want to be on the news like other schools, although they wouldn’t stand out at this point; 3) The sympathize with the protestors, and feel they should be able to do what they are doing. I suspect that number one is most likely, but I don’t discount number three.
Great thoughts. Some additional thoughts as to why they don’t act: they are weak, they are cowards, they lack any conscience, they only want to protect their cushy jobs (and have forgotten what their jobs are actually supposed to accomplish). I think it is an embarrassment that our leaders hide behind grand statements so as to avoid doing what is clearly the right thing to do.
Classes must be nearly over by now. My guess is they’re hoping everyone will be gone soon, back home for the summer.
Agreed. They are going to try to wait until the end of the semester and hope everyone goes home for the summer. And hope that by fall everyone will have moved on to something else.
There is a certain type of liberal to whom “protest” is akin to liturgy, and he is loath to interfere when others, holding sanctioned dogmas and belonging to approved denominations, get caught up in “religious” mania. But he demonstrates no such hesitance when the manic are opposed to his own dogmas. I believe we are seeing a bit of that at various campuses. This is less about administrative spinelessness than it is about selective enforcement depending on the issues in question. Moreover, many on the political left appear to have internalized the schema of oppressor / oppressed. Whenever they are confronted with violators of law and regulations who are racial or sexual minorities—or standing up for such causes—they seem either unwilling or unable to act. Indeed, many cheer the lawbreakers. The border. BLM riots. Lawlessness in the cities. Repeat violent offenders. Hamas terrorists. Campus protestors. There are exceptions, here and there, but they only serve to spotlight the overall trend.
When coming from the right, words are “violence” and must be silenced.
When coming from the left, violence is liberation and decolonization and must be embraced. Dissention is not allowed.
I’m not sure if this describes Marxism, Maoism, or Nazism but it is against traditional American values.
+1
Ever the pedant, I have to ask what you mean by “illegal” activities that break U Chicago rules and policies. I think the distinction is important in understanding the constraints on the university’s freedom to act. There is no question that the actions by some students are ugly, reprehensible, and unbecoming as scholars. They should face expulsion. University officials sent out to enforce policy should not be painting their nails in Hamas colours! (or Israel’s colours). They should be fired. There is clearly some rot here.
But where is the authority of the law to act? The police enforce the law, not contractual obligations. It’s up to the university to police its own rules. Violating a university policy isn’t illegal unless it also violates a law. The university can — must— remove tents, barricades, and flags that contravene policy including institutional neutrality. In the face of non-compliance, all the university can do is escort a trespasser off its premises or, alternatively, arrest the trespasser and turn him over to the city police. But criminal trespass is too minor an offence for a beleaguered city like Chicago to prosecute, as we saw earlier.
Unlike one of your commenters earlier who said the university should let these policy violations slide, (including tents!), in the interests of free speech, I agree with you that the university must not let them slide, as that would undermine the free speech of everyone else. I just don’t think anyone has been observed to be breaking a law that the Cook County DA would prosecute with reasonable likelihood of conviction, nor will the CPD devote the resources to investigate incidents not involving a threat to life. This is agony.
There is the issue of sufficient crime to prosecute some of the actors, and yes the bar can be set pretty high. But meanwhile the university is well within its bounds to suspend students and bar students from campus.
If people in the administration start forcibly removing tents and signs, the likelihood is that they will be met with so much violent resistance that the Chicago Police will have no problem making a distinction between the violation of a contractual obligation and an actual crime against a citizen. The big problem, of course, is finding administrators or employees who are willing to turn themselves into victims like that.
At your suggestion, I’m periodically checking in with the Maroon’s updates. This one is a telling use of the passive voice: “The string of Israeli flags located across the quad from the encampment have been taken down.”
Ordinary journalistic standards would demand an answer to the obvious question that leaves: taken down…BY WHOM??? But here, that would mean exposing to possible punishment the people the reporters want to protect, so they leave a giant, glaring lacuna in their coverage.
That’s why they blur protestors faces too, even when they’re wearing masks.
You’ll be delighted to hear that one of the Horde at Pharyngula is really angry at “Coyne’s blog”, presumably because Jerry and commentators have pointed out numerous acts of antisemitism (including screaming “go back to Poland” at Jewish students) and much more.
They really do think they’re on “the right side of history” over there, all the while denying any incidents of antisemitism or threats towards Jewish students. The only thing they have raised concern over is “Islamophobia” on campus at Columbia. Mind-boggling.
Perhaps even more hilarious is PZ’s attempt to suggest that he’s suddenly dropped his “freeze peach” stance, and adopted a much more radical “free speech” approach.
I consider myself to be rather progressive, but I do mourn how many in my camp (but still to the left of me) quickly fall into the same trap that entangles many on the right. Immediately we see attacks and acts of intimidation from these privileged lefties on people just bc they are identifiably Jewish.
“They really do think they’re on “the right side of history””
That’s Hegel’s History, where Hegel thinks he stands at the End of, so he sees the pattern of how it all works.
How very sad this new president is so weak. This is so disturbing to see.
Giving in to tantrums never works.
I can understand missing Bob Zimmer. What a true disappointment for a replacement.
Pleased to see that negotiations mean that Brown’s encampment will be dismantled tomorrow.
To follow on from one of Jerry’s comments, I have to say that my identification with the Jews (I’m half Jewish –ironically from Polish heritage) has increased dramatically over the past few months
Yes, this double standard.
Thanks for your posts, Jerry. Why aren’t they doing something? The idea that they are protecting the reputation of the U of C is ridiculous. Their cowardice continues to damage the university’s reputation. My take is simply that they are afraid that protestors will harass them, making their lives unpleasant. They aren’t doing what’s best for the university, and should all be fired and replaced with people who will maintain the functioning of the university. I can’t wait for the shutting down or disrupting of graduation. This will certainly piss off graduates, their families and alumni.
Why aren’t they doing something? Northwestern did – they’re giving full ride scholarships to the protesters!!!
One of the posters has “from the river to the sea” in Arabic on it. The Hebrew on the poster by the Jewish students is “let my people go”; the word for “people” here is “‘am”, which means people in the ethnic sense. They probably mean the hostages, but I think that formulation is a tad insensitive in the current situation.
George Soros’ reflexive alchemy (RA, in Alchemy of Finance) takes output – e.g. anything said online, like here – and feeds it back as input to the operation.
As such, we can test if the RA model is active, as we are creating the input. So we could try counter-manipulation, to sort of break it :
( George Soros + George Soros + George Soros ) ÷ 0
——————————
(green tent) ÷ 0^(communism) ÷π÷ 0.001×(free food )÷ 0 ÷
dAntisemitism + √-1•(Starbucks Soy Latte)^(entitlement complex)
[ sits back with a brewski ]
[ watches the results ]
When the academic year ends, student protestors leaving for the summer will find other stirring things to do, in line with a current fashion of nostalgia for “the 60s”. To wit:
https://abc7chicago.com/dnc-2024-protesters-who-want-to-demonstrate-outside-united-center-during-democratic-national-convention-sue-city/14747596/ .
Thank you for the updates Jerry. Some of the posters are chilling. The martyrdom aspect of Islam worries me a lot. Take care of yourself mate.
I just learned :
The Red Green Alliance is a team of Islamists/Muslims and Marxists. Their symbol is a watermelon slice. The colors represent red communists, … or what have you.
So:
Watermelon = Red/Green Alliance.
I say this because there was a question about the watermelon iconography. Maybe tattoos.
Here’s something :
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red%E2%80%93green_alliance
Or perhaps :
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09546553.2012.755815#.UuZ8-_so5QI
I don’t know, I only just learned about this.
Also:
Asra Q. Nomani
Woke Army: The Red-Green Alliance That Is Destroying America’s Freedom
Bombardier Books, Feb 27, 2023