Despite the notices from our President and our Dean of Students that the Encampment “cannot continue,” and that the University is at the point of intervention (both reproduced below), the Encampment and its crew of protestors are still here.
The Chicago Maroon is, as always, the best source of what’s going on here, as they have daily coverage that’s updated regularly. Here are items from yesterday and right after midnight (coverage is indented):
Day 6 Summary
After yesterday’s heightened tensions, the sixth day of the encampment saw fewer major confrontations. The University released a statement on yesterday’s arrest of an adult male, which they said was “unrelated to the protest activity.” The University said an unregistered handgun was found in the individual’s car.
Negotiations between encampment leaders and University administrators occurred throughout the day and are expected to restart early Sunday morning.
Around 2 p.m., the launch of an encampment at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago drew attention away from the UChicago encampment. Speakers at a UChicago rally encouraged protesters to bring support to SAIC: “They’re at risk, we’re not, so we encourage you to travel there.”
Speakers today included 35th Ward Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, 8th District County Board Commissioner Anthony Quezada, and Reverend Jesse Jackson. The Maroon spoke with U.S. Representative Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.), who visited the encampment and encouraged protesters to seek peaceful solutions as opposed to “a repeat” of the events at Columbia earlier this week.
May 4, 11:41 p.m.
There is significantly reduced police presence on the quad and immediate vicinity. No officers are consistently on the quad, 57th Street, or 58th Street, with at most one officer intermittently present.
This is a departure from previous days, when at least two, and often more, officers were visibly present on the quad at most times.
— Kayla Rubenstein, Co-Editor-in-Chief; Nikhil Jaiswal, Co-Editor-in-Chief Emeritus
May 4, 11:16 p.m.
The Maroon observed an unidentified individual on a bicycle grabbing an Israeli flag from a lamppost on the southern side of the quad and leaving with it.
Last night, one of the two remaining banners set up by Maroons for Israel went missing.
— Sabrina Chang and Katherine Weaver, Deputy News Editors
May 4, 11:06 p.m.
Negotiations have ended for the night and are expected to resume in the morning, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation.
I’m not sure what these “negotiations” are, nor who is doing the negotiating. Here’s from late last night (bolding is mine).
May 5, 12:50 a.m.
The protesters have projected large red text on Levi Hall, facing the encampment. The text alternates between “From the river to the sea,” “By any means necessary,” “Free Palestine,” and “Fuck Paul.”
The concert is ongoing, with participants singing and clapping along with the performers.
— Sabrina Chang, Deputy News Editor
Photos with credits:
“Paul” is Paul Alivisatos, the President of the University
Now they’re projecting obscene messages on the admin building, the Jewish flags and banners have been stolen, and still the University is doing exactly nothing.
Like all of us, I’m wondering why. There are rumors that the mayor of Chicago doesn’t want to get the City of Chicago Police involved: that he prefers deescalation to arrests. We probably have too few University police to deal with the encampment, and given the level of tension, the cops might be injured. But perhaps there are other types of pressure that can be used.
We’re all still waiting for something to happen, but nothing is happening. And so the Nation’s Gold Standard Free Speech University is doing nothing about the abrogation of speech. It’s embarrassing, and surely our Trustees must be paying attention.
Further, Alumni Weekend is from May 16-19, and our graduation is on June 1. Having this pack of bawling protestors chanting and blocking much of the quad at those times would be not only a huge embarrassment to the University, probably resulting in the cancellation of graduation but intolerable from an academic viewpoint. I cannot believe that our administration is powerless.
Already at least two faculty I know of are talking seriously about leaving this University. This shows the rapid erosion of our reputation and the pervasive disappointment among the rational moiety of our faculty—emotions that have arisen in only one short week. And that reputation will be very hard to recover.
In the clear vision of hindsight, what should have been done was removal of any tents the moment the first peg was driven into the ground. And, given what the University administration said, we should have issued a statement like this:
University presidents everywhere need to embrace this simple statement by Ben Sasse, President of the University of Florida:
"At the University of Florida, we have repeatedly, patiently explained two things to protesters: We will always defend your rights to free speech and free…
— Michael Shermer (@michaelshermer) May 4, 2024
“We’re a university, not a daycare.” At the University of Chicago, you can swap the two nouns.
On the Maroon website I saw a comment, ostensibly from a faculty member, saying that there is no proof that the pro-Israel banners were destroyed by protestors. Sure. Just serendipity.
The problem with de-escalation is that both sides have to want it, and the protestors clearly don’t. And as for the administration being powerless, it is not, it is merely feckless.
The trouble is that this isn’t all over the national press. If it were, I bet the trustees would start pushing for a resolution. Chicago has always hid its light under a bushel while the Ivy Leagues go showily prancing about.
“Already at least two faculty I know of are talking seriously about leaving this University.”
That will reify the application of this power as praxis to transform higher education.
It would hand the other side a small victory.
Astonishing that no action has been taken following Paul’s earlier statement.
That’s a great response from the President of the University of Florida.
Angry Pomona College President Gabrielle Starr gave protestors who stormed her office 10 minutes to leave or face consequences. Not sure how many were arrested or expelled. (There is a video of her on Reddit, but I couldn’t find my original source of her speech to protestors.)
Some idea of the no nonsense/affirmative action stance of Pomona is on its website at https://www.pomona.edu/campus-incident.
And Pomona is a well known center for liberal arts and humanities studies I believe.
+1!
No Jez. Not astonishing I am afraid but fully consistent with his litany of empty statements…..to the extent that he actually makes statements.
To avoid escalating violence in this situation, a siegeworks is a traditional solution. Julius Caesar would simply (and rapidly) build a wall around the entire encampment, sealing it off. No further support would be able to enter the encampment. Sooner or later, running out of water, food, and other supplies, students would want to get out… Caesar would let them out one by one and arrest them. If students wanted to rush the circumvallation en masse to make their escape… Well, that would probably not work so well, because the students are not prepared for such an action. A siege would resolve the situation with minimal violence. On the other hand, Palestine should be grateful that Caesar is not in charge of the assault upon Gaza; few if any Palestinians there would still be alive.
Circumvallation and other blockades and quarantines require a certain grim and ruthless mentality coupled with a can-do spirit probably not well represented on university administrations these days, except when directed inwardly at academic rivals for publication and promotion. Directed outward, the zeal to obstruct, undermine, and assassinate would quickly lose its sense of self-reinforcing purpose, and the unaccustomed need to be forthright about one’s intentions would produce cognitive dissonance. The university might want to contract the job out to the Canadian Truckers.
But the university could make a gesture with its own resources. Lock all the buildings to deny access to water and bathrooms. Interdict food deliveries to its property, especially by vehicles. Prohibit access by the companies that service the portable toilets, if any there be. If through lack of planning by the organizers, there are no toilets, make sure none can be belatedly delivered. Eventually the public health authorities will order the encampment closed and the police will have to clear the encampment whether the mayor wants them to or not.
As long as the University hires an outside company to clean up the literal shit that might occur, I’m for it. But not if the University sticks the job to the regular building maintenance staff.
Staff had to watch the damage to the buildings inside and out that they are tasked with caring for, and shouldn’t have deal with this nonsense, too.
This actually seems like a good idea. Nobody could complain about ‘force’ or violence being used against students who were merely ‘peacefully’ protesting. I wonder if such an approach has ever been used in previous student protests.
I don’t think students who leave should be arrested, however. In the first place, the administration tacitly approved of the encampment by doing nothing whatsoever to prevent it. In the second place, it would certainly thwart the goal of ending the encampment without the use of force since students who saw they were going to be arrested would inevitably be provoked to engage in violence.
Agreed: don’t arrest students that leave the besieged encampment voluntarily, but take down their information (in the form of a warning). arrest non-student tresspassers, maybe? Although these actions would not be immediately apparent to those inside the encampment, word would filter back in eventually (e.g. by way of telephony). Caesar was lenient on many occasions, for political purposes. (Of course he was brutal on other occasions, wiping out whole villages or tribes in punitive actions.)
We’ve had multiples warnings to SJP; it’s time to stop warning and start imposing meaningful sanctions. Without that, it will simply happen again.
There is precedent for cutting off the water and electricity when university buildings are occupied. In a protracted dispute over a rise in tuition fees in 2011-12, the university thus “brutalized” an occupying group for four days before the police retook the building without further incident.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-past-student-occupations-mcgill-encampment-1.7193476
The problem with any vigorous police response is that the city ends up having to pay damages in lawsuits that result. So the police have a strong incentive to do nothing, worried that any damages the city pays will be taken out of their subsequent budgets.
In other news, here at UVA (Charlottesville, VA), on Saturday the University called in the state police to disperse protesters that were in process of building an encampment. There was teargas, and some violence (pushing? shoving?)… I think a circumvallation would have been a better solution. I’m surprised none of the authorities anywhere have thought of it. Maybe circumvallation would be illegal? It does amount to an incarceration of sorts, except people would be allowed to leave (but not come back).
I believe police have denied using tear gas at UVA, but I can’t find the story I saw last night. (Edit: Andy Ngo has videos on his twitter. Since the police aren’t wearing gas masks, I doubt it could be tear gas. The short puffs look more like pepper spray.)
The easiest way to disperse these protesters/agitents peacefully, is to go to the supermarket. Buy several pounds of chicken legs (skin on), place the raw chicken in several backpacks or something that would go unnoticed in the encampment and allow it to rot.
Make sure that the backpacks or sleeping bags or whatever aren’t sealed too tight. You don’t want to smell of rotting chicken trapped.
In time, the stench alone coming from multiple places and that can’t be easily identified or found will drive them out. Finding one would not end the problem. It would be everywhere.
And then the rats will come. And proliferate.
That’s true. With rats nibbling on the protesters little toes at night, the tent camp might self evict even sooner than I thought!
I had a similar idea involving mackerel.
“Fuck Paul” is real classy.
“By any means necessary” is a threat of violence.
Yeah, and they post that after he seems to have been more than lenient with their demands. They know he’s weak, otherwise they wouldn’t have done it.
You’re exactly right, Jerry. The time for action was immediately at the first sign of starting an encampment or other violation of University rules. Now the encampment is likely to be more of a fortification based on the advice and strategies that we now know that far left organizations have been spreading and the UCPD may not have the manpower or equipment needed. I think that you can count on Mayor Johnson’s refusal to allow the Chicago police to help, following the lead of fellow mayors in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and DC. Could the State Police help? I don’t know if jurisdictional rules would prevent them from doing so, though I’m not sure that Gov. Pritzker would permit it in any event. Perhaps the University will have no choice but to wait out the encampments, and I would suggest blockading any further supporters and any further supplies of any kind, including food or water. What a mess we can expect in August at the DNC!
FWIW: Since the Palis seem to be running a community teach-in with an agenda of activities announced each day, maybe Chabad could use what appear to be well-researched counter narratives that I saw on some of the posters in Jerry’s photos on history of the Judea/Palestine region to also run a program for balance. It seems that the university is not going to try to bring anything positive out of this.
It’s mortifying that the university that has taken the morally and legally correct stance towards these student protests has a republican president and is located in a republican state. At least Sasse is reportedly a never-Trumper. But still.
Well, as they say, “It is what it is.” The right thing to do is not always done just by one political side.
I view this as more evidence of a political/social realignment occurring in our country. With the exception of reproductive rights and the environment, I find the issues I most care about being supported by the republicans. I wish we had a viable 3rd party to turn to. I’ve not voted for a republican in the past but I can’t yet say what I’ll do in the future. I feel increasingly alienated by the democratic party.
Why is that mortifying? You would prefer that a republican in a republican state did the wrong thing? Or are you mortified that democrats in democrat states did not to the right thing?
We’re all Americans, and we’re all humans. I wish we could put aside the false 2-party identification dichotomy that is used to drive us apart and focus on rewarding good behavior and removing rewards from bad behavior, regardless of the party of the person involved.
Leslie’s suggestion of denying toilet facilities to unauthorized “campers” is brilliant. Years ago, I met a young radical, non-student grifter who liked to visit UW campus buildings in order to sneak into faculty offices and make long-distance calls with their telephones. He complained to me that the “fascists” sometimes caught him and threw him out of their offices. If university authorities implemented Leslie’s idea, we can bet that the ACLU (and probably AAUP) would describe the decision as fascist—or, at least, a denial of the campers’ free speech rights.
The ACLU would probably agree with the students: denying basic necessities is EXACTLY like what Israel has been doing to Gaza, a crime against humanity.
The administration cannot win the moral high ground here no matter what they do. The goal then is to choose the strategy which will escalate the situation less than the other options.
If someone is camping on your front lawn and preventing you from tending to your garden, do you always pick the strategy that will least escalate the situation? What if they want to come in and use the bathroom? Would you leave the front door unlocked? The answer I think is that you do pick the least escalatory strategy if the civil authorities who have the legal monopoly on the use of force tell you they are not going to help you and you are on your own. But is that the kind of society you want to live in, where you lose the moral high ground by using force to eject trespassers (assuming you even can)? That pretty much is communism.
Had not seen this yet on WEIT, but I call readers’ attention to a moving letter that Anna published on her Voices Against Antisemitism substack site from a USC parent. It could just as well been written by a UChicago parent unfortunately. Url should be
https://voicesagainstantisemitism.substack.com/p/concerns-regarding-campus-climate?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2528704&post_id=143815761&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ua6o4&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email