You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to predict that last spring’s pro-Hamas (or “anti-Israel”) protests would continue into this academic year. Despite Hamas being pretty well crushed, the entitled and enraged fans of Palestinian terrorism continue to cause trouble on campus. The latest target is the elite Brown University. (Elite universities are the ones where protests are most vocal.)
Earlier in October, the University rejected a BDS proposal to divest from Israeli corporations, and also affirmed that such political moves were not in the University’s interest.
As The Algemeiner previously reported, Brown University earlier this month voted down a proposal — muscled onto the agenda of its annual meeting by an anti-Zionist group which attempted to hold the university hostage with threats of illegal demonstrations and other misconduct — to divest from 10 companies linked to Israel.
“The Corporation also discussed the broader issue of whether taking a stance on a geopolitical issue through divestment is consistent with Brown’s mission of education and scholarship. The Corporation reaffirmed that Brown’s mission is to discover, communicate, and preserve knowledge. It is not to adjudicate or resolve global conflicts,” university president Christina Paxson and Brown Corporation chancellor Brian Moynihan said in a letter commenting on the vote. “Whether you support, oppose, or have no opinion on the decision of the Corporation, we hope you will do so with a commitment to sustaining, nurturing, and strengthening the principles that have long been at the core of our teaching and learning community.”
In effect, Brown here is espousing institutional neutrality, refusing to make political statements through investing or divesting. (Brown does not appear on FIRE’s list of 22 colleges besides the University of Chicago that have adopted a Kalven-like institutional neutrality.)
Click below to read more from The Algemeiner:
The students didn’t get their way, so, like toddlers denied a cookie, they acted out, going after the trustees, impeding their movements, and calling them names. Some of that may be free speech, but it’s not clear whether any University rules were violated:
Brown University has launched investigations of anti-Israel groups and individual students following their riotous conduct during a protest of the Brown Corporation that was held on Friday.
Staged outside the Warren Alpert Medical School to inveigh against the Corporation’s recent rejection of a proposal to adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement — which aims to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination — the demonstration saw the Ivy League students engage in harassment and intimidation, according to a community notice first shared by the Brown Daily Herald and later obtained by The Algemeiner. The protesters repeatedly struck a bus transporting the Corporation’s trustees from the area, shouted expletives at them, and even lodged a “a racial epithet … toward a person of color.”
Other trustees were stalked to their destinations while some were obstructed from entering their bus, according to the missive by Russell Carey, Brown’s interim vice president for campus life and executive vice president of planning and policy. The official added that the students — many of whom are members of Students for Justice in Palestine, which has links to terrorist organizations, and its spin-off, Brown Divest Coalition (BDC) — harmed not only the trustees but also the university as an institution of higher learning.
“No member of the Brown community would want or expect to be treated in the manner some of our members experienced on Friday, and it was troubling to read in media reports the express intent of some organizers to provoke discomfort that ultimately targeted individuals,” Carey wrote. “Disciplinary sanctions will be imposed where violations of conduct codes are found.”
He added, “As we continue to navigate challenging times on campus and in the nation, our resolve and our principles as a compassionate learning community will continue to be tested. I am hopeful that members of the Brown community will engage in discussion with each other about these challenges and commit to treat each other with respect and dignity.”
Anyone who thinks that civil discussion will ensue between anti-Israel and pro-Israel (or neutral) groups, much less come to any agreement, is an arrant optimist. Obstructing trustees from getting on their bus, as well as harassing individuals and striking their bus, is likely to be committing violations. And shouting a racial epithet, which of course is odious behavior, may well be “fighting words” prohibited by the First Amendment. (Brown, however, is a private university.)
This is just more evidence that the toddlers will continue their tantrums for an indefinite time. But schools are getting tired of it, and, I hope, more of them will start punishing the protesters when they violate university regulations (my own school has been clearly reluctant to levy such punishments). Without such sanctions, there is simply no deterrent to breaking the rules, leading to more and more (and more violent) demonstrations. Pomona College struck back last week:
Last week, Pomona College in Claremont, California levied severe disciplinary sanctions, ranging from expulsion to banishment, against 12 students who participated in illegally occupying and vandalizing the Carnegie Hall administrative building on the anniversary of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
The news was first reported by an Instagram accounted operated by Pomona Divest from Apartheid (PDfA), the group which led the assault on the building. PDfA acknowledged that “property crimes” were perpetrated but maintained that the college lacked evidence to identify the offenders. Noting that PDfA members concealed their identities with masks, it charged that Pomona president G. Gabrielle Starr has resorted to “indiscriminately” punishing minority students, as well as depriving them of housing and food, for the sake of upholding fascism.
Starr, who is an African American woman, told a different story, however, accusing the group of “violation of our collective life on campus” in a statement which noted that the pro-Hamas student group was aided by non-student adults who managed to gain access to the campus.
“The destruction in Carnegie Hall was extensive, and the harm done to individuals and our mission was so great,” Starr wrote. “Starting this week, disciplinary letters are going out to students from Pomona and other Claremont Colleges who have been identified as taking part in the takeover of Carnegie Hall. Student groups affiliated with this incident are also under investigation.”
This, of course, is why the cowardly protesters wear masks, taking their actions out of the real of civil disobedience, which they also erode when demanding that, even when caught violating the rules, that they not be punished.
But on the other side we have P. Z. Myers, who has emerged as a full-blown demonizer of Israel. Myers proclaims this about protests at a branch of his school (The University of Minnesota) that just led to the arrest of students:
“Free Palestine. End the genocide. Divest now. Those are simple, clear ideas that won’t be answered by arresting people.”
The genocide to which Myers refers is committed by Hamas and Hezbollah, not Israel. And yes, free Palestine—but from Hamas. (Lebanon also needs to be freed from Hezbollah, but the UN apparently lacks the will.)
And of course the point of arresting people is to ensure that campus rules are followed, which are intended to produce a climate that doesn’t chill speech. And somehow Myers neglects to give details about what the protesters actually DID to warrant their arrest. But ABC News did:
A demonstration at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities Monday led to 11 arrests after pro-Palestinian protesters barricaded an administrative hall on campus, locking staff members inside the building.
The protesters blocked the entrance and exit of Morrill Hall, which houses the offices of the university president, Rebecca Cunningham.
According to a statement from the university issued Monday night, the protest began with a peaceful assembly on a lawn in front of the campus’ Coffman Memorial Union at about 3 p.m. local time.
However, “A group of these individuals quickly moved north, up the Northrop Mall, and entered Morrill Hall,” according to the university.
“Once inside the building, protesters began spray painting, including covering lenses of all internal security cameras, breaking interior windows, and barricading the building’s entrance and exit points,” the statement said.
, , , , The university has said that “a number” of staff were present, and many were unable to exit the building “for an extended period of time.”
Police officers arrived on the scene and began to detain protestors around one hour after the first alert was issued, according to the university’s statement.
“With necessary support from the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, UMPD entered the building at approximately 5:40 p.m. and arrested 11 people,” it said.
Barricading yourself inside buildings, vandalizing it and breaking windows, and preventing staff from leaving: those are not things that are going to win supporters to their “cause”.
A tweet-video of the protesting students at U. Minn.
Breaking: Hamas demonstrators at the University of Minnesota have taken over and barricaded themselves inside a building.
Every single one should immediately be expelled and face legal consequences. pic.twitter.com/W5yOVFniwl
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) October 21, 2024
As a U of Minnesota graduate: Expel them from university.
I haven’t looked at anything from PZ Myers in at least a decade.
I look at him every few years just to see how out there he is.
PZ put up a post about a month ago where he admitted he doesn’t inspire his students any more. They look at him with “blank expressions”, apparently.
Although even this rare burst of honesty is laced with a lie – he’s NEVER inspired his students.
There’s no reason to think PZ hasn’t been or isn’t still an excellent biology professor. Given that a lot of high school and college teachers are having difficulties dealing with students who’ve become addicted to the short-attention-span material on their phones, that could be the problem right there.
Well, you reap what you sow. Universities have thrown out critical thinking and collegiality out the window in favor of indoctrination. Now they find that they aren’t ideologically pure enough for their zealots. What did they think was going to happen?
Sadly true, but perhaps university administrations are starting to figure that out. Hope springs eternal.
One garage door rope tied in a noose design, and the FBI investigated (and found no crime) while the NYT said it “Puts Spotlight on NASCAR’s Troubles With Racism”. No NASCAR fans chanted racist slogans, no property was damaged, and NASCAR condemned the incident immediately even though it was not done with racist intent.
Thousands of instances of people (see how it sounds differently if you say “people” instead of “students”?) explicitly expressing hatred for Jews and advocating for their deaths, damaging property, missing class, criminally restraining staff, and ho-hum it’s just another day in university world. Nothing to see here.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
“But on the other side we have P. Z. Myers”
PZ’s mind was made up on the day Israel responded. He insisted Israel was going to kill 2,000,000 (yes – Two Million!) Palestinians. I have the screencap.
I also have the screencap of comments on his articles in the aftermath of 10/7, where one regular (WMDKitty) posted that it was some sort of Infowars-style “false flag”, and that Israel did all the killing, and not Hamas.
This, along with regular downplaying/denial of antisemitism at these protests, tells you a lot about the stink emanating from that trash-heap, these days.
PS – I’ve searched Pharyngula to see if there are any other countries which PZ wants the US to “divest” from. You’ll be surprised to learn that the search was fruitless.
PZ is almost a characateur (sp.?) of the ivory tower Marxist delusional. He is the chum “idiot academics” Fox news throw overboard to its hungry MAGA feeding swarm.
Keep the screenshots, Mr. Sanderson, I might use them in an article on day.
best,
D.A.
NYC
Ok. I’m LMAO over you not knowing how to spell…that word. I’ll be damned if I can figure it out. Someone on this website mentioned how they have a far larger “reading vocabulary” than they do in speech. I’ve had that same problem all my life. I always read things that were much more, shall we say, “mature” than I was. For example, I read The Godfather at age 10 and the sex scenes were way over my head. It remains one of my favorite novels, by the way. I’m plagued in two directions, though. I know what words mean, cannot pronounce them and certainly cannot spell them. I was “out to lunch” in junior high and, try as I might, cannot teach myself as an adult what I should have learned then. How *do* you spell that word?
“caricature”.
And English spelling is indeed a bitch. Most languages have a much better correspondence between pronounciation and spelling. That’s what you get for creating a mixture of at least three languages with incompatible pronounciation rules.
Thank you!!
I’ve seen the “false flag” accusation elsewhere, but only on a truly awful antisemitic site (that I’ve since abandoned).
This reminds me of what Yasmine Mohammed wrote in “Islam Unveiled”–about how the reason why so many were so quickly ready to drop everything and join the caliphate when ISIS declared one. Because they had been taught to think that way for years. Same thing with these anti Israel students. I remember listening to NPR years ago when they were talking about the war in Yemen and NPR saying there was no truth to Iran financing the Houthies. And years of accusing Israel of genocide and giving Iran a pass on their atrocities. And now there might of been leaks of secret Israel military plans. I don’t like Trump but that is not enough for me to cast my vote the Democrats. It might sound paranoid but I do think Iran has had a strong and malign influence on the left, just as Russia has done the same on the right when it comes to Ukraine. And with the recent leaks and constant demands for a ceasefire in Gaza and the past slow walking of useful weapons for Ukraine (and also inappropriate calls for truce),it seems that our enemies are influencing us not with propaganda alone, but are directing policy.
I wonder whether we overestimate the importance of foreign propaganda. Can it exploit preexisting differences? Certainly. Does it drive those differences? I’m skeptical.
Recall Obama in 2016 saying that Ukraine was a core interest to Russia in a way that it simply wasn’t for the United States. Obama could have been right or wrong. He might have changed his mind in the time since. What he wasn’t was a man driven by Russian propaganda. Serious and well-informed people of both parties have disagreed for decades about the expansion of NATO and the degree to which we should get involved with countries from the former Soviet Union. The more recent propaganda influence claims are, oftentimes, nothing more than a form of ad hominem: all smart people agree; only the fools duped by Putin could disagree. It is not productive.
There is nothing paranoid about being wary of foreign influence operations. They happen. But if Iran influence operations are stoking unrest on US campuses, it is curious why that influence campaign seems peculiarly effective mainly with those whites of a certain social class and the unrest largely confined to those campuses that have been at the leading edge of Woke. Your earlier part about people being taught for years to think (sic) in a certain way is likely on track. Any Iranian influence then falls on receptive ears.
My far greater concern about adversary influence operations is that it gives our own intelligence and law enforcement operations an excuse to crack down on “misinformation” and “disinformation.” The lines between their domestic and foreign operations are hopelessly blurred in the digital age. We can thus move to a very dangerous place when we redefine domestic dissent as “tools of fascism” or “purveyors of foreign misinformation ops” or any of the other epithets masquerading as arguments these days.
I am always amused that many of our policy arguments rest on questionable or unverifiable assumptions, but the purveyors of policy are convinced that pursuing their course WILL lead to favorable outcomes and pursuing the opposing course WILL lead to disaster. (They sound like voters!) Then, when sweetness and light does not follow from their policies (or disaster does not unfold from the other), there are dozens of foreseeable reasons and excuses given as to why. And so it will always be. That is why I am generally (not always) a “best we can do is muddle through and try to maintain an even keel” type of guy. And it is why I prize men and women in foreign affairs (and the military) who can think on their feet, adapt rapidly, and not be bound by preconceptions while simultaneously working within a coherent, long-term strategy. Are any such men and women on the ballot?
I don’t think there are any such men and women on the ballot. But in 2016 Obama might not have been driven by Russian propaganda but could have been influenced by it. Germany was, as when Donald Trump pointed out to them they were not paying enough for defense and at the same time making themselves dependent on Russian oil. I remember laughing when Romney said Russia was our great geopolitical enemy. Putin has a lot of money which he uses not just in trolls and bots but buying influential people. Iran as well. These are two countries that most Americans don’t like and both of them have done plenty recently to encourage that dislike but both have American supporters in attacking Ukraine and Israel.
I don’t think either candidate will definitely lead to the countrys’ demise if elected but neither one is worth voting over the other one for if that’s a possibility.
Too often claims of foreign interference lead to more government intrusion. The problem with trying to police misinformation is that once you give that power up to the government censorship board, you’re not going to ever go back. My friends will tell me that Trump spreads misinformation and something should be done to limit his exposure due to this via government action. My comeback to this is, “Ok, then what happens when he gets in office and he then gets to appoint the censor?”.
Of course, they give me a blank look and say that this will be independent…right.
Reminds me of the book Persepolis
Douglas Murray said lately when a flare goes up we see where everybody is standing. No truer time than now. We can see there is – even in “hallowed” institutions, a deeply stupid low IQ virtual signaling (often antisemitic) mass. I didn’t realize the scale before. Now I/we do, which is good. BDS and positions on “The poor opwessed Palestinians” functions as an IQ/morality test.
Of course, PZ is an institutional, major league, professional idiot of decades standing.
No disrespect though, I’m sure he has an olympic medal in woke and an honorary degree in gay crying. I’m also sure he’s got a bit of a cult woke following going over there, Augustin Fuentez’s eyelashes loving flirting with the old windbag PZ, and apex fool Rebecca Watson tying herself in knots of lerve, but he’s an irrelevancy to serious people. A non event intellectually.
D.A.
NYC
David, I haven’t thought about these pro-Jew-killing protestors as low IQ, but that is exactly what they must be, especially since Douglas Murray is quite obviously high-IQ.
Thanks, I’m going to start using that!
Thanks, mate!
The IQ difference between pro-Israel (with appropriate critiques on some Israeli policy at times) verses the pro-Pal, burn a flag, stop traffic, rant, rave, wreck campuses, sign up for Jihad and woke generally is large… there’s a notable IQ differential.
The Pro-Pal mob have some shady “friends” and I talk about it here in my column:https://themoderatevoice.com/worst-houseguests-ever-the-palestinians/
That’s…. assuming “no dog in the fight” dynamics. People who live in the middle east have various opinions, and like ours usually enure to the “home team”.
But from afar, how one feels about the Israel/Pal dispute is a good metric to keep in mind.
D.A.
NYC
The language of your comments in this thread has reached a new low – even accounting for your tendency to slip into hyperbole.
Anti-Israel, low IQ, low mate value! Me, pro-Israel, high IQ!
What’s next? Musings about penis size? Sorry, but I’m not impressed and I’m not seal clapping and squealing “Dude, Bro! Sick burn!”.
The irony is dripping thickly, when in the previous comment you struggled with the word “caricature” and couldn’t even be bothered to look up the spelling.
Yes, many positions of the BDS crowd are poorly reasoned and many protesters seem to fail to engage in self reflection. In my experience, that’s true for all people at least some of the time and I don’t exclude myself here. So could we please stop with the “You ugly! You stupid!” talk that usually reveals more about the speaker than the subject?
I don’t think that treating antisemites respectfully and attacking their critics leads anywhere.
And if they are not low-IQ, they must be evil. I find it depressing that some of the most privileged young people on Earth ended up like this. For millennia, people have worked to endow their societies with freedom and prosperity, believing that this will also make future generations better. It seems that the opposite is true – shortage of real problems makes people imagine problems and flirt with pure evil.
False dichotomy.
Some may simply be mistaken. Having learned a particular narrative, they continue to believe in it, and double down when their beliefs are threatened. This is something we are all in danger of doing.
I watched the video of the young woman leading the protest at the U of Minnesota and had some difficulty understanding exactly what she was saying, so I tried to stop translating and listen only to the tone, cadence, and tempo of her voice.
It was mesmerizing, the shrill and urgent hysteria of someone in the middle of a war zone, faced with an immediate threat and desperately trying to save (or maybe take) lives. Although she’s of course no Hitler, I was reminded of the way you could listen to one of his speeches and feel inspired or aroused despite knowing no German at all. This is how you whip people up into a frenzy, in this case playacting both being relevant and being on the right side.
Impressive, in a chilling way.
I couldn’t make out what she was saying either. Usually they make an attempt to be clear. Perhaps she’s a newbie in the role.
But as you say, her intent was clear.
Yes, Sastra, again I agree with you.
I’d put it as….”Girls who aren’t doing well.” It skews very female for some reason.
Maybe I’m a bit harsh in judgement, but they seem to be – as some evolutionary biologists might say.. of “lower mate value”. I do think that explains a lot.
Because…. reproduction is the only game in town.
Ev. biologists will get a chuckle out of that but it is true.
D.A.
NYC
No, Sastra, I couldn’t understand her words either but the shrill and urgent hysteria you mention made me think she was very desperately trying to convince herself of the rightness of her cause. She’d started at level 10 and was cranking up to 11 almost immediately. No leader her, no inspirer; Hitler was rather cleverer, starting at a lower pitch and carrying the crowd with him as he built a crescendo – that’s what whipped people into a frenzy.
I watched a video yesterday of Sharri Markson of Sky News Australia denouncing those at a demo in Sydney celebrating Sinwar as a legend. She showed a clip of another female keffiyeh clown almost wetting herself in her admiration of the terrorist and also trying out the hysteria route to whip up the crowd – though she had it easy, preaching to the converted bunch of useful idiots. Clip if you’re interested:
Read the comments under Eyal Yakoby’s video on X: you can see these videos literally creating Trump voters before your eyes. Multiply that by every time this shit has happened in all its varied manifestations over the last four years and we’re faced with the extraordinary situation the US is in, two weeks before an election: an avowedly criminal president, already the most manifestly unfit in the country’s history, is considered a serious voting choice by people maddened beyond measure by the seemingly endless toleration being extended towards this malevolent nonsense.
Not sure he has an obligation, but I wonder what Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has said or done about the illegal destructive activities on the university campus?
No doubt his wife would keep her window ajar to catch a whiff if any fires were burning
Since the University of Minnesota follies began “with a peaceful assembly on a lawn in front of the campus’ Coffman Memorial Union”, we can be confident that the entire episode will be conventionally summed up as mostly peaceful. However, a U. Minn. committee will doubtless be empaneled to investigate both some misbehaviors of anti-Israel protesters and the greater dangers represented by systemic “Islamophobia”. For that matter, it is surprising that the AAUP has not yet issued a clarion call against that menace.
As for the help which the pop-Left provides to Trump’s re-election, that is a very old story. I remember wondering, back in ~1969, whether Bernardine Dohrn & co. were actually paid by the Nixon re-election committee.