Protests and police on campus

[Langue_doc]

In other news,

Columbia Faculty Group Passes No-Confidence Resolution Against President
Hundreds of professors at the university weighed in on the resolution, which said the president, Nemat Shafik, had committed an "unprecedented assault on student's rights."

She did throw some of the faculty under the bus during the hearings, but still...

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University passed a resolution of no confidence in the school's president, Nemat Shafik, on Thursday, saying she had violated the "fundamental requirements of academic freedom and shared governance," and engaged in an "unprecedented assault on students' rights."

The move, while largely symbolic, underscores the anger that Dr. Shafik faces on campus as she tries to recover from her divisive handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations and her public pledge to a congressional committee last month that she would discipline several faculty members who had espoused views against Israel that some have argued are antisemitic.

The no-confidence resolution was introduced by the campus chapter of the American Association of University Professors, a professional faculty organization. Of the 709 professors who voted, 65 percent were in favor of the resolution and 29 percent were against it. Six percent abstained.

The resolution particularly criticized Dr. Shafik's decision to call the police into campus to clear a pro-Palestinian student encampment on April 18, even after the executive committee of the University Senate had unanimously told her not to do it. The resolution said that she had "falsely claimed" that the students were a "clear and present danger to the substantial functioning of the university," arguing instead that they were peaceful.

She also violated the norms of academic freedom when she promised to fire faculty members in testimony before a congressional committee on antisemitism on April 17, the resolution said.

"The president's choices to ignore our statutes and our norms of academic freedom and shared governance, to have our students arrested and to impose a lockdown of our campus with continuing police presence, have gravely undermined our confidence in her," the resolution stated.

The police were called after a group of students and people unaffiliated with Columbia U had broken into Hamilton Hall, terrorized the employees working there, and had continued to barricade themselves in the building. There are no "correct" responses by college presidents because a president who agreed to the students' demands was put on leave:

California university president put on leave for 'insubordination' after meeting Gaza protesters' demands

California State University placed Sonoma State campus President Mike Lee on leave Wednesday after he agreed to protesters' demands to involve them in university decision-making and pursue divestment from Israel.

Lee sent a campus-wide memo Tuesday indicating that he had made several concessions to occupants of a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus. The memo was sent "without the appropriate approvals," CSU Chancellor Mildred García said in a statement, adding that she and the 23-campus CSU system's board are "actively reviewing the matter."

"For now, because of this insubordination and the consequences it has brought upon the system, President Lee has been placed on administrative leave," García said.

[Parasaurolophus]

Langue_doc: the Hamilton Hall arrests were the second batch of arrests at Columbia. More than 100 students were arrested a couple of days earlier.

Let's not go around rewriting events to suit the narrative.

[Langue_doc]

Langue_doc: the Hamilton Hall arrests were the second batch of arrests at Columbia. More than 100 students were arrested a couple of days earlier.

Let's not go around rewriting events to suit the narrative.

See the timeline of the protests, the closing of campus, and the arrests.

Students who had paid their tuition, apartment/dorm rent, and other expenses with the expectation of a semester's worth of instruction and access to classrooms, libraries, dining halls, counseling centers and other campus facilities were abruptly denied access to these and other campus buildings because of the protesters who had taken it upon themselves to speak/act on behalf of their fellow-students. I recall a segment from our local news just before the first set of arrests where students who did not support the protests were complaining about not being able to get to their dorms and also not being able to access the dining rooms.

I don't think the faculty suffered any pay losses but the maintenance and other employees who weren't allowed to come to campus when it was closed probably did, especially the part-timers.

Columbia did ask the faculty to be flexible with their final exams and grading, but students who were expecting uninterrupted instruction, access to dorms and dining plans that they had paid for are the losers and are bound to sue the university.

Most people who live or work near NYC universities don't welcome these protests because they disrupt traffic and transportation. There were reports in the news about a group of protesters unaffiliated with Columbia trying to storm Penn station (I don't recall if this was before the first or the second "encampment") so that they could take the #1 train to Columbia. This was during rush hour, and everyone was relieved that the large group had been stopped before tying up traffic for people wanting to get home to the outer boroughs, suburbs, Long Island, and New Jersey.

Most New Yorkers had a similar reaction to the Occupy Wall Street protests where a group of affluent people (many of those arrested had Manhattan or other upscale addresses) took over a park nowhere near Wall Street, and disrupted not only traffic but also prevented the employees from adjacents buildings/streets who usually took their lunch break there, as well as disrupting the sleep of the residents living along nearby streets with their constant drumming throughout the night.

[treeoflife]

The comparison to Occupy Wall Street is a good one. The total failure of the movement is also an important element  to think about.

[Hibush]

The cover of the New Yorker captures the tension at graduation nicely.

The person handing out diplomas is in purple regalia, so this is not Columbia. Perhaps NYU?

[spork]

[. . .]

If you're old enough to remember, picture it being read in the voice of a K-Tel commercial.

I resemble that remark!

In other news,

Columbia Faculty Group Passes No-Confidence Resolution Against President

[. . .]

But she's an immigrant! An Arab! A political exile! Does this mean she's been identified as a . . . race traitor?

[dismalist]

In other news,
Columbia Faculty Group Passes No-Confidence Resolution Against President
Hundreds of professors at the university weighed in on the resolution, which said the president, Nemat Shafik, had committed an "unprecedented assault on student's rights."

A wonderful example of [Robert] Conquest's Third Law of Politics: The simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies, here the faculty.

[jimbogumbo]

I have made clear I think claims of violence and occupation have been overstated. It is reminiscent of the hysteria in the suburbs and rural America that BLM and Antifa were coming for the shopping malls en masse. Here is a take on the "outside agitator" narrative, with a discussion of what I think diamalist was getting at with the ownership comment: https://thehill.com/homenews/education/4663670-colleges-police-outside-agitators-campus-protests-students-israel-hamas-gaza/

[marshwiggle]

I have made clear I think claims of violence and occupation have been overstated. It is reminiscent of the hysteria in the suburbs and rural America that BLM and Antifa were coming for the shopping malls en masse. Here is a take on the "outside agitator" narrative, with a discussion of what I think diamalist was getting at with the ownership comment: https://thehill.com/homenews/education/4663670-colleges-police-outside-agitators-campus-protests-students-israel-hamas-gaza/

That article basically defends outside agitators.

[Langue_doc]

So much virtue-signalling, but the so-called virtues are hard to pin down as they keep changing on a daily basis.

It's Not Just Gaza: Student Protesters See Links to a Global Struggle
In many students' eyes, the war in Gaza is linked to other issues, such as policing, mistreatment of Indigenous people, racism and the impact of climate change.

U.C.L.A. Faculty Votes Against Rebuking University's Chancellor
The votes came weeks after students at a pro-Palestinian encampment were attacked for hours by a large group of counterprotesters without police intervention.

U.C. Santa Cruz Workers to Strike Over Protest Crackdowns
The union representing academic workers in the University of California system said other campuses might strike, too, if officials failed to address their complaints over the handling of pro-Palestinian protests.

I'd never heard of the term "academic workers" until reading these paragraphs from the above article:

Academic workers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, will go on strike starting on Monday to protest the university system's handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations, the workers' union announced on Friday.

The union, U.A.W. 4811, which is part of the United Auto Workers, represents about 48,000 graduate students and other academic workers at 10 University of California system campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

According to the union, about 2,000 members work at Santa Cruz as teaching assistants, tutors and researchers. The walkout would not last beyond June 30, said Rafael Jaime, the U.A.W. 4811 president. But it could still seriously complicate coursework for the spring quarter, which ends on June 13. Nearly 20,000 students were enrolled at the school as of last fall.

"U.A.W. academic workers are standing up to go on strike in response to the university's crackdown on our fundamental rights to free speech and protest on campus," Mr. Jaime said on Friday. "The university has committed a number of unfair labor practices against workers in our union."

In related news:

Around 100 grad student workers and faculty threaten to withhold final grades after arrests
Organizers of the strike are calling for several demands, many of which align with those of pro-Palestinian protesters on campus, to be met by NYU.

None of the protesting faculty or "academic workers" have suffered any pay cuts. Rather, it's the non-protesting students who have been deprived of the education that they or their parents have paid for. Non-academic workers such as dining hall employees, janitors, and the like have probably lost the income that they were counting on before the protests and campus shut-downs started.

[Langue_doc]

Apologies for the double post.

Why Is N.Y.U. Forcing Protesters to Write Apology Letters?
The university calls it a "restorative practice"; the students call it a coerced confession.

The Ethos Integrity Series was not the only command. Some students would be assigned a "reflection paper," the details of which were laid out by the Office of Student Conduct. In it they would address several questions, among them: What are your values? Did the decision you made align with your personal values? What have you done or need still to do to make things right? Explicitly instructed not to "justify" their actions, the students were told to turn their papers in by May 29 in "12-point Times New Roman or similar font."

In an email, John Beckman, a spokesman for N.Y.U., defended the protocols, explaining that these papers have been a common sanction at the university for at least eight years, part of an approach to discipline that relies on "restorative practices." In this instance, though, the exercise cannibalizes the mission, favoring a will to dishonesty — inviting a charade of guilt. Anyone driven to protest is marching and chanting precisely as an expression of a certain set of fiercely held moral beliefs and values — not in deviation from them. Someone leaving her dorm room with a sign that says "Free Palestine" probably believes she is already doing what she needs to do "to make things right."

As Ms. Garey put it, "I'm not going to apologize for opposing genocide." The risk to her — someone who has finished her Ph.D. work — is the threat of a mark on her transcript, she said, for a failure to comply.

No, honey, you and your cohorts prevented your fellow-students from getting the eduction that they were entitled to. You should be protesting outside the offices of our law makers (the governor and the NYS Senator) as well as the Israeli embassies (country and UN) in the city. For many students, completing the semester (see the above post for NYU Grad assistants refusing to submit grades) with proof of courses/grades is a requirements for jobs, fellowships, grad schools, and in the case of international students, their visas.

[spork]

[. . .]

You should be protesting outside the offices of our law makers (the governor and the NYS Senator) as well as the Israeli embassies (country and UN) in the city.

[. . .]

But that would require taxi/bus fare.

From the NYT article "It's Not Just Gaza" linked above: "she connects the suffering of Gazans to the plight of other oppressed people worldwide." This person seems to be very badly educated, and I'd like to see whether she can locate Gaza or any other part of the Middle East on a map. It's highly ignorant to believe that every situation in the world that one disagrees with has the same identical cause. The attitude reminds me of an Al Jazeera program host's interview with three Americans that I saw a few months ago. One of the guests said "Revolution is the highest form of culture." Dude, you are completely clueless about what both of those words really mean.

Anecdata: spoke to a current Columbia undergrad yesterday. She was not a participant in any of the protests, had no interest in them. She was disappointed about final exams going online and the campus effectively closing to non-freshmen before the semester had officially ended (first-year students must live on campus).

[dismalist]

[. . .]

You should be protesting outside the offices of our law makers (the governor and the NYS Senator) as well as the Israeli embassies (country and UN) in the city.

[. . .]

But that would require taxi/bus fare.

From the NYT article "It's Not Just Gaza" linked above: "she connects the suffering of Gazans to the plight of other oppressed people worldwide." This person seems to be very badly educated, and I'd like to see whether she can locate Gaza or any other part of the Middle East on a map. It's highly ignorant to believe that every situation in the world that one disagrees with has the same identical cause. The attitude reminds me of an Al Jazeera program host's interview with three Americans that I saw a few months ago. One of the guests said "Revolution is the highest form of culture." Dude, you are completely clueless about what both of those words really mean.

Anecdata: spoke to a current Columbia undergrad yesterday. She was not a participant in any of the protests, had no interest in them. She was disappointed about final exams going online and the campus effectively closing to non-freshmen before the semester had officially ended (first-year students must live on campus).

Well, North Africa and much of the Middle East have at least one big thing in common: They are all regimes created by anti-colonialists! They have produced poverty and chaos.

[Wahoo Redux]

NBC News: Jewish groups add more allegations of antisemitism to their lawsuit against UC Berkeley

Two Jewish advocacy organizations suing the University of California, Berkeley, over a "longstanding, unchecked spread of anti-Semitism" have amended their complaint to include incidents from antiwar protests.

<snip>

"For many Jews, including many Jewish students and faculty at UC Berkeley, a profound connection with the Jewish State of Israel is integral to their Jewish identity," the Brandeis Center said in a statement. "Excluding Zionists thus effectively excludes Jews."

[spork]

NBC News: Jewish groups add more allegations of antisemitism to their lawsuit against UC Berkeley

Two Jewish advocacy organizations suing the University of California, Berkeley, over a "longstanding, unchecked spread of anti-Semitism" have amended their complaint to include incidents from antiwar protests.

<snip>

"For many Jews, including many Jewish students and faculty at UC Berkeley, a profound connection with the Jewish State of Israel is integral to their Jewish identity," the Brandeis Center said in a statement. "Excluding Zionists thus effectively excludes Jews."

This is just as dumb as the comments from students in the NYT article discussed above.