As David pointed out this morning, the response to the current ceasefire in Gaza has been noticeably downbeat from many of the same people who have spent two years complaining Israel was carrying out a “genocide.” Really, if you can’t be happy when a genocide ends, when can you be happy?
Which brings me to the campus activists who really kickstarted the pro-Hamas approach here in America. The LA Times reports that some of them in California are vowing to fight on.
“While the news of a ceasefire is welcome, nothing fundamentally changes at UCLA or colleges in general,” said Dylan Kupsh, a doctoral computer science student at UCLA who was part of an encampment last year that was attacked by pro-Israel vigilantes.
“Our university is still invested in the oppression of Palestine. Students won’t rest until the university divests,” said Kupsh, who has faced student discipline procedures for participating in actions that the university alleges violated campus policies…
Amanda, a student at USC who participated in pro-Palestinian encampments, said concerns remain on her campus.
“We see that our school, like all the others, is very worried about being seen as antisemitic by the government, so they are even stricter about protests and speech than they used to be,” she said.
It’s good PR I guess to claim that you’ve only begun to fight, but the reality is that the protest movement seems pretty dead at this point anyway. Why? Because holding students accountable works.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrations swept through campuses across the country in the spring of 2024, leading to the arrests of more than 3,100 people. But in the more than a year and a half since, the protests have dissipated, even as the war in Gaza intensified…
Protesting students and sometimes faculty members were arrested and charged with trespassing or disturbing the peace. Some were charged with resisting arrest. Some were barred from campus and had their diplomas withheld…
Tori Porell, senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal, a group that has provided legal support to protesters, said she had clients who have had their diplomas withheld over protest activity.
“I have a number of clients at a number of schools who are in a really intolerable state of limbo, often can’t get jobs, have to delay grad school, have lost scholarships or fellowships,” Ms. Porell said, adding, “and psychologically it’s really troubling.”
Again, these students weren’t hassled for voicing an opinion on campus. That’s protected speech. The students who have faced discipline were often those who faced criminal charges and those who violated school warnings about time and place restrictions (such as no tent camps overnight) despite being warned. For instance, those who took over libraries, classrooms or faculty offices to prevent other legitimate school activities from taking place are getting the punishment they deserve.
The whole tone of the NY Times article suggests it’s a real shame this is happening but it’s definitely not. All students are held to the same rules and that means you can’t give pro-Hamas activists a pass just because a bunch of the lefty professors admire their garbage politics.
Ultimately, the activists only toned it down out of self-preservation. Everyone is willing to break the rules when they know the rules won’t be enforced. Far fewer are willing to take the risk if it means they’ll be charged, possibly have a criminal record and face a difficult time getting their diploma.
It goes without saying that none of this would have happened if Kamala Harris had won the election. There would be no pressure from above to hold students accountable and without it all of these schools would default to occasionally talking tough but doing nothing to actually hold the activists accountable. The campus activism died off because Republicans made it impossible for schools to wink at them any longer.
Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.
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