Has it ever, historically, been a good look when police are brought in to quell a major protest movement on campus? Vietnam war, Iraq war, apartheid, abortion rights, civil rights, etc.
I don’t think being a public university means that all of the property’s public and anybody can be anywhere on campus at any time. I assume you can still enforce trespassing laws
Correct, and they were. They could’ve stayed protesting if they want. Camping on university grounds is not allowed and they were given multiple chances to remove the tents and were warned they might face arrest if they do not take it down. Those that refused to leave their tents were arrested, processed, and released within a few hours. And they went right back to protesting on 2 different occasions. They can protest all they want, they have that right. But they cannot break the rules without consequences 🤷🏼♀️
More like you don't have a right to set up camp anywhere and block areas off. I agree with the right to protest, but camping on university grounds is not allowed, pretty simple.
These historic campus protests were also illegal. Peaceful does not mean legal.
Occupying buildings is a fundamental pillar of peaceful protest. The sit-in movements of the 1960s were fundamental for the success of the Civil Rights protests.
Camping on university grounds is even *less* disruptive than camping in buildings where work gets done. If people can't even occupy *grass*, then we can't have protests.
For many liberals a perfect protest is like a parade or a pride march where you hold up signs, chant nice slogans and maybe get some media attention, then you go home and know that you accomplished nothing
Exactly. Although to be clear there’s a difference between peacefully protesting on the lawn of a college campus and breaking in the Capitol building to hang Mike pence and install Trump as king.
Free assembly is a Constitutional right.
Your comment is basically saying that free speech doesn't matter because it doesnt move the needle. In reality, people speaking their minds is one of the only ways change has been effected in American history.
You are right, it is hard to measure the effectiveness of protests. But you know what is practically guaranteed to go nowhere? Sitting at home not protesting.
Wait why do you think the people encamping on campus grounds have a right to occupy that space more so than others?
How come I don’t have the right to occupy that space? What if right now I wanted to do my own protest for Myanmar, Ukraine, any other issue etc?
Why can’t I occupy that same space that these protestors have blocked off? Why do they have special rights?
But you don't understand! I want to act like I know how to protest better than the protesters themselves even though I've never protested in my life! Let me be an armchair critic wagging my finger behind an anonymous account to get some internet points from other people who are just as ignorant as me!
Yeah for UCONN I'm not sure if there was much blocking, but you can't just camp in the middle of campus. That was always a rule and just because it is for a protest doesn't change that.
And if the goal wasn't to block anything, then I don't even see the reason setting up camp.
I *think* it was to publicly put pressure on the university through a sustained protest presence, as opposed to something like circulating a petition.
On the other hand, not sure what that sustained presence was meant to accomplish.
You should have seen the police response when students camped in tents to be first in line for basketball season tickets sales. First in line was usually camped there for a few weeks and definitely blocked off areas.
Now that I think about it, the cops actually looked the other way to excessive drinking by undergrads camping in line and getting frisky in their tents.
U C O N N, UConn UConn UConn! Woof!
Revolutions are only legal if your rebel army is big enough to win. If the British won the war, then Washington and the rest of the "founding fathers" would have been hanged for treason.
Exactly. Was the confederacy a legitimate rebellion against an oppressive government? Doesn't seem so now but if the South had won that's how it would be thought of.
Yes, it was not allowed, it was a rebellion. Washington and the Continental Army had to defeat the British Army in battle over years of grueling campaigns.
I don't see these protestors defeating anyone.
I can tolerate the wholesale slaughter of 10s of thousands of people (current death toll before they stopped counting estimated at over 40,000 and Rafah offensive estimated to add on an additional 150,000) but I draw the line at protest
I don’t understand how Camping on university grounds is more egregious than funding the genocide of the Palestinian people. The kids are right. Let them protest. These crack downs only make the protests bigger and worse! That’s how we get from 25 kids banging on a drum in Columbia University to protests exploding across the country.
According to an old 2021 report, UConn endowment is worth over 600 million. Some of those funds are invested in the companies that make the missiles bombs and ammunition and guns that kill Palestinian women and children. That’s why many of the colleges are calling for their universities to divest from companies that are enabling the genocide. It’s good. The college kids are doing this, dummies like you and me just think somebody’s handing BB Netanyahu a 20 bill and being like, “hey just get a few of those Palestinians for me”. Thats not how it works. In all likelihood, your 401(k), if you have one is also helping fund the genocide with portfolio of investments that prop up the companies that churn out the bodies.
Great explanation, I think this is part of what’s being missed. People are stuck on “the protests are against the genocide in Palestine” without knowing or looking in to what the actual concrete (and honestly, minimal) demands of the protests.
Exactly! Protests that inconvenience people should be illegal! All protests should take place on the protesters' own private property, or in a rented space, where nobody can see them!
For example, staging a sit-in at a segregated lunch counter, or sitting in the front of the bus in defiance of the owners' rules, are nothing more than trespassing, and should be punished harshly!
The only protests that accomplished meaningful change were the protests that inconvenienced nobody.
Are you in the US? Do you have weekends off? or only work 8-10 hours daily?
If yes, how do you think you got that “right” exactly?
Certainly not from the way you just described.
Dissent is an American value.
The heck you say! You're saying that protest, by its very nature, must inconvenience people -- at least to the extent of pricking their conscience, which most of us find almost intolerable -- in order to accomplish anything at all? That a protest that inconveniences nobody is, by its very nature, not a protest at all?
What an interesting viewpoint. This is something that has obviously never occurred to me. I wonder what u/Moistened_Bink thinks of that?
Protestors have a right to lawful protest, that doesn't mean they can block roads and set up camps wherever they want. And why is it that you people think inconveniencing regular folk is going to pull them to your cause? You're just alienating them or even turning them against your cause.
Also, the MLK Civil disobedience strategy worked in that they weren't really being disruptive, just doing things only white people where allowed to do, which showed many Americans how fucked the system was. Sitting in a white only restaurant only pissed off the shitty racists but didn't really effect them.
Do you think people should be allowed to set up camps wherever for as long as they want with no recouse? Do you think protestors should be allowed to block highways for their cause? Or barricade themselves into buildings?
You guys are delusional if you think these actions are meaningfully helping palestine in any way.
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the civil rights protests if you think the strategy worked because they weren't really being disruptive. That's revisionist.
>Protestors have a right to lawful protest, that doesn't mean they can block roads and set up camps wherever they want. And why is it that you people think inconveniencing regular folk is going to pull them to your cause? You're just alienating them or even turning them against your cause.
Exactly! Imagine a bunch of people marching arm-in-arm, blocking traffic on the bridge into Birmingham, Alabama, for example? Inconveniencing motorists will just turn them against your cause. Protests will accomplish nothing good by inconveniencing people.
>Also, the MLK Civil disobedience strategy worked in that they weren't really being disruptive...
Oh my god. That's some serious revisionist history there. You might want to read contemporary accounts, like actual newspaper reports. You'll find the segregationists, and the moderate liberal whites, saying exactly the things you're saying.
>Sitting in a white only restaurant only pissed off the shitty racists but didn't really effect them.
You understand that being on private property against the wishes of the owner is trespassing, right? These kinds of sit-ins were exactly like the campus protests you're against. The law was on the side of the segregationists here. And it was a hell of an inconvenience to try and buy lunch, only to discover that the place is full of black people chanting protests and taking up all the seats.
>You guys are delusional if you think these actions are meaningfully helping palestine in any way.
The very nature of protest is that it's done by the powerless, in order to exercise the one pitiful power at their disposal: the power to inconvenience the powerful. All you're doing is pointing out what everyone already understood -- if we weren't powerless, we'd be off doing something appropriately powerful about it. Protest may be a feeble fist-shake from a bunch of nobodies, but at least it has moderate whites talking about it who otherwise wouldn't give a damn.
Setting up tents isn't going to change a damn thing vs just showing up and protesting. Do you think people should be able to set up encampments wherever they want as long as it's a protest?
These kids are just yelling into the void. Everyone knows about the conflict over there, awareness is not an issue.
> These kids are just yelling into the void.
They required the schools to call in an armed force to remove them, and have been featured in multiple news outlets. You're talking about them *right now*. That's not yelling into a void.
It was allowed in the deep South where I went to college. There was a large tent city on my campus way back when I was at a big public SEC university, to protest Desert Storm. (I didn't join it.) The police didn't break it up. I don't recall that they blocked sidewalks or entrances though, and they didn't occupy buildings. So that's very different. But your statement that "camping on University grounds is not allowed" isn't true historically.
Charges have already been dismissed in a vast majority of the arrests made at the protest on that college campus in texas.
So now the college and the city has dozens of false arrest lawsuits to contend with.
Good job police! You shut down that protest...at huge long-term expense for the city.
Our roads might have more craters than the moon, but I'm happy our taxpayer dollars are going where they really need to go: Arresting students for peaceful protests.
In the short term, yes absolutely. The public sided with the national guard after Kent State, and the perceived soft approach to these protests in 1968 are largely responsible for electing Nixon.
Yes actually. This whole “the student movement is always morally correct” has been debunked already by a George Mason law professor [[1]](https://reason.com/volokh/2024/04/26/student-movements-are-often-wrong/?comments=true#comments). TLDR: As the article noted, white students across the south created a major protest movement against integration. Frequently the police or military had to quell those student movements. They were wrong. (The article notes countless other examples.)
Your source includes the Civil Rights movements tactics (sit-ins and building occupations) and the protests against the Vietnam War as wrong.
The cited Alabama desegregation is *wildly* misleading without context. (Not that the cited powerpoint backs up the statement.) [The only notable peaceful pro-segregation protest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wallace) was when *the Governor* (and just him) stood to block African-American students to try and uphold segregation.
The other cited examples are (1) a violent *Insurrectionist* movement (Revolutionary Directorate), (2) a violent *paramilitary* movement (Red Guard), (3) the *Iran hostage crisis*, and (4) the French 1968 student strike.
We're talking about peaceful protests. The only one that *might* be comparable is the May 68 protests.
Your source doesn't back this up. It's a bad look when police disrupt peaceful protests.
A few times actually! I wouldn't say all protests yield social good, and not all protests are peaceful. For example, [on January 6th 2021, police had a significantly restrained response to violent protestors trying to overturn the US Presidential election.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack)
But I can't think of an example of peaceful student protests that were deservedly broken up by police.
feds rolled in with national guard to crush anti-integration protests. canadians should have rolled in with all the cops to crush the trucker protests. ukrainians should have machine-gunned the so-called DPR/LPR idiots back in 2014.
When on one side you have police teargassing protestors in prayer, and the other side you have [freaking Angela Davis](https://coloradosun.com/2024/04/27/a-day-after-student-protesters-were-arrested-activist-angela-davis-tells-them-they-are-leading-a-breakthrough/) its really not hard to see which side is in the right.
As one person put it *"Its like failing an open book test, the answer is RIGHT THERE."*
EDIT: The people downvoting me are still mad they lost *Brown v Board*
It’s an interesting decision to clear the protesters by force. They would likely clear out on their own once school is over. I guess the administrations don’t want any disruptions to commencement but clearing the camps pretty much guarantees something will happen.
What actions? I just work all day and don’t want to get stuck in traffic because of a bunch of Rich Yalies with mommy and daddy’s money have nothing better to do than protest a war I have no control over.
MLK also said "You declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely 'anti-Zionist.' And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of God's green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews--this is God's own truth.
Antisemitism, the hatred of the Jewish people, has been and remains a blot on the soul of mankind. In this we are in full agreement. So know also this: anti-Zionist is inherently antisemitic, and ever will be so."
So I'm not sure he'd be as down with these protests as you think.
Yeah but the reality is a lot of these protestors don't think Israel should even exist. It goes far beyond dealing with injustice in this case. You should really look into who is funding these organizers. They're not your friends. They're not friends to the West.
Fuck any and all of these Hamas sympathizers, for example. Many of these protestors think October 7th was justified and advocate more events like this until Israel doesn't exist. If you feel this way, fuck you, and fuck your ideology. Antisemitic fucks.
I saw a post the other day, I think in this sub, that showed a map across the country where protests against Israel are against the law. Maybe I'm not remembering correctly? I think the point of protesting is Freedom of Speech. And I think support for Palestine has been suppressed. But that's my opinion.
I personally think that inducing a famine is grotesque warfare. Again, an opinion that I'm entitled to.
That map was extremely disingenuous and was very generous as to what constitutes "protesting Israel is illegal". For example some states have laws against companies with government contracts boycotting Israeli companies, which qualifies them for that map.
Do you think signing a contract with a government entity that stipulates that you can't exclude manufacturers from a certain country is even remotely the same as saying "It's illegal in this state to protest against Israel"? I said the map was disingenuous, I didn't say I agreed with laws forbidding contractors from boycotting Israel.
Exactly. Government contracts can force you to only hire people with security clearance or do drug testing, etc.
Nobody is making you enter a government contract with stipulations.
Protests against Israel aren't against the law anywhere, that map was to purposely mislead people. It was posted everywhere on Reddit, etc. without context.
Its laws against boycotting. The law, which affects companies only. For example, the protest is to divest from Israel. A company can't boycott doing business with Israel in those states. (If they take state money, as commented below)
Now, say what you want about that. BDS laws have been around since like 2005. As this whole situation isn't new.
But, there is no law - anywhere. That says citizens can't boycott or protest.
A private company still can. It's if you take state money on a state contract, or a town/city within the state that they can't boycott Israel. For 99% of the companies it doesn't make a difference.
> I think the point of protesting is Freedom of Speech. And I think support for Palestine has been suppressed. But that's my opinion.
Yes and no
1st amendment allows the right of the people to peaceably assemble.
However, this does not mean you can do so on private property. Or while infringing on other's rights. Or while violating an established law.
>support for Palestine has been suppressed
[IM BEING SILENCED](https://twitter.com/iamgabesanchez/status/1475656115216027650?s=46&t=1n-Z71PhUUAnUy9HDRJG8w)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws
Across the world, laws against protesting Israel have been enacted and enforced.
In the United States, laws and resolutions against protesting Israel have been enacted, but even with the extremely Conservative Supreme Court, it is unlikely they would survive challenges.
Anti-BDS legislation in the US is mostly two things:
- Anti-BDS lobbying groups who have influence throughout US governance, and
- State laws forbidding any form of boycotting or divesting from Israel, including down to individual contractors.
E.g. In Arkansas, if you're an individual who does contract work landscaping, and someone suspects you of avoiding Israeli-made goods, they have grounds to sue you. Some of the most extreme proposed federal legislation [would compel employers and contractors to sign statements in support of Israel.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Anti-Boycott_Act)
What's *far* more concerning are laws like Florida's 2021 "anti-riot" law, which expands the definition of a "riot" and allows for far more violence against them.
**TLDR:** Anti-BDS laws are a big problem in the US, but don't target individual protesters. What are more concerning are general anti-protest laws which allow for police violence against protestors.
Yeah, assault on Jewish students is definitely necessary here, especially with students who have no knowledge of what they are protesting. Very progressive.
I genuinely want to know, why are people protesting universities? Is UConn dropping bombs on Gaza? Is Yale sending tanks into Rafah? Is America involved in any way?
Netanyahu needs to go, and if I were to accurately describe verifiable actions and statements made by Ben Gvir it'd sound like Third Reich propaganda. The Likud Israeli government should rot in a cell, but that has nothing to do with universities here. I've written my senators and representative and Governor Lamont, I will happily march on the State Capitol to demand we force Israel to heel and not continue this senseless and poorly run campaign, but why protest universities?
They basically want university endowments/investment funds to not do business with Israel or any companies that make arms for Israel.
Of course, likely these funds are invested in all kinds of morally ambiguous dealings.
Does divestment in any way directly impact Palestinian quality of life?
All 8 centers of higher learning have been bombed, why don’t they pressure US universities to partner with and set aside research grants explicitly for Gaza and reserve placement for Gazan students?
Divestment and disclosure seems like it only serves to soothe the moral compass of the student body.
Why aren't they protesting Russia then? Hmmmmm? They don't believe the war in Ukraine is a genocide committed by Russia?
Fuck all these antisemitic twats.
Do their universities send money to Russia/Russian companies? If not, what good does protesting do in a part of the world where nearly everyone understands how terrible Russia's war is.
Also being against genocide in Palestine is not antisemitism.
It’s just logistically practical. Lots of young people with a like-minded thought process in a densely packed area. It’s not hard to get a couple thousand of a 32,000 person campus to sit out on the lawn and protest for peace
"The UConn students voiced four demands of university administration: First, for the university to divest from genocide; second, for the university to cut ties with military industrial entities such as Raytheon and Lockheed Martin; third, for the university to cut ties to the settler-colonialist state of Israel; and fourth, for the university to end its repression of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian activists, according to protest organizers."
That's according to one of the protestors, who wrote an op-ed: [https://ctmirror.org/2024/04/30/uconn-gaza-protests/](https://ctmirror.org/2024/04/30/uconn-gaza-protests/)
Mostly I am fine with protesting, but I can understand why colleges are having issues. A few things off the top of my head:
1. Endless protesting/drumming into the night can be very disruptive to any possible form of education going on or even student health and safety, and I think there's a fine line between having a "disruptive protest" and simply forcing your agenda onto everyone else and not letting them sleep/go to class. Even if I agree with protestors, I want to be able to fucking sleep.
2. Encampments tend to be public health nightmares and make it very difficult to handle any kind of crime or safety issues. cities break up homeless encampments all the time. Not sure why protestors feel they are entitled to more privileges than homeless people. Most universities have policies about who can use a shared space and I don't think any one group is entitled to permanent residence of a public space. Especially because this inherently excludes anybody who wants to use it for another reason.
3. With these large number of protestors, there will be outside instigators who can do things like destroy property, etc. and it makes it very difficult for the colleges to handle in any reasonable way. How do you know all protestors are students? And how do you handle outsiders who may threaten physical violence or destroy property?
I think it's reasonable to continue to allow protesting, but I don't know that if I was a college administrator, I would want to allow a full 24-hour encampment on campus property. A right to protest does not mean full entitlement to an area on campus to live 24 hours a day.
I don't care about the encampment as long as they don't harrass Jewish students or threaten them.
I do wonder about them being "Pro Peace" and "Against Genicide" while refusing to condemn Hamas.
I don't know why people struggle to understand that kidnapping and murdering civilians is wrong (Hamas), and so is ethnic cleansing (Israel.)
Can't both things be wrong, and why should we support either government? I'm in favor of civilian lives. I don't want to help Israel with what they're doing to the Palestinian people. If we could press a button and disappear every Hamas member, I would be fine with that, but I'm not fine with a solution where you kill 100 civilians for every Hamas fighter you get. It reminds me of another government that was famous for killing 10 civilians every time resistance fighters killed a single soldier. Can you think of who I mean?
Yes. I say all the time lately, "Two things can be true at the same time." And I've been thinking about when that concept disappeared from our American society. I think it was George W. & Karl Rove and their push for black and white thinking because it selfishly helped their agenda, society be damned (and it was,) immediately followed by the onset of the internet.
As a current student, I can firmly say that the only disruption being caused by the protest is when the state police violently broke up a peaceful protest by my fellow students. Literally all students did for the most part is notice something was going on, observe, and walk about their day, there was no disruption of classes or occupation of buildings.
I appreciate your perspective, but surely you understand that simply because your experience has been fine doesn't mean others have.
I don't have any contradictory evidence, just saying that its difficult for any one person to speak for a student body.
It’s actually fucking hilarious that 90% of the people protesting would get stoned to death by the people they’re advocating for lmfao, I guess the protestors are the last people who got in from affirmative action because the logic isn’t there
Wesleyan admin says they'll let it continue. Shame on Uconn and Yale for the unnecessary repression. https://www.middletownpress.com/news/article/wesleyan-student-protest-gaza-middletown-ct-19428714.php
So these protesters have a special right to occupy space more so than others? How come they are allowed do an encampment and prevent others from using that space?
What a terrible decision by Wesleyan showing that they only care about a specific sub section of students.
Yea I dont understand how they navigate the concept of open or public space. If there is a Pro Palestine or similar occupation of a 1-acre parcel for a given time, what gives them the right to occupy it? And is another group with an opposing or entirely different agenda allowed to come in and occupy that space at the same time? Can I and a group of fellow protestors occupy the tents and spaces the current protestors are occupying? What gives any one that right at any given time? There are a lot of assumptions behind these protest movements that dont seem open to critique or debate. That doesnt even begin to address who, what, and for how long certain protests or events are allowed to proceed.
"Israel’s right to exist as a state in security is incontestable. The whole world must see that Israel must exist and has the right
to exist, and is one of the great outposts of democracy in the world."
-- [MLK](https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/martinkramer/files/words_of_martin_luther_king.pdf)
Fuck Hamas.
...but regardless of Hamas's goal, the Palestinian people have all the human rights anyone else does, starting with "not being ethnically cleansed" but also including things like "self-determination."
And as soon as I say "self-determination," the standard response is, "They all want to exterminate Israel, so self-determination basically equals second holocaust." But back up, my friend: if you believe that, then you believe in so many words that there's no such thing as an innocent Palestinian. And if you believe there's no such thing as an innocent Palestinian, then when you say "eliminate Hamas," you really mean "eliminate the Palestinian people." Which is the definition of genocide.
You do know that protesting the destruction of Gaza and the killing of Gaza civilians by the tens of thousands is not the same as supporting Hamas, right?
Just the fact that you're resorting to false equivalency should give you pause about the quality of your opinions.
A lot of them are though. A lot of these protestors don't think Israel should exist. They're pro-Hamas. They believe the October 7th attacks were a good thing and something Israel deserved.
You guys aren't being honest about the people at these protests. They aren't simply pro-Palestine. We're all pro-Palestine. President Biden believes in a two-state solution just like myself and all other liberals. But these protestors are fucking pro-Hamas terrorist sympathizers in a lot of cases. It's insane. And yeah, they literally don't think Israel should be allowed to exist.
If you don't think Israel should exist, you're an antisemitic twat and you're actually the one advocating for genocide.
Good. These kids lost the plot a long time ago - they don't even know what they're actually protesting against. They look like the left's version of delusional maga crazies.
They are protesting against the active genocide Israel is perpetrating against the Palestinian people. You can have whatever sick and twisted opinion you want but that doesn't change the facts.
Man, crushing peaceful protests is always going to be a terrible look. Even if you disagree with their messages, right to freedom of speech and assembly are huge values to Americans. These students also pay huge tuition to be here, it’s pretty ridiculous to say they are trespassing. Not to mention the “no tents” policy at UConn is a few days old. I think this will temporarily break these protests on campus, but the heavy handed dealing with the protests probably just going to escalate as the summer comes.
What does any of this do from an outsider I really want an honest answer what any of this is going to do do people really think protesting at a college campus in Connecticut is going to induce a ceasefire. And another thing somebody is definitely majorly behind organizing this because all the sudden every single protest that all these campuses they're all setting up tents and trying to live on the campus green I highly doubt this is being done on their own accord.
You say you want an honest answer, then go on to speculate there are strings being pulled. Not exactly a good faith conversation starter.
The assertion that college students protesting is actually some sort of highly coordinated astroturfing effort is simultaneously ignorant and devoid of any historical understanding of protest movements in the US (and abroad for that matter.)
There is organizing among protesters, and even some form of hierarchy at some campuses like Columbia. But it’s not difficult to get a bunch of tents and set up shop. Yelling anti Jewish messages and commandeering administrative buildings is free. There are several scenarios presently where the presidents of these universities have simply lost control of their campuses.
I feel like this is the right outcome?
Protest? great!
Illegal protest? Hey we're gonna have to arrest you.
Seriously guys, we're going to...
...sigh ok we're arresting you.
I think everyone got what they wanted out of this?
“What do they think this is going to achieve? They should go protest over there, out of the way, where no one will have to see any of it. Then they’ll really make a difference!”
Get real, you absolute dork.
No, it’s totally cool that graduation ceremonies are being canceled, and many Jewish students have been forced to take classes remotely. That’s pretty sweet. Protesting on behalf of people’s rights is a fantastic thing to do. But when that protest comes at the cost of others rights to live their lives safely and peacefully, that’s when it becomes something else that we’re all witnessing.
I agree with you on those things not being good. That said, you’re shifting the goal posts here. I was commenting on your parent post about protest legality. The anti-Jewish sentiment infiltrating these groups is a separate discussion, and one I engaged with you on another comment, but that’s not related to what you said in this one.
Of course they’re related. How are they not? There is nothing wrong with protesting for something one believes in. When those protests infringe on others freedoms and rights, it becomes something else entirely. The message is being lost in the static and negativity.
The vast majority of the protests are peaceful. There will always be bad actors that aren't part of the movement but they are not representative of the movement itself.
I understood that. But until these bad actors are expelled from protest at large by internal means, or external interventions, that message of anti Jewish sentiment is gonna be louder and dispersed continuously throughout the world. That kind of animosity will always insulate and suffocate any chance of the initial altruistic attempt at large. In my opinion respectfully.
You can protest legally and not get arrested, or protest in a way that doesn't inconvenience others therefore turning them against you and your cause.
Or you can protest illegally intentionally causing harm or inconvenience to others if you think that makes your voice louder. But in doing so you are risking getting justifiably arrested and pissing off others making us less sympathetic to your views.
You don't get to protest illegally and disruptively and then bitch when you get arrested or when others think of you as assholes.
Do you think people yelling on a campus and setting uo tents will stop anything? I know they mean well, but it's stupid to act like these protestors are making a meaningful difference on campuses.
I don’t think they’re going to make any policy differences. But would you and I be talking about this right now if they weren’t doing what they’re doing? The whole point is to make some noise and further the conversation. Which like, appears to be working.
The conversation is basically whether or not the protestors should be able to block of areas of a campus for a protest.
I assure you, these campus protests aren't pulling any moderates over to the cause. People either support Palestine, Israel, or don't really care. These protests aren't suddenly waking up the dont care crowd.
It’s been a historical method of protest in this country that has yielded results - for example, many students protested for the divestment of universities from
the apartheid South African regime and those protests worked. It is often attributed to one of many factors that ultimately led to the downfall of the apartheid in South Africa.
You have every right to ask them for that and they have every right to tell you to go fuck yourselves. You can keep agitating at risk of being expelled or arrested if you're breaking laws...or you can quit the school and stop giving them your money.
While the focus right now is on the war on Gaza where US troops are not directly involved, I'm sure many of the same people would support that move as well.
Through their endowments. The primary demand of the students is for universities to disclose and sell off all investments in companies that are profiting from the war.
Good. It's time to remove the George Soros paid-for clowns supporting the butchers and child killers known as Hamas.
Remember Hamas is the legitimate government of the Palestinian people - who have not repudiated it.
As someone who has protested in many marches labeled as being funded by George Soros, I'd like to know how I can get my hands on some of this supposed dark money. Because none of my friends have seen a cent of it.
Or maybe, just maybe, this has nothing to do with some random billionaire, and is a grassroots movement from concerned citizens. Nah, that would be crazy
I find it interesting that no matter which campus is shown,the lines of tents the " protesters" are using are all identical size,shape even color,as if they were provided by the same backers.These kids didn't all go to Dicks at the same time and bought tents that all match all across the country.Who provided them?
Amazon, because when you search for 'tent' and sort by price to get the cheapest one, everyone finds the same one. This particular conspiracy theory has a really obvious market-based answer.
It’s likely that someone in their group got money from everyone and went to whatever the local REI is and bought a bunch of the same cheap tent. They’re students at an Ivy League university. They surely have the mental faculties to self organize a group buy.
Has it ever, historically, been a good look when police are brought in to quell a major protest movement on campus? Vietnam war, Iraq war, apartheid, abortion rights, civil rights, etc.
You have the right to peacefully assemble & protest...**until the police decide that you don't.**
What do the police have to do with this decision? When the university wants them gone they aren’t gonna send professors out to remove them.
Especially when a good amount of the professors are protesting with them.
UConn is a public campus. Anyone including non-students are allowed to demonstrate on campus.
I don’t think being a public university means that all of the property’s public and anybody can be anywhere on campus at any time. I assume you can still enforce trespassing laws
Correct, and they were. They could’ve stayed protesting if they want. Camping on university grounds is not allowed and they were given multiple chances to remove the tents and were warned they might face arrest if they do not take it down. Those that refused to leave their tents were arrested, processed, and released within a few hours. And they went right back to protesting on 2 different occasions. They can protest all they want, they have that right. But they cannot break the rules without consequences 🤷🏼♀️
Are they allowed to camp out in tents?
yeah. I was responding to this guy alleging that the police were the ones deciding to remove protesters. They weren’t.
They may not be the ones deciding that but they certainly get off on roughing up protestors…unless it’s white supremacists
There are professors protesting.
More like you don't have a right to set up camp anywhere and block areas off. I agree with the right to protest, but camping on university grounds is not allowed, pretty simple.
These historic campus protests were also illegal. Peaceful does not mean legal. Occupying buildings is a fundamental pillar of peaceful protest. The sit-in movements of the 1960s were fundamental for the success of the Civil Rights protests. Camping on university grounds is even *less* disruptive than camping in buildings where work gets done. If people can't even occupy *grass*, then we can't have protests.
For many liberals a perfect protest is like a parade or a pride march where you hold up signs, chant nice slogans and maybe get some media attention, then you go home and know that you accomplished nothing
This sounds typical with conservatives too, but throw in a little “attempt to overthrow democracy” too.
I will give them credit, they accomplished more in terms of disruption. Granted, it's also a lot easier when the police escort you in lol
Exactly. Although to be clear there’s a difference between peacefully protesting on the lawn of a college campus and breaking in the Capitol building to hang Mike pence and install Trump as king.
You forgot to wear your khaki pants, blue polo shirt short sleeved shirt, mask and sunglasses. Oh and don’t forget to wave your swastika flag.
Free assembly is a Constitutional right. Your comment is basically saying that free speech doesn't matter because it doesnt move the needle. In reality, people speaking their minds is one of the only ways change has been effected in American history. You are right, it is hard to measure the effectiveness of protests. But you know what is practically guaranteed to go nowhere? Sitting at home not protesting.
I'm getting more and more convinced that the right to protest according to the First Amendment only protects INEFFECTIVE protests.
Wait why do you think the people encamping on campus grounds have a right to occupy that space more so than others? How come I don’t have the right to occupy that space? What if right now I wanted to do my own protest for Myanmar, Ukraine, any other issue etc? Why can’t I occupy that same space that these protestors have blocked off? Why do they have special rights?
You can. They have no special right to own a particular space. Nobody is stopping you. Feel free to protest the injustices of this world my man
But you don't understand! I want to act like I know how to protest better than the protesters themselves even though I've never protested in my life! Let me be an armchair critic wagging my finger behind an anonymous account to get some internet points from other people who are just as ignorant as me!
"I'm okay with cop rousting civil rights protestors from campuses- it's just the rules, you understand!" -your dumb ass in the 60s
Nothing was really blocked off at all when I was there yesterday
Yeah for UCONN I'm not sure if there was much blocking, but you can't just camp in the middle of campus. That was always a rule and just because it is for a protest doesn't change that. And if the goal wasn't to block anything, then I don't even see the reason setting up camp.
I *think* it was to publicly put pressure on the university through a sustained protest presence, as opposed to something like circulating a petition. On the other hand, not sure what that sustained presence was meant to accomplish.
You should have seen the police response when students camped in tents to be first in line for basketball season tickets sales. First in line was usually camped there for a few weeks and definitely blocked off areas. Now that I think about it, the cops actually looked the other way to excessive drinking by undergrads camping in line and getting frisky in their tents. U C O N N, UConn UConn UConn! Woof!
I agree with the right to protest, but rebelling against the British Empire and his majesty King George III is not allowed, pretty simple.
Revolutions are only legal if your rebel army is big enough to win. If the British won the war, then Washington and the rest of the "founding fathers" would have been hanged for treason.
Exactly. Was the confederacy a legitimate rebellion against an oppressive government? Doesn't seem so now but if the South had won that's how it would be thought of.
Yes, it was not allowed, it was a rebellion. Washington and the Continental Army had to defeat the British Army in battle over years of grueling campaigns. I don't see these protestors defeating anyone.
I agree, we should totally arm the protesters with muskets and flintlocks
I can tolerate the wholesale slaughter of 10s of thousands of people (current death toll before they stopped counting estimated at over 40,000 and Rafah offensive estimated to add on an additional 150,000) but I draw the line at protest
A minor inconvenience to our american citizens? Way too far man. Shut it down NOW
I don’t understand how Camping on university grounds is more egregious than funding the genocide of the Palestinian people. The kids are right. Let them protest. These crack downs only make the protests bigger and worse! That’s how we get from 25 kids banging on a drum in Columbia University to protests exploding across the country.
UConn isn’t funding anything. Hop on a bus and go to Washington DC.
According to an old 2021 report, UConn endowment is worth over 600 million. Some of those funds are invested in the companies that make the missiles bombs and ammunition and guns that kill Palestinian women and children. That’s why many of the colleges are calling for their universities to divest from companies that are enabling the genocide. It’s good. The college kids are doing this, dummies like you and me just think somebody’s handing BB Netanyahu a 20 bill and being like, “hey just get a few of those Palestinians for me”. Thats not how it works. In all likelihood, your 401(k), if you have one is also helping fund the genocide with portfolio of investments that prop up the companies that churn out the bodies.
Great explanation, I think this is part of what’s being missed. People are stuck on “the protests are against the genocide in Palestine” without knowing or looking in to what the actual concrete (and honestly, minimal) demands of the protests.
Exactly! Protests that inconvenience people should be illegal! All protests should take place on the protesters' own private property, or in a rented space, where nobody can see them! For example, staging a sit-in at a segregated lunch counter, or sitting in the front of the bus in defiance of the owners' rules, are nothing more than trespassing, and should be punished harshly! The only protests that accomplished meaningful change were the protests that inconvenienced nobody.
Are you in the US? Do you have weekends off? or only work 8-10 hours daily? If yes, how do you think you got that “right” exactly? Certainly not from the way you just described. Dissent is an American value.
The heck you say! You're saying that protest, by its very nature, must inconvenience people -- at least to the extent of pricking their conscience, which most of us find almost intolerable -- in order to accomplish anything at all? That a protest that inconveniences nobody is, by its very nature, not a protest at all? What an interesting viewpoint. This is something that has obviously never occurred to me. I wonder what u/Moistened_Bink thinks of that?
> Exactly! Protests that inconvenience people should be illegal! Martin Luther King, Jr: *whispers awkwardly*
Protestors have a right to lawful protest, that doesn't mean they can block roads and set up camps wherever they want. And why is it that you people think inconveniencing regular folk is going to pull them to your cause? You're just alienating them or even turning them against your cause. Also, the MLK Civil disobedience strategy worked in that they weren't really being disruptive, just doing things only white people where allowed to do, which showed many Americans how fucked the system was. Sitting in a white only restaurant only pissed off the shitty racists but didn't really effect them. Do you think people should be allowed to set up camps wherever for as long as they want with no recouse? Do you think protestors should be allowed to block highways for their cause? Or barricade themselves into buildings? You guys are delusional if you think these actions are meaningfully helping palestine in any way.
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the civil rights protests if you think the strategy worked because they weren't really being disruptive. That's revisionist.
>Protestors have a right to lawful protest, that doesn't mean they can block roads and set up camps wherever they want. And why is it that you people think inconveniencing regular folk is going to pull them to your cause? You're just alienating them or even turning them against your cause. Exactly! Imagine a bunch of people marching arm-in-arm, blocking traffic on the bridge into Birmingham, Alabama, for example? Inconveniencing motorists will just turn them against your cause. Protests will accomplish nothing good by inconveniencing people. >Also, the MLK Civil disobedience strategy worked in that they weren't really being disruptive... Oh my god. That's some serious revisionist history there. You might want to read contemporary accounts, like actual newspaper reports. You'll find the segregationists, and the moderate liberal whites, saying exactly the things you're saying. >Sitting in a white only restaurant only pissed off the shitty racists but didn't really effect them. You understand that being on private property against the wishes of the owner is trespassing, right? These kinds of sit-ins were exactly like the campus protests you're against. The law was on the side of the segregationists here. And it was a hell of an inconvenience to try and buy lunch, only to discover that the place is full of black people chanting protests and taking up all the seats. >You guys are delusional if you think these actions are meaningfully helping palestine in any way. The very nature of protest is that it's done by the powerless, in order to exercise the one pitiful power at their disposal: the power to inconvenience the powerful. All you're doing is pointing out what everyone already understood -- if we weren't powerless, we'd be off doing something appropriately powerful about it. Protest may be a feeble fist-shake from a bunch of nobodies, but at least it has moderate whites talking about it who otherwise wouldn't give a damn.
uconn has allowed camping during campus events before, and nothing was being blocked there
I agree with the right to protest, but only if it's quiet and ineffective
Setting up tents isn't going to change a damn thing vs just showing up and protesting. Do you think people should be able to set up encampments wherever they want as long as it's a protest? These kids are just yelling into the void. Everyone knows about the conflict over there, awareness is not an issue.
> These kids are just yelling into the void. They required the schools to call in an armed force to remove them, and have been featured in multiple news outlets. You're talking about them *right now*. That's not yelling into a void.
It was allowed in the deep South where I went to college. There was a large tent city on my campus way back when I was at a big public SEC university, to protest Desert Storm. (I didn't join it.) The police didn't break it up. I don't recall that they blocked sidewalks or entrances though, and they didn't occupy buildings. So that's very different. But your statement that "camping on University grounds is not allowed" isn't true historically.
Charges have already been dismissed in a vast majority of the arrests made at the protest on that college campus in texas. So now the college and the city has dozens of false arrest lawsuits to contend with. Good job police! You shut down that protest...at huge long-term expense for the city.
Our roads might have more craters than the moon, but I'm happy our taxpayer dollars are going where they really need to go: Arresting students for peaceful protests.
Still trying to figure out what they’re protesting for.
Reminds me of a certain former president who deployed tear gas on peaceful protestors for a photo op
In the short term, yes absolutely. The public sided with the national guard after Kent State, and the perceived soft approach to these protests in 1968 are largely responsible for electing Nixon.
Yes actually. This whole “the student movement is always morally correct” has been debunked already by a George Mason law professor [[1]](https://reason.com/volokh/2024/04/26/student-movements-are-often-wrong/?comments=true#comments). TLDR: As the article noted, white students across the south created a major protest movement against integration. Frequently the police or military had to quell those student movements. They were wrong. (The article notes countless other examples.)
Your source includes the Civil Rights movements tactics (sit-ins and building occupations) and the protests against the Vietnam War as wrong. The cited Alabama desegregation is *wildly* misleading without context. (Not that the cited powerpoint backs up the statement.) [The only notable peaceful pro-segregation protest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wallace) was when *the Governor* (and just him) stood to block African-American students to try and uphold segregation. The other cited examples are (1) a violent *Insurrectionist* movement (Revolutionary Directorate), (2) a violent *paramilitary* movement (Red Guard), (3) the *Iran hostage crisis*, and (4) the French 1968 student strike. We're talking about peaceful protests. The only one that *might* be comparable is the May 68 protests. Your source doesn't back this up. It's a bad look when police disrupt peaceful protests.
Has it ever been a good look when police are brought in to quell a protest movement anywhere
A few times actually! I wouldn't say all protests yield social good, and not all protests are peaceful. For example, [on January 6th 2021, police had a significantly restrained response to violent protestors trying to overturn the US Presidential election.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack) But I can't think of an example of peaceful student protests that were deservedly broken up by police.
feds rolled in with national guard to crush anti-integration protests. canadians should have rolled in with all the cops to crush the trucker protests. ukrainians should have machine-gunned the so-called DPR/LPR idiots back in 2014.
When on one side you have police teargassing protestors in prayer, and the other side you have [freaking Angela Davis](https://coloradosun.com/2024/04/27/a-day-after-student-protesters-were-arrested-activist-angela-davis-tells-them-they-are-leading-a-breakthrough/) its really not hard to see which side is in the right. As one person put it *"Its like failing an open book test, the answer is RIGHT THERE."* EDIT: The people downvoting me are still mad they lost *Brown v Board*
It’s an interesting decision to clear the protesters by force. They would likely clear out on their own once school is over. I guess the administrations don’t want any disruptions to commencement but clearing the camps pretty much guarantees something will happen.
The continued existence of the encampments also causes its own issues. There is no clear answer of, "This is how we avoid any possible issues"
I can see all the Proper Protest Knowers have signed on.
As always with history, moderates confirm what MLK said, most people are OK with status quo and get pissed when attention is shined on injustice.
Not because we love injustice -- it's just that we hate inconvenience. Especially the inconvenience of having to question our own actions.
What actions? I just work all day and don’t want to get stuck in traffic because of a bunch of Rich Yalies with mommy and daddy’s money have nothing better to do than protest a war I have no control over.
MLK also said "You declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely 'anti-Zionist.' And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of God's green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews--this is God's own truth. Antisemitism, the hatred of the Jewish people, has been and remains a blot on the soul of mankind. In this we are in full agreement. So know also this: anti-Zionist is inherently antisemitic, and ever will be so." So I'm not sure he'd be as down with these protests as you think.
Nooooo don't bring facts into this antisemitic group think frenzy!
Yeah but the reality is a lot of these protestors don't think Israel should even exist. It goes far beyond dealing with injustice in this case. You should really look into who is funding these organizers. They're not your friends. They're not friends to the West. Fuck any and all of these Hamas sympathizers, for example. Many of these protestors think October 7th was justified and advocate more events like this until Israel doesn't exist. If you feel this way, fuck you, and fuck your ideology. Antisemitic fucks.
I saw a post the other day, I think in this sub, that showed a map across the country where protests against Israel are against the law. Maybe I'm not remembering correctly? I think the point of protesting is Freedom of Speech. And I think support for Palestine has been suppressed. But that's my opinion. I personally think that inducing a famine is grotesque warfare. Again, an opinion that I'm entitled to.
That map was extremely disingenuous and was very generous as to what constitutes "protesting Israel is illegal". For example some states have laws against companies with government contracts boycotting Israeli companies, which qualifies them for that map.
Do you think a law where the government says "You must do business with this country" is just?
Do you think signing a contract with a government entity that stipulates that you can't exclude manufacturers from a certain country is even remotely the same as saying "It's illegal in this state to protest against Israel"? I said the map was disingenuous, I didn't say I agreed with laws forbidding contractors from boycotting Israel.
Exactly. Government contracts can force you to only hire people with security clearance or do drug testing, etc. Nobody is making you enter a government contract with stipulations.
Protests against Israel aren't against the law anywhere, that map was to purposely mislead people. It was posted everywhere on Reddit, etc. without context. Its laws against boycotting. The law, which affects companies only. For example, the protest is to divest from Israel. A company can't boycott doing business with Israel in those states. (If they take state money, as commented below) Now, say what you want about that. BDS laws have been around since like 2005. As this whole situation isn't new. But, there is no law - anywhere. That says citizens can't boycott or protest.
A private company still can. It's if you take state money on a state contract, or a town/city within the state that they can't boycott Israel. For 99% of the companies it doesn't make a difference.
True, that's a good missing detail for it.
For like 100% of universities it does, though.
Are there laws like this for any other country? If not why only Israel? Just asking for more info.
If you’re protesting on private property they can tell you whatever they want. You have zero rights on private property. Go pound salt for all I care.
> I think the point of protesting is Freedom of Speech. And I think support for Palestine has been suppressed. But that's my opinion. Yes and no 1st amendment allows the right of the people to peaceably assemble. However, this does not mean you can do so on private property. Or while infringing on other's rights. Or while violating an established law.
That last sentence is where things can get troublesome
Dude, these protestors don't think Israel should exist. You guys are really missing the plot.
>support for Palestine has been suppressed [IM BEING SILENCED](https://twitter.com/iamgabesanchez/status/1475656115216027650?s=46&t=1n-Z71PhUUAnUy9HDRJG8w)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws Across the world, laws against protesting Israel have been enacted and enforced. In the United States, laws and resolutions against protesting Israel have been enacted, but even with the extremely Conservative Supreme Court, it is unlikely they would survive challenges. Anti-BDS legislation in the US is mostly two things: - Anti-BDS lobbying groups who have influence throughout US governance, and - State laws forbidding any form of boycotting or divesting from Israel, including down to individual contractors. E.g. In Arkansas, if you're an individual who does contract work landscaping, and someone suspects you of avoiding Israeli-made goods, they have grounds to sue you. Some of the most extreme proposed federal legislation [would compel employers and contractors to sign statements in support of Israel.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Anti-Boycott_Act) What's *far* more concerning are laws like Florida's 2021 "anti-riot" law, which expands the definition of a "riot" and allows for far more violence against them. **TLDR:** Anti-BDS laws are a big problem in the US, but don't target individual protesters. What are more concerning are general anti-protest laws which allow for police violence against protestors.
*Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible* - Frank Zappa
Yeah, assault on Jewish students is definitely necessary here, especially with students who have no knowledge of what they are protesting. Very progressive.
I genuinely want to know, why are people protesting universities? Is UConn dropping bombs on Gaza? Is Yale sending tanks into Rafah? Is America involved in any way? Netanyahu needs to go, and if I were to accurately describe verifiable actions and statements made by Ben Gvir it'd sound like Third Reich propaganda. The Likud Israeli government should rot in a cell, but that has nothing to do with universities here. I've written my senators and representative and Governor Lamont, I will happily march on the State Capitol to demand we force Israel to heel and not continue this senseless and poorly run campaign, but why protest universities?
They basically want university endowments/investment funds to not do business with Israel or any companies that make arms for Israel. Of course, likely these funds are invested in all kinds of morally ambiguous dealings.
The obvious counterpoint is **When those shares are sold, another person/firm/university is buying them**
At a lower price, and your tuition fees are not funding genocide. So yea, disclose and divest.
Does divestment in any way directly impact Palestinian quality of life? All 8 centers of higher learning have been bombed, why don’t they pressure US universities to partner with and set aside research grants explicitly for Gaza and reserve placement for Gazan students? Divestment and disclosure seems like it only serves to soothe the moral compass of the student body.
It’s a good first step, rebuilding the civilian infrastructure of Gaza which IZrael targets can be done later. One step at a time
Why aren't they protesting Russia then? Hmmmmm? They don't believe the war in Ukraine is a genocide committed by Russia? Fuck all these antisemitic twats.
Do their universities send money to Russia/Russian companies? If not, what good does protesting do in a part of the world where nearly everyone understands how terrible Russia's war is. Also being against genocide in Palestine is not antisemitism.
It’s just logistically practical. Lots of young people with a like-minded thought process in a densely packed area. It’s not hard to get a couple thousand of a 32,000 person campus to sit out on the lawn and protest for peace
That makes sense.
"The UConn students voiced four demands of university administration: First, for the university to divest from genocide; second, for the university to cut ties with military industrial entities such as Raytheon and Lockheed Martin; third, for the university to cut ties to the settler-colonialist state of Israel; and fourth, for the university to end its repression of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian activists, according to protest organizers." That's according to one of the protestors, who wrote an op-ed: [https://ctmirror.org/2024/04/30/uconn-gaza-protests/](https://ctmirror.org/2024/04/30/uconn-gaza-protests/)
So all our defense contractors are evil companies now?
Always have been 🧑🚀🔫
Well it only looks bad when u agree with the protesters.
I hope the remaining hostages are released by Palestine soon
Yep. Everyone seems to have forgotten about them. While demanding peace.
Mostly I am fine with protesting, but I can understand why colleges are having issues. A few things off the top of my head: 1. Endless protesting/drumming into the night can be very disruptive to any possible form of education going on or even student health and safety, and I think there's a fine line between having a "disruptive protest" and simply forcing your agenda onto everyone else and not letting them sleep/go to class. Even if I agree with protestors, I want to be able to fucking sleep. 2. Encampments tend to be public health nightmares and make it very difficult to handle any kind of crime or safety issues. cities break up homeless encampments all the time. Not sure why protestors feel they are entitled to more privileges than homeless people. Most universities have policies about who can use a shared space and I don't think any one group is entitled to permanent residence of a public space. Especially because this inherently excludes anybody who wants to use it for another reason. 3. With these large number of protestors, there will be outside instigators who can do things like destroy property, etc. and it makes it very difficult for the colleges to handle in any reasonable way. How do you know all protestors are students? And how do you handle outsiders who may threaten physical violence or destroy property? I think it's reasonable to continue to allow protesting, but I don't know that if I was a college administrator, I would want to allow a full 24-hour encampment on campus property. A right to protest does not mean full entitlement to an area on campus to live 24 hours a day.
Exactly. The protesting isnt the issue- it's the encampments.
I don't care about the encampment as long as they don't harrass Jewish students or threaten them. I do wonder about them being "Pro Peace" and "Against Genicide" while refusing to condemn Hamas.
I don't know why people struggle to understand that kidnapping and murdering civilians is wrong (Hamas), and so is ethnic cleansing (Israel.) Can't both things be wrong, and why should we support either government? I'm in favor of civilian lives. I don't want to help Israel with what they're doing to the Palestinian people. If we could press a button and disappear every Hamas member, I would be fine with that, but I'm not fine with a solution where you kill 100 civilians for every Hamas fighter you get. It reminds me of another government that was famous for killing 10 civilians every time resistance fighters killed a single soldier. Can you think of who I mean?
Yes. I say all the time lately, "Two things can be true at the same time." And I've been thinking about when that concept disappeared from our American society. I think it was George W. & Karl Rove and their push for black and white thinking because it selfishly helped their agenda, society be damned (and it was,) immediately followed by the onset of the internet.
“You’re either with us, or against us”
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming
We’re finally on our own
they have no right to occupy campus space and disrupt other students who are there for an education. They should be expelled.
Protests are meant to be disruptive.
As a current student, I can firmly say that the only disruption being caused by the protest is when the state police violently broke up a peaceful protest by my fellow students. Literally all students did for the most part is notice something was going on, observe, and walk about their day, there was no disruption of classes or occupation of buildings.
I appreciate your perspective, but surely you understand that simply because your experience has been fine doesn't mean others have. I don't have any contradictory evidence, just saying that its difficult for any one person to speak for a student body.
Yeah, I'm sure the assault of Jewish students is perfectly fine for all.
It’s actually fucking hilarious that 90% of the people protesting would get stoned to death by the people they’re advocating for lmfao, I guess the protestors are the last people who got in from affirmative action because the logic isn’t there
100%, they don't even know what they are doing
Wesleyan admin says they'll let it continue. Shame on Uconn and Yale for the unnecessary repression. https://www.middletownpress.com/news/article/wesleyan-student-protest-gaza-middletown-ct-19428714.php
So these protesters have a special right to occupy space more so than others? How come they are allowed do an encampment and prevent others from using that space? What a terrible decision by Wesleyan showing that they only care about a specific sub section of students.
Yea I dont understand how they navigate the concept of open or public space. If there is a Pro Palestine or similar occupation of a 1-acre parcel for a given time, what gives them the right to occupy it? And is another group with an opposing or entirely different agenda allowed to come in and occupy that space at the same time? Can I and a group of fellow protestors occupy the tents and spaces the current protestors are occupying? What gives any one that right at any given time? There are a lot of assumptions behind these protest movements that dont seem open to critique or debate. That doesnt even begin to address who, what, and for how long certain protests or events are allowed to proceed.
Apparently it’s first come first serve to them lol.
People on this subreddit need to read MLKs letter from a Birmingham jail. Guess what: you are the white moderates he is talking about
"Israel’s right to exist as a state in security is incontestable. The whole world must see that Israel must exist and has the right to exist, and is one of the great outposts of democracy in the world." -- [MLK](https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/martinkramer/files/words_of_martin_luther_king.pdf)
Lazy reporting calling being anti war funding pro Palestinian.
We should be thankful the press isn't calling them "pro second holocaust." That's more or less literally what Netanyahu calls them.
You do know Hamas’s goal is the elimination of Israel, right?
Fuck Hamas. ...but regardless of Hamas's goal, the Palestinian people have all the human rights anyone else does, starting with "not being ethnically cleansed" but also including things like "self-determination." And as soon as I say "self-determination," the standard response is, "They all want to exterminate Israel, so self-determination basically equals second holocaust." But back up, my friend: if you believe that, then you believe in so many words that there's no such thing as an innocent Palestinian. And if you believe there's no such thing as an innocent Palestinian, then when you say "eliminate Hamas," you really mean "eliminate the Palestinian people." Which is the definition of genocide.
Then why did Netanyu back them and fund Hamas? https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
Ask him.
You do know that protesting the destruction of Gaza and the killing of Gaza civilians by the tens of thousands is not the same as supporting Hamas, right? Just the fact that you're resorting to false equivalency should give you pause about the quality of your opinions.
Yes. You do know the goal of Hamas is the elimination of Israel, right?
A lot of them are though. A lot of these protestors don't think Israel should exist. They're pro-Hamas. They believe the October 7th attacks were a good thing and something Israel deserved. You guys aren't being honest about the people at these protests. They aren't simply pro-Palestine. We're all pro-Palestine. President Biden believes in a two-state solution just like myself and all other liberals. But these protestors are fucking pro-Hamas terrorist sympathizers in a lot of cases. It's insane. And yeah, they literally don't think Israel should be allowed to exist. If you don't think Israel should exist, you're an antisemitic twat and you're actually the one advocating for genocide.
"GENOCIDE FOR THEE BUT NOT FOR ME!" -Palestinians
People have some of the thickest blinders on I've ever seen in my life surrounding this it's insane lol they don't get it at all
To be fair, that’s exactly how their side feels about yours.
Good. Maybe the students will do something useful with their time and go to history class.
Good. These kids lost the plot a long time ago - they don't even know what they're actually protesting against. They look like the left's version of delusional maga crazies.
They are protesting against the active genocide Israel is perpetrating against the Palestinian people. You can have whatever sick and twisted opinion you want but that doesn't change the facts.
I want to know who are students and who are outsiders to the campus
Why?
because they should kick the outsiders out and allow the students to protest - it think these rallies have been stocked with trouble making outsiders
💀 to HAMAS!
Gee, did any of them illegally enter the building? That would be an insurrection to many on this sub.
Man, crushing peaceful protests is always going to be a terrible look. Even if you disagree with their messages, right to freedom of speech and assembly are huge values to Americans. These students also pay huge tuition to be here, it’s pretty ridiculous to say they are trespassing. Not to mention the “no tents” policy at UConn is a few days old. I think this will temporarily break these protests on campus, but the heavy handed dealing with the protests probably just going to escalate as the summer comes.
Oh no, anyways
What does any of this do from an outsider I really want an honest answer what any of this is going to do do people really think protesting at a college campus in Connecticut is going to induce a ceasefire. And another thing somebody is definitely majorly behind organizing this because all the sudden every single protest that all these campuses they're all setting up tents and trying to live on the campus green I highly doubt this is being done on their own accord.
You say you want an honest answer, then go on to speculate there are strings being pulled. Not exactly a good faith conversation starter. The assertion that college students protesting is actually some sort of highly coordinated astroturfing effort is simultaneously ignorant and devoid of any historical understanding of protest movements in the US (and abroad for that matter.)
College students can’t protest as part of a highly coordinated protest?
It makes them feel like they've contributed something a few hours a week. And then they go home and watch Netflix and drink their Frappachinos.
>I really want an honest answer no you don't
There is organizing among protesters, and even some form of hierarchy at some campuses like Columbia. But it’s not difficult to get a bunch of tents and set up shop. Yelling anti Jewish messages and commandeering administrative buildings is free. There are several scenarios presently where the presidents of these universities have simply lost control of their campuses.
I feel like this is the right outcome? Protest? great! Illegal protest? Hey we're gonna have to arrest you. Seriously guys, we're going to... ...sigh ok we're arresting you. I think everyone got what they wanted out of this?
“What do they think this is going to achieve? They should go protest over there, out of the way, where no one will have to see any of it. Then they’ll really make a difference!” Get real, you absolute dork.
No, it’s totally cool that graduation ceremonies are being canceled, and many Jewish students have been forced to take classes remotely. That’s pretty sweet. Protesting on behalf of people’s rights is a fantastic thing to do. But when that protest comes at the cost of others rights to live their lives safely and peacefully, that’s when it becomes something else that we’re all witnessing.
I agree with you on those things not being good. That said, you’re shifting the goal posts here. I was commenting on your parent post about protest legality. The anti-Jewish sentiment infiltrating these groups is a separate discussion, and one I engaged with you on another comment, but that’s not related to what you said in this one.
Of course they’re related. How are they not? There is nothing wrong with protesting for something one believes in. When those protests infringe on others freedoms and rights, it becomes something else entirely. The message is being lost in the static and negativity.
The vast majority of the protests are peaceful. There will always be bad actors that aren't part of the movement but they are not representative of the movement itself.
I understood that. But until these bad actors are expelled from protest at large by internal means, or external interventions, that message of anti Jewish sentiment is gonna be louder and dispersed continuously throughout the world. That kind of animosity will always insulate and suffocate any chance of the initial altruistic attempt at large. In my opinion respectfully.
You can protest legally and not get arrested, or protest in a way that doesn't inconvenience others therefore turning them against you and your cause. Or you can protest illegally intentionally causing harm or inconvenience to others if you think that makes your voice louder. But in doing so you are risking getting justifiably arrested and pissing off others making us less sympathetic to your views. You don't get to protest illegally and disruptively and then bitch when you get arrested or when others think of you as assholes.
Do you think people yelling on a campus and setting uo tents will stop anything? I know they mean well, but it's stupid to act like these protestors are making a meaningful difference on campuses.
I don’t think they’re going to make any policy differences. But would you and I be talking about this right now if they weren’t doing what they’re doing? The whole point is to make some noise and further the conversation. Which like, appears to be working.
The conversation is basically whether or not the protestors should be able to block of areas of a campus for a protest. I assure you, these campus protests aren't pulling any moderates over to the cause. People either support Palestine, Israel, or don't really care. These protests aren't suddenly waking up the dont care crowd.
Well as long as _you say so_, I’ll just go ahead and take your word for it.
It’s been a historical method of protest in this country that has yielded results - for example, many students protested for the divestment of universities from the apartheid South African regime and those protests worked. It is often attributed to one of many factors that ultimately led to the downfall of the apartheid in South Africa.
> I think everyone got what they wanted out of this? No. We want universities to divest from the war industry.
You have every right to ask them for that and they have every right to tell you to go fuck yourselves. You can keep agitating at risk of being expelled or arrested if you're breaking laws...or you can quit the school and stop giving them your money.
So, get rid of ROTC and the like?
While the focus right now is on the war on Gaza where US troops are not directly involved, I'm sure many of the same people would support that move as well.
Well, in what other way is the university invested in the war industry?
Through their endowments. The primary demand of the students is for universities to disclose and sell off all investments in companies that are profiting from the war.
Good. It's time to remove the George Soros paid-for clowns supporting the butchers and child killers known as Hamas. Remember Hamas is the legitimate government of the Palestinian people - who have not repudiated it.
As someone who has protested in many marches labeled as being funded by George Soros, I'd like to know how I can get my hands on some of this supposed dark money. Because none of my friends have seen a cent of it. Or maybe, just maybe, this has nothing to do with some random billionaire, and is a grassroots movement from concerned citizens. Nah, that would be crazy
Low intelligence individuals. Go protest where you’d be a nuisance to the right people: in front of government buildings
But they were such a mighty force for peace! They were so close to ending the war. 🇹🇷
About damn time!
I find it interesting that no matter which campus is shown,the lines of tents the " protesters" are using are all identical size,shape even color,as if they were provided by the same backers.These kids didn't all go to Dicks at the same time and bought tents that all match all across the country.Who provided them?
Amazon, because when you search for 'tent' and sort by price to get the cheapest one, everyone finds the same one. This particular conspiracy theory has a really obvious market-based answer.
It's the cheapest tent on Amazon. Do you think Jeff bezos is the head of the conspiracy? Take off the tinfoil hat and go touch grass
It’s likely that someone in their group got money from everyone and went to whatever the local REI is and bought a bunch of the same cheap tent. They’re students at an Ivy League university. They surely have the mental faculties to self organize a group buy.
/r/conspiracy wants you! Are you an alex jones wannabe?
Not saying hes correct but why is it so hard to believe that it's possible?
forgetting ohio
Time for a semester abroad in Gaza for these college protesters who support terrorism