It has come to my attention that Iran’s supreme ruler Ayatollah Khamenei has written an open letter to American college students commending their anti-war, pro-Palestine protests. The gall of the man…trying to score points with his virtue signaling. Modern day #Iran is the WORST kind of #Theocracy - run by pious, self-righteous ultra conservative mullahs. The fact the state has a “morality police” tells you all you need to know. This is the country that murders young girls for not having their hair properly covered, after beating them. The country that sentences rappers to death for speaking truth to power. What a sorry state the once great #Persia has become. Thanks to Yashar Ali for alerting me to this matter. I highly recommend his newsletter. #protests#Gaza#GazaProtests
"In addition to producing calls for law and order, this panic serves to reinforce the dominant ideology in manifold ways. Most people, aware of the horrors of antisemitism, rightly dread contributing to anti-Jewish racism. If told they risk perpetuating antisemitism, they may opt out of engaging with the Palestinian cause altogether..."
"The strikers are demanding amnesty for grad students and other academic workers who were arrested or face discipline for their involvement in the protests, which union leaders say were peaceful except when counter-demonstrators and other instigators were allowed to provoke unrest"
This is a very good piece by a colleague accusing university presidents of lying, in their own narrow self-interest, about what's happening on campuses. Their craven behavior barely protects them and makes everyone else far less safe. Including Muslim and Jewish students, faculty, and staff.
This professor, who is Jewish, was suspended for posing a threat to Jewish students, AKA participating in a protest (where he was violently arrested). Now he's in a kind of limbo.
Aftermath of #Petrocultures2024 last week: colleagues are now sending emails urging the Academic Senate to take up the matter of #policing on campus. Because there was a SERIOUS police presence/perimeter. A number of attendees dropped out in protest of that alone... & I don't blame them one bit
I think it's gonna take a lot more than eloquent letters... And unf I don't think we should plan any more conferences for police state campuses, ever again
A variety of pretty interesting thoughts in this Peter Beinart podcast (I skimmed transcript):
"among Jewish students who were involved in pro-#Palestine organizing, it is awakening a kind of much greater interest that they had in what it means to be Jewish"
"the more powerful they grow, the more the repression we will see... the US government at state & federal level will start to punish these universities even more severely"
"A handful of powerful businessmen pushed New York City Mayor Eric Adams to use police to crack down on pro-Palestinian student protesters at #Columbia University, donating to the politician and offering to pay for private investigators to help break up the demonstrations, based on leaked WhatsApp conversations"
Every time there’s a student protest movement the argument against them is always the same, that they couldn’t possibly know their own minds. The young are always looked down upon and underestimated. They go to college to be educated yet simultaneously don’t have the capacity to educate themselves, a narrative that breaks down under scrutiny. #GazaProtests#Gaza#Palestine#StopGenocide#EndTheOccupation#FreePalestine
John Timoney, the former police chief who became infamous for developing the fascistic “Miami Model” of crowd control, was once quoted saying, “you can beat the rap but you can’t beat the ride.” IOW, arrests don’t have to be lawful or stand up to judicial scrutiny to accomplish their purpose.
Many responses to this focus on Trump promising much worse but it just strikes me as incoherent.
Yes, #Biden made a small, late contribution to the moral panic but the crackdowns are coming from college administrators buckling under pressure from GOP demagogues in Congress and are carried out by local cops. #gazaprotests
TFW you cancel the Muslim valedictorian, cancel academic tradition, & shambolically pivot to hold hold a militaristic pep rally in a 2/3rds-empty sports stadium instead. No irony is too great when suppressing student protest of a war supported by the United States
“The administrators keep leaning on ‘safety’ without consulting or sharing their thinking with the Senate or wider faculty,” she said. “We do not necessarily doubt that there were safety concerns, but some question whether this series of decisions to call [#LAPD on nonviolent protesters] harmed & endangered members of campus community while also sending a message to anyone threatening the campus that those threats work.”
What I don't think you'll see in any news story is that my #USC colleagues have been occupying the halls of the administration building for two days now, trying to get disciplinary sanctions of students dropped. They've been met with stonewalling.
It's really awesome that faculty are going to the mat for students & really heartbreaking it's not moving the needle.
Admin censure is so much less than the campus community deserves & also so much less than is visible from inside.
I’m impressed by the intellectual flexibility that’s required to believe that college kids are both afflicted with extreme wokeness and are also prone to rabid expressions of #antisemitism.
These things can only be reconciled by claiming that calls for divestment or a ceasefire are inherently antisemitic. Which is common but nonsensical.
Really highlights how pathetic those college presidents were for getting caught completely flat-footed in the face of the GOP’s entirely predictable demagoguery.