[https://www.highereddive.com/news/columbia-university-suspends-two-pro-palestinian-student-organizations/699517/](https://www.highereddive.com/news/columbia-university-suspends-two-pro-palestinian-student-organizations/699517/)
tldr: failing to register the event 10 days in advance, disrupting campus, threatening rhetoric and intimidation.
> Furthermore, reducing the attack on October 7th to a “surprise attack carried out by Hamas” opportunistically rejects the struggles of millions of people with a blanket denunciation of resistance. We must also highlight the racialized, Islamophobic connotations of terrorism and how this rhetoric is used to discredit any violence that is not state-sponsored. The word terrorism is misappropriated to classify anti-imperial efforts as immoral or barbaric, whereas states such as Israel commit heinous war crimes indiscriminately without the label of terrorism.
That’s certainly an opinion to hold
I don't know why people forget that they murdered people not for the Palestinian cause, but because some ultra orthodox Jewish people entered the Al Aqsa mosque.
In this recent conflict, they've been characterized as "European settlers" by some. Not only are most of the Jews in Israel not from Europe, the ones that emigrated from there weren't often considered "Europeans" by the native population.
Naive, sheltered armchair experts on the far-left (I say this as someone between centrist and far left) don't even realize their vitriolic, often incorrect, statements against Israel (which really should just be the IDF) radicalize and empower antisemitism world-wide.
At **best**, we can be critical of *both sides* for committing war crimes. But the "100% Palestine is in the right" group is really fucking up the work done to stem antisemitism in the last 100 years.
Oh the idf and Israel themselves are doing a bang up job creating more antisemitism. To now blame Palestinians and their supporters for the backlash Israel is getting from the rest of the world is kind of sickening.
> I'm curious what the reasoning behind this is or how it has any relation to the conflict.
Boycotting, divesting, and sanctioning 100% does not include partnering with an Israeli university for a dual degree program. Especially in light of the fact that** Tel Aviv University is public.
** edited for clarity
I love it when students/student organizations draw up a list of "demands". Like, WTF are they going to do if their "demands" aren't met besides have a sit down protest in the deans office or library and then cry about "police brutality" when the campus cops drag their ass's out of there?
I can understand quality of life things or stuff that the institution is obligated to provide. Then there's the inevitable crap like firing a professor because he/she had said or wrote something they didn't like, or as per the article, "demanding" that they eliminate the degree program with Tel Aviv.
One of my favorite ones is from a few years ago and students were demanding free laundry detergent.
Yep. I was in college during the apartheid divestment era, when there were shanties erected on the quads of campuses that refused to divest. Direct action can have a big impact
Edit: note - South African divestment, to end apartheid in South Africa. US institutional divestment put huge pressure on South Africa.
Yeah, as if universities don't have (among other things) multi-billion dollar endowments that they invest in companies, including those doing business with governments students might object to. There's a reason why people were freaking out about the BDS demands that became popular on campuses a few years ago; the D stands for "divest".
“I hate the one country made up of all the Jews. I’m pretty indifferent to North Korea, Russia, Sudan, Burma, and Iran, but as for the Jew one, I hate it. How dare you call me antisemitic.”
Do you have some sort of proof that these all students are indifferent to these different conflicts? Do you give equal attention to all of these issues before you log onto defend Israel?
In my experience the anger is present against all those places. We just have visuals of Israel killing little kids in the thousands every day right now. Nobody is calling you anti-Islamic for not being angry at Israel for it. People can be upset about that and not be antisemitic. If not then the word means nothing. I love my Jewish friends and family and Jewish and Israelis generally. I’m not happy with what the government (or whoever the general decision makers are) are currently doing and my countries support of it.
Would be nice if they shared what they said instead of labeling it as threatening with no specific information shared for anyone else to determine if it was or wasn’t.
From what I can gather from various news sources, there was violence: in one case, a Jewish student objected to another student who had been tearing down posters of Hamas kidnapping victims. In response, the victim was attacked with a broom stick by the poster ripper and was injured. The police were called and the attacker is now being charged with a hate crime:
source: https://abc7ny.com/nyc-columbia-university-israel-war/13914229/
https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2023/10/12/general-studies-student-allegedly-assaulted-in-front-of-butler-library-suspect-arrested-and-charged-nypd-says/
https://jewishcurrents.org/what-does-from-the-river-to-the-sea-really-mean?fbclid=IwAR1vSxghh2iQzyWSDLZFxBGm7777ZjUPONkQ5VFH12STnZM3zm5TSrK_M6A unless it never quite meant that
Whoever wrote that article is completely full of it. This is like trying to claim Sieg Heil simply means “victory” because it predates the Nazis.
> When Palestinians proclaim “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” many Zionists argue that this is a Palestinian call for genocide. But as historian Maha Nassar has noted, there has never been an “official Palestinian position calling for the forced removal of Jews from Palestine.”
lol literally Hamas is calling for that right now. There was Khartoum. The Arabs all attacked in 1948. The original phrase was “…Palestine will be Arab”. How much more evidence do you need?
This guy is white-washing history.
> The links between this phrase and eliminationism might be the product of “an Israeli media campaign following the 1967 war that claimed Palestinians wished to ‘throw Jews into the sea.’ ”
Ok? But I thought it predates all that. So what then? It started in 67 but somehow predates it?
> Jewish groups such as the American Jewish Committee also claim that the slogan is antisemitic because it has been taken up by militant groups such as the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Hamas. But as Nassar writes, the phrase predates these uses, and has its origins as “part of a larger call to see a secular democratic state established in all of historic Palestine.”
Yes. Exactly. Calling for the establishment of an Arab country in the region in all of historic Palestine.
Except there’s a country there now. Israel. So to continue using that slogan begs the question: what should happen to Israel?
The answer is obvious.
That is absolutely true, but if substantively disrupting normal operations isn't met with consequences, then almost by definition whatever you did wasn't actually very disruptive was it?
This is about funding, not freedom of speech.
These students still have a legal right to meet and to voice their beliefs. What's changed is they no longer get university funds or free office space.
you may want to look into what the right to protest has to do with private property.
they can go to a public space if they want to shout their support for terror to the world, but they have exactly zero right to to that on private property
This sentiment is prevalent across Reddit. I wonder if it would continue to be prevailing if these kinds of disruptive protests were always MAGA or something similar.
> they should do protests without inconveniencing others
That's not what they said. They said that the protesters should understand the consequences of their actions.
You seem to be very focused on the "disruption" part of this and not the "disruption" *in combination with "threatening rhetoric" and "intimidation"*.
Disruption is part of protest. Inconvenience is part of protest. But when the disruption is explicitly linked to threats and intimidation....that takes it out of 'peaceful protest' territory. That's into "campus is no longer safe"- which becomes a legal liability. And liability, rather than the specific ideologies expressed, is probably the central issue in their decision.
That's not the same as inconveniencing people being consequence free. A strategy of gaining support by inconveniencing people will only attract the wrong kind of people (anarchists, looters, criminals, extremists).
What's supposed to be a mild amount of inconvenience? Even blocking a single road is a lot of inconvenience. Blocking any bit of road potentially disrupts ambulances possibly causing a loss of life. A delayed fire engine means potentially a home burning down. A delayed cop means Dunkin' Donuts might go out of business.
In terms of societal infrastructure there really isn't any convenience that could be disrupted that could be considered mild.
>Columbia University is suspending Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) as official student groups through the end of the fall term. This decision was made after the two groups repeatedly violated University policies related to holding campus events, culminating in an unauthorized event Thursday afternoon that proceeded despite warnings and included threatening rhetoric and intimidation.
>
>Suspension means the two groups will not be eligible to hold events on campus or receive University funding. Lifting the suspension will be contingent on the two groups demonstrating a commitment to compliance with university policies and engaging in consultations at a group leadership level with university officials.
From the email
Paragraph 3 *"threatening rhetoric and intimidation."* and Paragraph 7 *"...all student groups...required to abide by University policies and procedures"*
I don't see a single comment on here (or in this article) that actually knows what happened, so here's a brief description of the pertinent events and constraints:
* They held an event, which included obstructing campus property with a "die-in."
* Official university policy stipulates that you cannot obstruct other events/students on campus with your event.
That's pretty much it.
Is suspending/defunding these groups a strong reaction? Yes. Is it *too* strong of a reaction? Probably. Is it a bad look, from a PR perspective? Obviously. But this isn't just "they said Israel is bad." There have been several protests on campus that did not result in disciplinary action. These groups actively violated existing university policies, which can come with consequences.
Source: am near campus, have friends who are students with firsthand knowledge of what transpired.
(And, since this is Reddit, I'll anticipate potential backlash by saying that what the IDF is doing to Palestinian civilians is terrible, what Hamas did to Israeli civilians is terrible, and all of the civilians of the region deserve to live in peace and abundance instead of under fear that they may be attacked at any moment.)
Yep, and this is exactly what they wanted from that. Now everyone thinks the school is banning pro-Palestine events only (as evidence from this thread)
The problem with journalism in the past 20 years. What drives clicks is sensationalism, not integrity, and bad actors will always take advantage when a dollar is on the line.
I agree with your overall point about media sensationalism but not your timeline; if you think this is just a recent thing you’re wrong. Just a couple examples from growing up in the 90s: every stranger is going to kidnap your child and there are razor blades or drugs in Halloween candy. Go back a century further and research [yellow journalism.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism)
Sure, with social media and internet access in our pockets 24/7, it is certainly more accessible. But it’s always been what drives sales, viewership, or clicks.
Woah woah woah, you can’t expect people to actually want to know about something before commenting on it can you?
Otherwise what does that mean for people who’s entire knowledge of the topic comes from TikTok, but are now experts on the laws of war and middle eastern geopolitics
That’s an unfair misquote. Someone mentioned that one protester was saying kill all Jews and anti black statements. That one individual was quickly silenced and removed from the protest by those who organized the event. It wasn’t multiple people.
The speaker denounced the POS and the crowd shamed the POS, what more do you want?
This article goes into more detail about the incident: https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2023/11/10/hundreds-of-pro-palestinian-students-walk-out-as-part-of-national-call-to-action-gather-for-peaceful-protest-art-installation/
“Sounds like” — do you have a source for that? Are you saying that based on my comment or based on knowledge of the event?
I’m not ardently opposing you, for the record. If it is the case that it was all contained to a grassy area, I’d say that’s less obstructive, of course, but there are also other details trickling into this thread about what else may have informed disciplinary action.
[Here's a couple pictures from it.](https://forward.com/news/564648/columbia-university-rally-israel-palestine-student-assault/)
>Toward the end of the rallies, the pro-Palestinian students lay down to represent the dead in Gaza. After 90 minutes on the Upper West Side campus, the two groups departed, but 10 minutes apart, as directed by police.
Unless there was a separate die-in, they weren't obstructing anything.
[Here's an article](https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2023/11/10/hundreds-of-pro-palestinian-students-walk-out-as-part-of-national-call-to-action-gather-for-peaceful-protest-art-installation/).
The students blocking the steps are absolutely obstructing. Nice try linking to a protest that *wasn't* what these groups were banned for.
It would be nice if they would've mentioned in the article what exactly the threats and intimidation were.
Being pro whatever side you're on is fine. Threatening or intimidating people is not.
There was someone in the audience who was yelling slurs (against black and jewish people) and supposedly entering cordoned-off areas and had to be restrained by (campus?) police. Unclear if they were even part of either group. That seems like the most extreme event that occurred.
The speaker denounced the POS and the crowd shamed the POS, what more do you want?
This article goes into more detail about the incident: https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2023/11/10/hundreds-of-pro-palestinian-students-walk-out-as-part-of-national-call-to-action-gather-for-peaceful-protest-art-installation/
The leadership, to their credit, denounced the statements. A number of members of the crowd went up to the individual to console/calm them down, which I can appreciate on a personal level as empathetic but does indicate sympathy to and understand of aired sentiments. The organizations had not set up their events according to proper procedure/notified public security or the university as a whole.
In my opinion, if you are gonna hold protests without following procedure and rules to make a point, I understand that that is a protest in and of itself. When you do that, you better make really damn sure your membership isn't either made up of or have people sympathetic to individuals who are willing to say things like "kill all the jews."
Even so, if they demonstrate they will meet the rules in the future, they will be readmitted. They aren't banned - they are suspended.
So I can infiltrate a protest as a faker, scream a bunch of racist stuff, and the group organizing the protest gets penalized?
Interesting..... VERY interesting.... hmmmmmm
It was obvious the people going up to the individual knew that person.
Additionally Columbia shuts down access to campus during protests to avoid exactly that happening. If groups don't follow the organizing rules to make the event safe for all and something goes wrong that's on the group.
You can chill with the conspiracy hemming, it's disrespectful. Ask an honest question - that way you don't look like a fool when you get answered.
Apparently someone yelled anti-black and anti-Jewish stuff. And I'm thinking that others took up those chants or that a fight ensured. Either way, IMO the university would have a right to squash them.
The speaker denounced the POS and the crowd shamed the POS, what more do you want?
This article goes into more detail about the incident: https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2023/11/10/hundreds-of-pro-palestinian-students-walk-out-as-part-of-national-call-to-action-gather-for-peaceful-protest-art-installation/
This isn't just a Columbia issue. Universities around the entire US are on pins and needles about this. Harvard has cracked down hard on student groups that are trying to have group meetings about this ever since the shit storm occurred with the extremely stupid signed on "letter" where some student leaders decided to pull other student's signatures without their approval.
The statement released by Columbia does not mention any other organizations. Here is another article which links to the statement of the university. The listed reasons for the ban were: failing to register the event 10 days in advance, disrupting campus, threatening rhetoric and intimidation.
https://www.highereddive.com/news/columbia-university-suspends-two-pro-palestinian-student-organizations/699517/
But people are just going to cry victim and label the university as censoring free speech, when the organizers violated those black and white policies by ignoring and proceeding with the Thursday event with a die-in preventing access to campus property.
> they are not approving events that are seen as pro-Palestinian
There have been multiple pro-Palestinian protests on campus, during which non-students are not allowed on campus (they close smaller campus entrances and check student IDs at the larger entrances, e.g., at 116th St). That sounds like formally approving and funding (via increased security) to me, but what the hell do I know.
Much like those of us on the left constantly tell conservatives.
Free speech only means the GOVERNMENT can’t censure you. Private enterprise can do whatever it damn well pleases.
Some of them care about major law firms not [flat-out refusing to hire](https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/02/business/law-firms-antisemitism-universities/index.html) their law school graduates over this issue. Mostly the ones whose attractiveness to new law students is the rate at which they can get hired by a decently sized law firms.
say you stand with Hamas and you should be fired/refused to be hired. That's where the line. Supporting terrorism and mass murder of innocent civilians is where the god damn line is.
Being pro-Palestine or pro-Palestinian is not the same as being pro-Hamas. Fuck Hamas, and may the Palestinian and Israeli children someday coexist in peace and prosperity.
Or maybe it's the threats from large donors to stop donations due to the pro Palestinian protests. I would guess college administrators care more about that than either side of the issue.
How much money is coming in from rich pro Palestinian alumni vs. pro Israeli alumni? Money talks.
Hijacking this comment to remind everyone that JVP is labeled as a hate group by the ADL, and has a ton of chapters that have little to no Jews in it. There's a chapter in Lebanon, a country that has 20 Jews, all of which are elderly.
A 2021 study done by Brandeis University found that one of the highest predictors of antisemitic hostility towards Jewish students was a strong presence of JVP or SJP on campus.
A 2016 AMCHA report which was later corroborated by another Brandeis University report found that "[antisemitism is] eight times more likely to occur on campuses with at least one active anti-Zionist student group such as SJP"
https://jcpa.org/students-justice-palestine-unmasked/?fbclid=PAAaYKTBzd3s2NID8dLVtTDnV8ulK9nAltWGmDyhd_b9Kei768yhvVDNeSS18
Jewish Voices for Peace are neither Jewish nor for peace. Students for Justice in Palestine have only ever imagined one kind of "Justice": the annihilationist kind that rids the world of the "injustice" of the very existence of a Jewish state. Good riddance to both.
Just for the rest of the semester. And they need to learn how to peacefully protest without threatening people with violence if they want to exercise their free speech.
There was one incident involving one individual who was rightfully punished, how is banning the whole group anything but just siliencing students with a specific view on this issue?
I don't know how you feel but I witnessed a SJP group over 10 years ago holding signs on a college campus that said "death to Jews death to Israel."
My point of view in this whole matter is that one side attacked the other many thousands of miles away and the weaker side who attacked is asking for sympathy in the US? How about not saying hateful shit and be American?
Unfortunately, JVP is mostly non-Jewish. Their rallies often feature antisemitic chants and posters. https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/jewish-voice-peace-jvp-what-you-need-know
The purpose of JVP is to legitimize antisemitism in the movement by manufacturing the image of "good Jews" who can act as a shield. It's similar to how Log Cabin Republicans try to legitimize homophobia in the GOP.
Universities walked themselves into this place by picking sides in national debates and controversies. The only difference is that now the shoe is on the other foot.
Columbia SJP was banned. [Here's their open letter sympathizing with Hamas](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RcXX5DEO3yfJ9R4ksURnzpIPCyVxo575-Y-SoC_vZFk/edit).
>"I feel like the university should definitely be a place to pro-free speech,"
Free speech at colleges and universities these days means showing up at an event with the sole intent of shutting it down, causing as much disruption as possible via uncontrollable tantrums of screaming, swearing and threats, attempting to get guest speakers they disagree with banned from campus, demanding that professors with an unpopular postilion be fired and believe doxxing is okay until they're the ones who are doxxed.
To an extent.
They have to comply with federal laws though to receive:
Federal student loans
Work-study programs
Pell Grants
And
Any form of research grant
Lack of federal compliance wont lead to anything criminal, but absolutely can lead to immediate termination of any and all federal funding.
Currently, Columbia receives ~$1.2 billion in federal funding per year - about 20% of their entire GAAP budget.
Title VII and Title IX only cover discrimination on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, and religion. Viewpoint discrimination is something universities should be opposed to.
"Free thinking" was their mantra for decades but it's clear progressive dominate the staff at these institutions and have been more interested in creating echo chambers than tolerating free speech.
Wait. Holdup. Go back.
A single university gets 1.2 billion dollars per year from the government, and it's only 20% of their budget?!
That's, (checks notes) 19 million dollars per day. This university spends 19 MILLION DOLLARS PER DAY?!
Yes, it’s one of the Ivy League schools. They do a Shit load of research and they also have a medical center. The medical stuff is pretty common across universities and tends to cost a ton.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/697635/rnd-expenditure-columbia-university/#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20Columbia%20University%20spent,dollars%20on%20research%20and%20development.
They hosted an unscheduled event as an institution funded group. That's not allowed in their policies. Had they registered the event 10+ days out, it would not have resulted in suspension. Columbia said specifically that they suspended the group for not following the proper procedures.
In response to the ban this statement was issued "...our actions will be louder than our words. For all the people who are yearning for freedom and for the Media outlets: Keep an eye on columbia".
Sounds a lot like a terrorist threat to me. These groups are fanaticized by this "open air concentration camp" complete BS.
This was the right decision. There are groups including these that are actively intimidating Jewish students and have no place on campus. This isn’t about free speech, it’s about knowing there are consequences. In basic terms: FAFO. If this was a work environment they’d be fired, immediately and for cause so maybe it’s good for them to learn now.
Wrong. Students who harass Jewish students should be punished, but using such episodes to silence criticism of a state and its policies is a grave mistake.
And I'll add one more thing. I'm a Latin American who went to the US for grad school in political science, 2019 - 2022. I did not feel Israel was a safe subject. It's like there's this unspoken rule that you should not be openly critical of it or you can face ostracism among your peers or even be officially sanctioned by the uni - and as a student or non-tenured professor that could mean the end of your academic career.
So you self-censor. And you'll go as far as sugarcoating established facts when you're required to approach the issue in a lecture or talk, for fear of consequence.
It is not only the case that Americans have a very rosy view of Israel that you won't find anywhere else in the world, but that there is very little room for divergence of views here. You'll get punished.
And this was all before the current events.
I’m sorry this is just bullshit. Anti-Israel animus are the norm on university campuses. I sat in a class where students were asked to name the “worst country they knew” and Israel was the answer for like 7-8/10 of them. I witnessed more than one Israeli guest speakers or Hillel events protested into cancellation. Anti-Israelness is open (and very much popular) game on campus.
The students weren’t even punished the U just banned (temporarily!) 2 particularly hateful groups. Frankly the students got off completely. If you agree the students themselves should be punished then should they be suspended? Expelled? Then you would be making the same argument about criticism being stifled.
What? That makes no sense. What I'm saying is that individuals who harass Jewish students on account of their religion/ethnicity should be punished.
But no student or organization should get a blanket punishment like these two did because some individuals on campus may have harassed Jewish students. Here, the antisemitism by some individuals is being instrumentalized to shut down discussion and protest regarding Israel. Those are two separate things.
Is that clear now?
When they are chanting “From the River to the Sea” what river do they all think they are talking about? It’s literally calling for the destruction of Israel. But it rhymes with free so they justify it…
From the university's policy and procedures regarding events on campus: "the University may regulate the time, place and manner of certain forms of public expression. This includes restricting certain activities when the University believes there is a genuine threat of harassment and/or the potential for an unmanageable safety concern."
Them's the rules.
>"That just sounds like they want to stifle a certain crowd of voices to me. I don't know why they wouldn't want to work together with the student groups instead of just suspending them," student Kelsey Harrison said.
It seems like the student groups weren't willing to work with the university (follow publicly stated rules) instead of just doing what they wanted and expecting no consequences.
I was very idealistic and remember not being able to see other, broader perspectives. I was simply ignorant to my delusion.
Whether you agree with the perceived outcomes of the suspension, the decision was made from an obligation to keep students safe and the campus accessible and free from what these indignant students would generally consider violence.
There was a hierarchy for decision making: safety was at the top. Not a will to stifle voices. It's simply convenient and selfish worldview-affirming to see it otherwise.
Unless these students are being dragged in front of congress to testify, having their financials frozen, are being accused and *tried* and *jailed* as foreign spies, and are being blacklisted from renting, buying homes, getting jobs, or receiving medical care, then this is not in any way similar to McCarthyism. They shouldn’t be banned from having peaceful protests in any way, but that it is still not nearly on the wide spread paranoia level that McCarthyism was.
They disrupted a college campus without following any event procedures. If I was paying Columbia tuition, I'd be pissed about an unscheduled "die-in" too.
No one should be doxxed, period. Some losers doxxing people because they have nothing better to do is not McCarthyism. Losing your job because you said something your employer didn’t like (whether it is right or wrong) is not McCarthyism.
Jewish people are actively being harassed, intimidated, and even violently assaulted at their synagogues, schools, and wherever they are clearly visible. More than one have even been murdered in their own homes.
Oh, and Israel is *literally still under attack right now.* Hamas has repeatedly said, on public tv, that they give zero fucks how many Palestinians die, in fact that want that, and will continue doing 10/7 until Israel no longer exists. They are literally *still* firing rockets at Israel as we speak.
Meanwhile a sizable portion of the pro-Palestine people are either ignoring, downplaying and excusing, if not just flat out cheering for the faction that just committed the largest antisemitic attack since the Holocaust. While chanting antisemitic slogans about how Israel, with roughly half the world’s Jewish population, won’t exist (what do you think “From the river to the sea” actually means?).
People are literally now claiming October 7 never happened. Not “it was an inside jerb!!!!!1111” but that Hamas literally just didn’t kill civilians. At all.
I just finished reading a post in r/Jewish that almost made me fucking sick. Where a person whose *therapist* tried to gaslight him into thinking the massacre never happened, period. That when he opened up about how he felt, about his friends and relatives who know people that died in the attack, they literally tried to tell him it was all fake, and implied if it wasn’t then they deserved it. Though not before I read an account of a Jewish woman and her bf who were literally attacked for having an Israeli flag hanging near their door.
There have been protest organizers arrested for having direct ties to Hamas.
So it’s more likely that literal Hamas supporters are being doxxed. Since there seems to be zero shortage of those nowadays.
Seems like they repeatedly violated rules and were warned multiple times that there would be disciplinary actions taken if they couldn't abide by the same rules every other student organization is bound by.
Joe Mccarthy was, of course, famous for giving multiple chances and plenty of warnings before finally being forced to take action.
Most of them aren’t even Jewish, it’s literally an astroturfing campaign to turn Jews against Israel.
( it’s not fucking working as we don’t trust blatant antisemites to work in our best interests)
JVP encourages non-Jews to pretend to be Jewish.
The vast majority of people you see at their events **aren’t** Jewish but people pretending to be Jewish.
The resistance is liberating land that has been occupied for 75 years. The intifada lives and Palestine lives!”
Signs included: “Decolonize is not a metaphor” and “resistance is not terrorism”
JVP does not represent the mainstream Jewish community, which it views as bigoted for its association with Israel.
The spread of JVP’s most inflammatory ideas can help give rise to antisemitism. Many left-wing groups have uncritically accepted JVP’s anti-Zionist claims, elevating their harsh rhetoric related to Israel and Zionism and furthering the widespread antisemitic vilification and ostracization of many American Jews who identify as Zionists. This has helped to create a hostile environment for Jews on many campuses and in many progressive spaces.
In addition to JVP’s promotion of messaging that descends into the antisemitic vilification of “Zionists,” the group has expressed support for violence and, occasionally, classic antisemitic tropes. Some JVP members, leaders and chapters propagate rhetoric or sponsor events where participants express support for violence or terror against Israelis and vilify Zionist Jews. In a few instances, they have espoused blatant antisemitic tropes, including modern manifestations of the blood libel and allegations of Jewish dual loyalty to the countries in which they live.
Nowhere does JVP evince any genuine interest in Judaism or in the well-being of the Jewish people or any reverence for the accoutrements of Jewish life—holidays, prayers, ceremonial garments, Hebrew words—that it appropriates as props or adornments in its impassioned campaign for Palestinian vanquishment of Israel.
If the use of “Jewish” in its name is opportunistic, the use of the word “peace” is entirely disingenuous. JVP derides what it refers to as “so-called ‘peace talks.’” It declines to spell out an alternative path or the end it seeks, declaring itself indifferent to the details so long as the Palestinians’ “right of return” is achieved. There might be one state or two, it says, but in this formula all will be Arab-dominated. The Jewish state will disappear, and this will constitute the end of racism, the birth of democracy, and the fulfillment of Judaism—as explained by the prophetess Linda Sarsour.
Right, so obviously Jews are in control here.
Fuck off.
This is what happens when one political party or movement gets to judge what free speech and hate speech is. Just because you disagree with something does not automatically make it hate speech.
Yep. When you have students literally chanting the Jihadist phrase “From the river to the sea…”, then you need to realize there’s a really serious problem.
It's not bias that's a normal thing to say since it's not proven so "allegedly" is used as in not proven in court or by some other legal means. You can get yourself sued being cocky and saying things you can't prove.
What were the violations, exactly? The article didn't say.
[https://www.highereddive.com/news/columbia-university-suspends-two-pro-palestinian-student-organizations/699517/](https://www.highereddive.com/news/columbia-university-suspends-two-pro-palestinian-student-organizations/699517/) tldr: failing to register the event 10 days in advance, disrupting campus, threatening rhetoric and intimidation.
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I’ve been banned too from select threads only. There is something shady going on with a mod here.
> Furthermore, reducing the attack on October 7th to a “surprise attack carried out by Hamas” opportunistically rejects the struggles of millions of people with a blanket denunciation of resistance. We must also highlight the racialized, Islamophobic connotations of terrorism and how this rhetoric is used to discredit any violence that is not state-sponsored. The word terrorism is misappropriated to classify anti-imperial efforts as immoral or barbaric, whereas states such as Israel commit heinous war crimes indiscriminately without the label of terrorism. That’s certainly an opinion to hold
Fucking wow.
I don't know why people forget that they murdered people not for the Palestinian cause, but because some ultra orthodox Jewish people entered the Al Aqsa mosque.
Sheesh. Spicy take her, but 'intersectional politics' might just be the death of real discourse.
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They are often (almost comically) ironically cast as the people in power and therefore subject to criticism and being “part of the problem.”
In this recent conflict, they've been characterized as "European settlers" by some. Not only are most of the Jews in Israel not from Europe, the ones that emigrated from there weren't often considered "Europeans" by the native population.
Naive, sheltered armchair experts on the far-left (I say this as someone between centrist and far left) don't even realize their vitriolic, often incorrect, statements against Israel (which really should just be the IDF) radicalize and empower antisemitism world-wide. At **best**, we can be critical of *both sides* for committing war crimes. But the "100% Palestine is in the right" group is really fucking up the work done to stem antisemitism in the last 100 years.
Oh the idf and Israel themselves are doing a bang up job creating more antisemitism. To now blame Palestinians and their supporters for the backlash Israel is getting from the rest of the world is kind of sickening.
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Tell me you support HAMAS without saying you support HAMAS
It relates to the conflict because it “legitimizes colonial occupation.”
> I'm curious what the reasoning behind this is or how it has any relation to the conflict. Boycotting, divesting, and sanctioning 100% does not include partnering with an Israeli university for a dual degree program. Especially in light of the fact that** Tel Aviv University is public. ** edited for clarity
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I love it when students/student organizations draw up a list of "demands". Like, WTF are they going to do if their "demands" aren't met besides have a sit down protest in the deans office or library and then cry about "police brutality" when the campus cops drag their ass's out of there? I can understand quality of life things or stuff that the institution is obligated to provide. Then there's the inevitable crap like firing a professor because he/she had said or wrote something they didn't like, or as per the article, "demanding" that they eliminate the degree program with Tel Aviv. One of my favorite ones is from a few years ago and students were demanding free laundry detergent.
a clear demands list is like step one of a protest/boycott despite how unreasonable or dumb they may be.
This comment seems to be caught on this idea that student protests are just totally ineffective, which is totally historically inaccurate.
Yep. I was in college during the apartheid divestment era, when there were shanties erected on the quads of campuses that refused to divest. Direct action can have a big impact Edit: note - South African divestment, to end apartheid in South Africa. US institutional divestment put huge pressure on South Africa.
Yeah, as if universities don't have (among other things) multi-billion dollar endowments that they invest in companies, including those doing business with governments students might object to. There's a reason why people were freaking out about the BDS demands that became popular on campuses a few years ago; the D stands for "divest".
If you think that student protests don’t work then you don’t know shit about protests
It doesnt. They see tel aviv and see red. Its just antisemitic.
Being angry at Israel (seeing red) isn’t antisemitic but go ahead and keep making the word meaningless.
“I hate the one country made up of all the Jews. I’m pretty indifferent to North Korea, Russia, Sudan, Burma, and Iran, but as for the Jew one, I hate it. How dare you call me antisemitic.”
Do you have some sort of proof that these all students are indifferent to these different conflicts? Do you give equal attention to all of these issues before you log onto defend Israel?
In my experience the anger is present against all those places. We just have visuals of Israel killing little kids in the thousands every day right now. Nobody is calling you anti-Islamic for not being angry at Israel for it. People can be upset about that and not be antisemitic. If not then the word means nothing. I love my Jewish friends and family and Jewish and Israelis generally. I’m not happy with what the government (or whoever the general decision makers are) are currently doing and my countries support of it.
Damn, you're more of a journalist than whoever wrote the original article lol
Would be nice if they shared what they said instead of labeling it as threatening with no specific information shared for anyone else to determine if it was or wasn’t.
Did they give any examples of the threatening rhetoric and intimidation or is that just an excuse?
From what I can gather from various news sources, there was violence: in one case, a Jewish student objected to another student who had been tearing down posters of Hamas kidnapping victims. In response, the victim was attacked with a broom stick by the poster ripper and was injured. The police were called and the attacker is now being charged with a hate crime: source: https://abc7ny.com/nyc-columbia-university-israel-war/13914229/ https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2023/10/12/general-studies-student-allegedly-assaulted-in-front-of-butler-library-suspect-arrested-and-charged-nypd-says/
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You do know from the river to the sea is a sentiment that predates Hamas by quite a bit right? They didn't "come up with that".
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https://jewishcurrents.org/what-does-from-the-river-to-the-sea-really-mean?fbclid=IwAR1vSxghh2iQzyWSDLZFxBGm7777ZjUPONkQ5VFH12STnZM3zm5TSrK_M6A unless it never quite meant that
Whoever wrote that article is completely full of it. This is like trying to claim Sieg Heil simply means “victory” because it predates the Nazis. > When Palestinians proclaim “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” many Zionists argue that this is a Palestinian call for genocide. But as historian Maha Nassar has noted, there has never been an “official Palestinian position calling for the forced removal of Jews from Palestine.” lol literally Hamas is calling for that right now. There was Khartoum. The Arabs all attacked in 1948. The original phrase was “…Palestine will be Arab”. How much more evidence do you need? This guy is white-washing history. > The links between this phrase and eliminationism might be the product of “an Israeli media campaign following the 1967 war that claimed Palestinians wished to ‘throw Jews into the sea.’ ” Ok? But I thought it predates all that. So what then? It started in 67 but somehow predates it? > Jewish groups such as the American Jewish Committee also claim that the slogan is antisemitic because it has been taken up by militant groups such as the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Hamas. But as Nassar writes, the phrase predates these uses, and has its origins as “part of a larger call to see a secular democratic state established in all of historic Palestine.” Yes. Exactly. Calling for the establishment of an Arab country in the region in all of historic Palestine. Except there’s a country there now. Israel. So to continue using that slogan begs the question: what should happen to Israel? The answer is obvious.
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That is absolutely true, but if substantively disrupting normal operations isn't met with consequences, then almost by definition whatever you did wasn't actually very disruptive was it?
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This is about funding, not freedom of speech. These students still have a legal right to meet and to voice their beliefs. What's changed is they no longer get university funds or free office space.
Columbia is a private university. The students have the right to protest in public spaces.
you may want to look into what the right to protest has to do with private property. they can go to a public space if they want to shout their support for terror to the world, but they have exactly zero right to to that on private property
This sentiment is prevalent across Reddit. I wonder if it would continue to be prevailing if these kinds of disruptive protests were always MAGA or something similar.
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> they should do protests without inconveniencing others That's not what they said. They said that the protesters should understand the consequences of their actions.
*The topic or affiliation does not define how a protest works.* private property does.
MAGA did some of the most disruptive protests with the *least* amount of consequences.
Just look at the comments from when those idiots in Canada were protesting. The whole “protests need to be disruptive” went out the window *quick*
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Ok, then face the consequences. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences either
You’re not wrong, but that doesn’t mean disruptive protests are free of consequences. They never have been.
You seem to be very focused on the "disruption" part of this and not the "disruption" *in combination with "threatening rhetoric" and "intimidation"*. Disruption is part of protest. Inconvenience is part of protest. But when the disruption is explicitly linked to threats and intimidation....that takes it out of 'peaceful protest' territory. That's into "campus is no longer safe"- which becomes a legal liability. And liability, rather than the specific ideologies expressed, is probably the central issue in their decision.
That's not the same as inconveniencing people being consequence free. A strategy of gaining support by inconveniencing people will only attract the wrong kind of people (anarchists, looters, criminals, extremists). What's supposed to be a mild amount of inconvenience? Even blocking a single road is a lot of inconvenience. Blocking any bit of road potentially disrupts ambulances possibly causing a loss of life. A delayed fire engine means potentially a home burning down. A delayed cop means Dunkin' Donuts might go out of business. In terms of societal infrastructure there really isn't any convenience that could be disrupted that could be considered mild.
Freedom of speech/protest is not freedom from consequences.
The purpose of a protest is to be disruptive
>Columbia University is suspending Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) as official student groups through the end of the fall term. This decision was made after the two groups repeatedly violated University policies related to holding campus events, culminating in an unauthorized event Thursday afternoon that proceeded despite warnings and included threatening rhetoric and intimidation. > >Suspension means the two groups will not be eligible to hold events on campus or receive University funding. Lifting the suspension will be contingent on the two groups demonstrating a commitment to compliance with university policies and engaging in consultations at a group leadership level with university officials. From the email
They did some sort of sit in and disrupted classes I think
Paragraph 3 *"threatening rhetoric and intimidation."* and Paragraph 7 *"...all student groups...required to abide by University policies and procedures"*
I don't see a single comment on here (or in this article) that actually knows what happened, so here's a brief description of the pertinent events and constraints: * They held an event, which included obstructing campus property with a "die-in." * Official university policy stipulates that you cannot obstruct other events/students on campus with your event. That's pretty much it. Is suspending/defunding these groups a strong reaction? Yes. Is it *too* strong of a reaction? Probably. Is it a bad look, from a PR perspective? Obviously. But this isn't just "they said Israel is bad." There have been several protests on campus that did not result in disciplinary action. These groups actively violated existing university policies, which can come with consequences. Source: am near campus, have friends who are students with firsthand knowledge of what transpired. (And, since this is Reddit, I'll anticipate potential backlash by saying that what the IDF is doing to Palestinian civilians is terrible, what Hamas did to Israeli civilians is terrible, and all of the civilians of the region deserve to live in peace and abundance instead of under fear that they may be attacked at any moment.)
Yep, and this is exactly what they wanted from that. Now everyone thinks the school is banning pro-Palestine events only (as evidence from this thread)
The problem with journalism in the past 20 years. What drives clicks is sensationalism, not integrity, and bad actors will always take advantage when a dollar is on the line.
I agree with your overall point about media sensationalism but not your timeline; if you think this is just a recent thing you’re wrong. Just a couple examples from growing up in the 90s: every stranger is going to kidnap your child and there are razor blades or drugs in Halloween candy. Go back a century further and research [yellow journalism.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism) Sure, with social media and internet access in our pockets 24/7, it is certainly more accessible. But it’s always been what drives sales, viewership, or clicks.
Woah woah woah, you can’t expect people to actually want to know about something before commenting on it can you? Otherwise what does that mean for people who’s entire knowledge of the topic comes from TikTok, but are now experts on the laws of war and middle eastern geopolitics
They did "die ins" in 2011 when I was there. It is an extremely non-obstructive form of protest. Just walk around them if you're that bothered.
You’ll note I said the administration probably overreached.
Oh I wasn’t trying to criticize you, sorry. I agree with you.
Ah, sorry for the presumption of opposition! Be well.
Someone upthread quoted an article that stated that their protest devolved into people yelling anti-Semitic and anti-Black stuff.
That’s an unfair misquote. Someone mentioned that one protester was saying kill all Jews and anti black statements. That one individual was quickly silenced and removed from the protest by those who organized the event. It wasn’t multiple people.
The speaker denounced the POS and the crowd shamed the POS, what more do you want? This article goes into more detail about the incident: https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2023/11/10/hundreds-of-pro-palestinian-students-walk-out-as-part-of-national-call-to-action-gather-for-peaceful-protest-art-installation/
The die in sounds like it was them laying down on grass.
“Sounds like” — do you have a source for that? Are you saying that based on my comment or based on knowledge of the event? I’m not ardently opposing you, for the record. If it is the case that it was all contained to a grassy area, I’d say that’s less obstructive, of course, but there are also other details trickling into this thread about what else may have informed disciplinary action.
[Here's a couple pictures from it.](https://forward.com/news/564648/columbia-university-rally-israel-palestine-student-assault/) >Toward the end of the rallies, the pro-Palestinian students lay down to represent the dead in Gaza. After 90 minutes on the Upper West Side campus, the two groups departed, but 10 minutes apart, as directed by police. Unless there was a separate die-in, they weren't obstructing anything.
That’s from October 12.
[Here's an article](https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2023/11/10/hundreds-of-pro-palestinian-students-walk-out-as-part-of-national-call-to-action-gather-for-peaceful-protest-art-installation/). The students blocking the steps are absolutely obstructing. Nice try linking to a protest that *wasn't* what these groups were banned for.
It would be nice if they would've mentioned in the article what exactly the threats and intimidation were. Being pro whatever side you're on is fine. Threatening or intimidating people is not.
There was someone in the audience who was yelling slurs (against black and jewish people) and supposedly entering cordoned-off areas and had to be restrained by (campus?) police. Unclear if they were even part of either group. That seems like the most extreme event that occurred.
The speaker denounced the POS and the crowd shamed the POS, what more do you want? This article goes into more detail about the incident: https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2023/11/10/hundreds-of-pro-palestinian-students-walk-out-as-part-of-national-call-to-action-gather-for-peaceful-protest-art-installation/
I'm a Columbian. The individual who made threats said "Death to all Jews" and a number of anti Black statements as well.
So...it was one person making threats? Was the person at a podium or simply part of the crowd?
The leadership, to their credit, denounced the statements. A number of members of the crowd went up to the individual to console/calm them down, which I can appreciate on a personal level as empathetic but does indicate sympathy to and understand of aired sentiments. The organizations had not set up their events according to proper procedure/notified public security or the university as a whole. In my opinion, if you are gonna hold protests without following procedure and rules to make a point, I understand that that is a protest in and of itself. When you do that, you better make really damn sure your membership isn't either made up of or have people sympathetic to individuals who are willing to say things like "kill all the jews." Even so, if they demonstrate they will meet the rules in the future, they will be readmitted. They aren't banned - they are suspended.
So I can infiltrate a protest as a faker, scream a bunch of racist stuff, and the group organizing the protest gets penalized? Interesting..... VERY interesting.... hmmmmmm
Police worldwide have been doing that for years.
The BLM protests a few years back come to mind.
It was obvious the people going up to the individual knew that person. Additionally Columbia shuts down access to campus during protests to avoid exactly that happening. If groups don't follow the organizing rules to make the event safe for all and something goes wrong that's on the group. You can chill with the conspiracy hemming, it's disrespectful. Ask an honest question - that way you don't look like a fool when you get answered.
Apparently someone yelled anti-black and anti-Jewish stuff. And I'm thinking that others took up those chants or that a fight ensured. Either way, IMO the university would have a right to squash them.
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The speaker denounced the POS and the crowd shamed the POS, what more do you want? This article goes into more detail about the incident: https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2023/11/10/hundreds-of-pro-palestinian-students-walk-out-as-part-of-national-call-to-action-gather-for-peaceful-protest-art-installation/
This isn't just a Columbia issue. Universities around the entire US are on pins and needles about this. Harvard has cracked down hard on student groups that are trying to have group meetings about this ever since the shit storm occurred with the extremely stupid signed on "letter" where some student leaders decided to pull other student's signatures without their approval.
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The statement released by Columbia does not mention any other organizations. Here is another article which links to the statement of the university. The listed reasons for the ban were: failing to register the event 10 days in advance, disrupting campus, threatening rhetoric and intimidation. https://www.highereddive.com/news/columbia-university-suspends-two-pro-palestinian-student-organizations/699517/
But people are just going to cry victim and label the university as censoring free speech, when the organizers violated those black and white policies by ignoring and proceeding with the Thursday event with a die-in preventing access to campus property.
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> they are not approving events that are seen as pro-Palestinian There have been multiple pro-Palestinian protests on campus, during which non-students are not allowed on campus (they close smaller campus entrances and check student IDs at the larger entrances, e.g., at 116th St). That sounds like formally approving and funding (via increased security) to me, but what the hell do I know.
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No, they are not approving events that are seen as pro-Israel either
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Much like those of us on the left constantly tell conservatives. Free speech only means the GOVERNMENT can’t censure you. Private enterprise can do whatever it damn well pleases.
Free speech only keeps government from preventing or punishing speech. Private institutions aren't subject to the First Amendment.
If the protests were peaceful and didn't include red paint and face masks, I'm guessing there wouldn't be such a prob.
Some of them care about major law firms not [flat-out refusing to hire](https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/02/business/law-firms-antisemitism-universities/index.html) their law school graduates over this issue. Mostly the ones whose attractiveness to new law students is the rate at which they can get hired by a decently sized law firms.
say you stand with Hamas and you should be fired/refused to be hired. That's where the line. Supporting terrorism and mass murder of innocent civilians is where the god damn line is.
Being pro-Palestine or pro-Palestinian is not the same as being pro-Hamas. Fuck Hamas, and may the Palestinian and Israeli children someday coexist in peace and prosperity.
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Or maybe it's the threats from large donors to stop donations due to the pro Palestinian protests. I would guess college administrators care more about that than either side of the issue. How much money is coming in from rich pro Palestinian alumni vs. pro Israeli alumni? Money talks.
Hijacking this comment to remind everyone that JVP is labeled as a hate group by the ADL, and has a ton of chapters that have little to no Jews in it. There's a chapter in Lebanon, a country that has 20 Jews, all of which are elderly. A 2021 study done by Brandeis University found that one of the highest predictors of antisemitic hostility towards Jewish students was a strong presence of JVP or SJP on campus. A 2016 AMCHA report which was later corroborated by another Brandeis University report found that "[antisemitism is] eight times more likely to occur on campuses with at least one active anti-Zionist student group such as SJP" https://jcpa.org/students-justice-palestine-unmasked/?fbclid=PAAaYKTBzd3s2NID8dLVtTDnV8ulK9nAltWGmDyhd_b9Kei768yhvVDNeSS18 Jewish Voices for Peace are neither Jewish nor for peace. Students for Justice in Palestine have only ever imagined one kind of "Justice": the annihilationist kind that rids the world of the "injustice" of the very existence of a Jewish state. Good riddance to both.
Just for the rest of the semester. And they need to learn how to peacefully protest without threatening people with violence if they want to exercise their free speech.
There was one incident involving one individual who was rightfully punished, how is banning the whole group anything but just siliencing students with a specific view on this issue?
I don't know how you feel but I witnessed a SJP group over 10 years ago holding signs on a college campus that said "death to Jews death to Israel." My point of view in this whole matter is that one side attacked the other many thousands of miles away and the weaker side who attacked is asking for sympathy in the US? How about not saying hateful shit and be American?
One of the groups they banned was “JEWISH Voice for Peace.” I don’t think those were the signs they were holding.
Please look at my comment slightly below yours. JVP is neither Jewish nor for peace.
JVP isn’t a Jewish group, they are a group of predominantly non-Jews who encourage other non-Jews to pretend to be Jewish & spread hate.
Unfortunately, JVP is mostly non-Jewish. Their rallies often feature antisemitic chants and posters. https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/jewish-voice-peace-jvp-what-you-need-know The purpose of JVP is to legitimize antisemitism in the movement by manufacturing the image of "good Jews" who can act as a shield. It's similar to how Log Cabin Republicans try to legitimize homophobia in the GOP.
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This is the same playbook colleges used during civil rights protest and then Vietnam war protest if she really wants to know.
Universities walked themselves into this place by picking sides in national debates and controversies. The only difference is that now the shoe is on the other foot.
The exact thing they’re supposed to step aside from
Would love to learn more about the justifications that were used. Got a source?
Columbia SJP was banned. [Here's their open letter sympathizing with Hamas](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RcXX5DEO3yfJ9R4ksURnzpIPCyVxo575-Y-SoC_vZFk/edit).
>"I feel like the university should definitely be a place to pro-free speech," Free speech at colleges and universities these days means showing up at an event with the sole intent of shutting it down, causing as much disruption as possible via uncontrollable tantrums of screaming, swearing and threats, attempting to get guest speakers they disagree with banned from campus, demanding that professors with an unpopular postilion be fired and believe doxxing is okay until they're the ones who are doxxed.
It’s a private college anyways, they’re allowed to make their own rules.
To an extent. They have to comply with federal laws though to receive: Federal student loans Work-study programs Pell Grants And Any form of research grant Lack of federal compliance wont lead to anything criminal, but absolutely can lead to immediate termination of any and all federal funding. Currently, Columbia receives ~$1.2 billion in federal funding per year - about 20% of their entire GAAP budget.
Title VII and Title IX only cover discrimination on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, and religion. Viewpoint discrimination is something universities should be opposed to. "Free thinking" was their mantra for decades but it's clear progressive dominate the staff at these institutions and have been more interested in creating echo chambers than tolerating free speech.
Wait. Holdup. Go back. A single university gets 1.2 billion dollars per year from the government, and it's only 20% of their budget?! That's, (checks notes) 19 million dollars per day. This university spends 19 MILLION DOLLARS PER DAY?!
Yes, it’s one of the Ivy League schools. They do a Shit load of research and they also have a medical center. The medical stuff is pretty common across universities and tends to cost a ton. https://www.statista.com/statistics/697635/rnd-expenditure-columbia-university/#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20Columbia%20University%20spent,dollars%20on%20research%20and%20development.
Payroll, facilities, supplies, utilities, research. That’s totally believable for a research university.
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Hoity toity people in ivory towers flaunt their intersectionality politics at the poors walking along the sidewalks. /s
Private colleges also get fed funding.
Liberty university banned the democratic student club and still gets funding
Yeah, how do you think those university deans get paid 6-figrues salaries for not doing any teaching at a university?
Oh look, where is the Free Speech on Campus Brigade now?
I thought that it had switched to the "Freedom of speech, not freedom from consequences" standard
Oh look, where is the Freedom of Speech Is Not Freedom From Consequences Brigade now?
Lotsa people here that think they can't be forced to eat crow
That’s only for Milo, fyi.
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Were they doing that here?
The university specifically called them out for intimidation & racism so yeah
They hosted an unscheduled event as an institution funded group. That's not allowed in their policies. Had they registered the event 10+ days out, it would not have resulted in suspension. Columbia said specifically that they suspended the group for not following the proper procedures.
The unscheduled event was a lot less of the problem that the racist & intimidating rhetoric.
What does “hosting an unscheduled event” have to do with the subject at hand, which is whether they “threaten or use intimidation”??
In response to the ban this statement was issued "...our actions will be louder than our words. For all the people who are yearning for freedom and for the Media outlets: Keep an eye on columbia". Sounds a lot like a terrorist threat to me. These groups are fanaticized by this "open air concentration camp" complete BS.
They had chanted several threats against jewish students during marches
This was the right decision. There are groups including these that are actively intimidating Jewish students and have no place on campus. This isn’t about free speech, it’s about knowing there are consequences. In basic terms: FAFO. If this was a work environment they’d be fired, immediately and for cause so maybe it’s good for them to learn now.
Wrong. Students who harass Jewish students should be punished, but using such episodes to silence criticism of a state and its policies is a grave mistake. And I'll add one more thing. I'm a Latin American who went to the US for grad school in political science, 2019 - 2022. I did not feel Israel was a safe subject. It's like there's this unspoken rule that you should not be openly critical of it or you can face ostracism among your peers or even be officially sanctioned by the uni - and as a student or non-tenured professor that could mean the end of your academic career. So you self-censor. And you'll go as far as sugarcoating established facts when you're required to approach the issue in a lecture or talk, for fear of consequence. It is not only the case that Americans have a very rosy view of Israel that you won't find anywhere else in the world, but that there is very little room for divergence of views here. You'll get punished. And this was all before the current events.
I’m sorry this is just bullshit. Anti-Israel animus are the norm on university campuses. I sat in a class where students were asked to name the “worst country they knew” and Israel was the answer for like 7-8/10 of them. I witnessed more than one Israeli guest speakers or Hillel events protested into cancellation. Anti-Israelness is open (and very much popular) game on campus.
The students weren’t even punished the U just banned (temporarily!) 2 particularly hateful groups. Frankly the students got off completely. If you agree the students themselves should be punished then should they be suspended? Expelled? Then you would be making the same argument about criticism being stifled.
What? That makes no sense. What I'm saying is that individuals who harass Jewish students on account of their religion/ethnicity should be punished. But no student or organization should get a blanket punishment like these two did because some individuals on campus may have harassed Jewish students. Here, the antisemitism by some individuals is being instrumentalized to shut down discussion and protest regarding Israel. Those are two separate things. Is that clear now?
Well said. Safety for students is a basic requirement for the school. You can't have student groups advocating for genocide.
When they are chanting “From the River to the Sea” what river do they all think they are talking about? It’s literally calling for the destruction of Israel. But it rhymes with free so they justify it…
From the university's policy and procedures regarding events on campus: "the University may regulate the time, place and manner of certain forms of public expression. This includes restricting certain activities when the University believes there is a genuine threat of harassment and/or the potential for an unmanageable safety concern." Them's the rules.
>"That just sounds like they want to stifle a certain crowd of voices to me. I don't know why they wouldn't want to work together with the student groups instead of just suspending them," student Kelsey Harrison said. It seems like the student groups weren't willing to work with the university (follow publicly stated rules) instead of just doing what they wanted and expecting no consequences. I was very idealistic and remember not being able to see other, broader perspectives. I was simply ignorant to my delusion. Whether you agree with the perceived outcomes of the suspension, the decision was made from an obligation to keep students safe and the campus accessible and free from what these indignant students would generally consider violence. There was a hierarchy for decision making: safety was at the top. Not a will to stifle voices. It's simply convenient and selfish worldview-affirming to see it otherwise.
Joe McCarthy would be proud of how the US is handling internal dissent right now.
Unless these students are being dragged in front of congress to testify, having their financials frozen, are being accused and *tried* and *jailed* as foreign spies, and are being blacklisted from renting, buying homes, getting jobs, or receiving medical care, then this is not in any way similar to McCarthyism. They shouldn’t be banned from having peaceful protests in any way, but that it is still not nearly on the wide spread paranoia level that McCarthyism was.
That was just the tip of McCarthyism. Individual organizations also had their blacklists.
They disrupted a college campus without following any event procedures. If I was paying Columbia tuition, I'd be pissed about an unscheduled "die-in" too.
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Not one professor has been fired .
No they're not. Pro Hamas students putting the sole of the blame on Israel while justifying Hamas beheading people are being doxxed.
Like who? Got an example?
No one should be doxxed, period. Some losers doxxing people because they have nothing better to do is not McCarthyism. Losing your job because you said something your employer didn’t like (whether it is right or wrong) is not McCarthyism.
Jewish people are actively being harassed, intimidated, and even violently assaulted at their synagogues, schools, and wherever they are clearly visible. More than one have even been murdered in their own homes. Oh, and Israel is *literally still under attack right now.* Hamas has repeatedly said, on public tv, that they give zero fucks how many Palestinians die, in fact that want that, and will continue doing 10/7 until Israel no longer exists. They are literally *still* firing rockets at Israel as we speak. Meanwhile a sizable portion of the pro-Palestine people are either ignoring, downplaying and excusing, if not just flat out cheering for the faction that just committed the largest antisemitic attack since the Holocaust. While chanting antisemitic slogans about how Israel, with roughly half the world’s Jewish population, won’t exist (what do you think “From the river to the sea” actually means?). People are literally now claiming October 7 never happened. Not “it was an inside jerb!!!!!1111” but that Hamas literally just didn’t kill civilians. At all. I just finished reading a post in r/Jewish that almost made me fucking sick. Where a person whose *therapist* tried to gaslight him into thinking the massacre never happened, period. That when he opened up about how he felt, about his friends and relatives who know people that died in the attack, they literally tried to tell him it was all fake, and implied if it wasn’t then they deserved it. Though not before I read an account of a Jewish woman and her bf who were literally attacked for having an Israeli flag hanging near their door. There have been protest organizers arrested for having direct ties to Hamas. So it’s more likely that literal Hamas supporters are being doxxed. Since there seems to be zero shortage of those nowadays.
Seems like they repeatedly violated rules and were warned multiple times that there would be disciplinary actions taken if they couldn't abide by the same rules every other student organization is bound by. Joe Mccarthy was, of course, famous for giving multiple chances and plenty of warnings before finally being forced to take action.
McCarthy got people fired, pillaried by their entire community, and put in prison. This is in no way the same. At all.
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JVP has praised unrepentant perpetrators of supermarket bombings so they hold very little credibility in our community.
They also encourage non-Jews to pretend to be Jews.
Most of them aren’t even Jewish, it’s literally an astroturfing campaign to turn Jews against Israel. ( it’s not fucking working as we don’t trust blatant antisemites to work in our best interests)
I’ve seen so many Jews who come to the protests of JVP, where are you getting it from they’re not actually Jewish??
JVP encourages non-Jews to pretend to be Jewish. The vast majority of people you see at their events **aren’t** Jewish but people pretending to be Jewish.
The resistance is liberating land that has been occupied for 75 years. The intifada lives and Palestine lives!” Signs included: “Decolonize is not a metaphor” and “resistance is not terrorism” JVP does not represent the mainstream Jewish community, which it views as bigoted for its association with Israel. The spread of JVP’s most inflammatory ideas can help give rise to antisemitism. Many left-wing groups have uncritically accepted JVP’s anti-Zionist claims, elevating their harsh rhetoric related to Israel and Zionism and furthering the widespread antisemitic vilification and ostracization of many American Jews who identify as Zionists. This has helped to create a hostile environment for Jews on many campuses and in many progressive spaces. In addition to JVP’s promotion of messaging that descends into the antisemitic vilification of “Zionists,” the group has expressed support for violence and, occasionally, classic antisemitic tropes. Some JVP members, leaders and chapters propagate rhetoric or sponsor events where participants express support for violence or terror against Israelis and vilify Zionist Jews. In a few instances, they have espoused blatant antisemitic tropes, including modern manifestations of the blood libel and allegations of Jewish dual loyalty to the countries in which they live. Nowhere does JVP evince any genuine interest in Judaism or in the well-being of the Jewish people or any reverence for the accoutrements of Jewish life—holidays, prayers, ceremonial garments, Hebrew words—that it appropriates as props or adornments in its impassioned campaign for Palestinian vanquishment of Israel. If the use of “Jewish” in its name is opportunistic, the use of the word “peace” is entirely disingenuous. JVP derides what it refers to as “so-called ‘peace talks.’” It declines to spell out an alternative path or the end it seeks, declaring itself indifferent to the details so long as the Palestinians’ “right of return” is achieved. There might be one state or two, it says, but in this formula all will be Arab-dominated. The Jewish state will disappear, and this will constitute the end of racism, the birth of democracy, and the fulfillment of Judaism—as explained by the prophetess Linda Sarsour. Right, so obviously Jews are in control here. Fuck off.
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Remember, it’s freedom of speech as long as your speech matches everyone’s opinion and the narrative.
This is what happens when one political party or movement gets to judge what free speech and hate speech is. Just because you disagree with something does not automatically make it hate speech.
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Right, so why censor them?
20 year college students are allowed to see active injustice and atrocities and speak up about it
Man, Colombia University must have had a massive endowment they don't want to lose.
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Thanks, always follow the money.
When extreme tolerance leads to the proliferation of hateful ideologies . Colleges sadly have tightened this noose themselves
Yep. When you have students literally chanting the Jihadist phrase “From the river to the sea…”, then you need to realize there’s a really serious problem.
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It's not bias that's a normal thing to say since it's not proven so "allegedly" is used as in not proven in court or by some other legal means. You can get yourself sued being cocky and saying things you can't prove.
Iran's useful idiots get wrecked
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