Adults, not students, are America’s problem
The role of grown-ups facing student unrest is to keep the peace without sacrificing rights. These include free speech and physical safety. The task requires principled consistency. In practice, adults from all walks — Republicans, Democrats, the media and university administrations — are exhibiting traits of hysteria and dogmatism they deplore in the young. It should come as no surprise that the protests are getting angrier.
Students have every right to protest even with speech that many of their peers find abhorrent. One person’s outrage over the killing of thousands of civilians in Gaza might be another’s call for the elimination of Jews from Israel. Some of the demonstrators consciously subscribe to a Hamas worldview that would wipe Israel off the map. At what point does anti-Zionism become antisemitism? The line is blurry. But most people — except those in charge apparently — can tell the difference between lawful protest and calls to violence.
This is like the most correct thing I have ever read.
“Queers for Palestine” is an admission of ignorance about Hamas’s homophobic (and all-purpose phobic) ideology.
This piece makes the distinction that I made in the last post last night, between support for Palestine (NOT!) and support for the students' right to free speech (YES!)
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But the chief driver of these protests is humanitarian. It would be far more worrying if the young were indifferent to the deaths of thousands of children, some of them at the hands of US-supplied munitions. ...
The panic of many university administrations, including Columbia’s, has needlessly fanned the flames. Columbia’s initial decision last week to call in the New York police to eject the protesters was misguided. As the NYPD made clear, the students were non-violent. But they could be forgiven for being confused. ...
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...Those calling the loudest for protesters to be removed and even locked up are on the right. They include Donald Trump. Until yesterday, conservatives were the harshest critics of...the lack of free speech on campus. Now they want to stamp it out. Hypocrisy is too mild a word to capture such a switch. Many of the same politicians are calling for the January 6 felons to be pardoned for having tried to overthrow an election.
What message does all this send to America’s young, regardless of where they stand on Israel? Confusion would be a natural result. A resolve to do better could be another. The remedy is to think calmly about how so many adults could have gone so badly astray.
