Maryam Alwan figured the worst was over after New York City police in riot gear arrested her and other protesters on the Columbia University campus, loaded them onto buses and held them in custody for hours.
But the next evening, the college junior received an email from the university. Alwan and other students were being suspended after their arrests at the “ Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” a tactic colleges across the country have deployed to calm growing campus protests against the Israel-Hamas war.
The students’ plight has become a central part of protests, with students and a growing number of faculty demanding their amnesty. At issue is whether universities and law enforcement will clear the charges and withhold other consequences, or whether the suspensions and legal records will follow students into their adult lives.
Do we not have the right to protest? I fail to understand on what grounds they’re being arrested.
Do we not have the right to protest?
No. Be sure to vote for Democrats to keep the fascism
awayin power.Trespassing. You have the right to assembly, but that doesn’t extend to anywhere, any time.
These protestors could protest on the sidewalk, or get a permit and do a planned protest in a public park, or even work with the city to close roads for a planned march. As long as they kept it peaceful, police would have very little justification to arrest anyone.
Instead, they are doing it on college campuses, or public roads without permission. And when they are told to leave, they refuse. At that point, you are trespassing, and the police are justified in arresting you.
Civil disobedience grabs far more attention than protesting legally. We’re here talking about their cause because it made headlines due to civil disobedience. But activism has its costs.
Is it tresspassing, though? Not trying to argue with you, to be clear. They’re students paying tuition and housing fees. I guess I could see that arguement if they weren’t students. Though I agree, civil disobedience and disrupting the status quo is the only way to get people to take notice and do anything.
Unless it’s your place of residence, you are always trespassing if the owner (or employees acting on the owners behalf) tells you to leave.
Paying tuition doesn’t give you unfettered access to the school.
Freedom of assembly and speech apply to public schools since 55 years ago from the Tinker descion.
Afaik, universities are private. Specifically, Columbia University is definitely private.
And the ruling you’re talking about has a lot of restrictions which wouldn’t apply here anyway.
You can’t discriminate against cause. If you allow one protest to give speeches in the Quad, I suppose you would be required to give other causes equal access to the Quad.
These students created an encampment, which goes beyond past permitted protests at that university, afaik. I doubt university admin would allow that under any circumstances, even if they agree with the cause, because it sets a dangerous precedent.
But, again, this is a private university. These rules do not apply.
public roads without permission
But they are public?
So listen, I’m not pro Hamas. Killing non settlers at a music festival is just terroristic murder and even killing random settlers is both counterproductive and terroristic even though most of them are very bad people. That said, this framing is ridiculous:
Some demonstrations have included hate speech, antisemitic threats or support for Hamas, the group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, sparking a war in Gaza that has left more than 34,000 dead.
Blaming Hamas for Israel’s slaughter is exactly the same as justifying Hamas’s actions. That’s very much a pro-genocide statement.
Spot on! Fuck Hamas and all the terroristic acts against Jews and innocent lives. But one should also be able to recognise the ongoing crimes and genocide of the right wing Israeli government. Do they really think this war will lead to the destruction of Hamas or antisemitism in the region? I bet we will se double the amount of antisemites/terrorists in the future and nothing will have changed. The west is losing its face and the region was never further away from peace. Hamas trapped the Israeli government into a war and the Israeli extremists were more than happy to use the opportunity for this genocide. Seems like nobody is honestly interested in peace and the victims will be the Palistinian people and some festival goers.
