Are Pro-Palestinian Protests at American Universities Going Too Far?
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Extended pro-Palestinian protests at American colleges and universities like New York’s Columbia University over the past few weeks have sparked dialogue across the media spectrum.
Not Peaceful: Columbia Professor John McWhorter, writing for the New York Times (Left bias), criticized the Columbia protests as “not peaceful” and protestors for believing “Jewish students and faculty should be able to tolerate” them because they are white. He described the protests as a “relentless assault” using “ever-angrier rhetoric” and “beyond what any people should be expected to bear up under, regardless of their whiteness, privilege or power.”
Useful Idiots: Former Israeli official Aviva Klompas, writing for Newsweek (Center bias), argued the scale of the protests shows America’s adversaries that young Americans have “lost the ability to distinguish between good and evil” and threaten “the safety of every Western democracy.” Klompas described protestors as “useful idiots” for terror groups and accused them of ignoring basic truths that don’t suit their desired framing of the conflict.
Not In Texas: Daniel Samet, writing for National Review (Right bias), commended the University of Texas for drawing an “unambiguous line in the sand” on how it would break up demonstrations and adhering to it. Compared to the events at Columbia, Samet likened Texas’ actions as an embodiment of the “Don’t California my Texas” sentiment many Texan residents have towards progressives moving into the state.
Featured Coverage of this Story
From the Left
I’m a Columbia Professor. The Protests on My Campus Are Not Justice.Last Thursday, in the music humanities class I teach at Columbia University, two students were giving an in-class presentation on the composer John Cage. His most famous piece is “4'33",” which directs us to listen in silence to surrounding noise for exactly that amount of time.
I had to tell the students we could not listen to that piece that afternoon because the surrounding noise would have been not birds or people walking by in the hallway but infuriated chanting from protesters outside the building. Lately that noise has been...
From the Center
The True Danger of the Chaos at Columbia and Other Elite UniversitiesThe mob mentality that has turned free speech into a free-for-all at Columbia University and other colleges is telegraphing a message far beyond any single campus and well beyond the United States.
It is telling America's enemies that we have lost the ability to distinguish between good and evil—and this is a message that threatens the safety of every Western democracy.
Terror groups are watching scores of young Americans willingly serve as their useful idiots. The students setting up "Liberation Zones" and "Gaza Solidarity Encampments" are not only showing their disdain for...
From the Right
Don’t Columbia My TexasStudent radicals and outside agitators who had watched university administrators capitulate to mob tactics at Columbia, Yale, and other universities thought they could get away with the same antics in Texas. Boy were they wrong.
When pro-Hamas protesters descended upon the University of Texas at Austin (UT) on Wednesday, they did not have the free rein to disrupt campus life that they’ve enjoyed elsewhere. Instead, they were met with a massive show of force that should serve as an example to other schools struggling to quell unauthorized protests on their campuses.
The Palestine...
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May 18th, 2024