When campus protesters turned threatening and violent in 1970, Ronald Reagan, who was then governor of California, called them “cowardly little fascist bands who are trying to prove that our system cannot work.” Reagan’s response was to use police to restore order. He was right.
College administrators and municipal and state officials should have the same answer today when confronted by Jew-baiting protests at Yale, Columbia, and other universities. The right to protest does not create a right to trespass, deliberately intimidate, threaten, block physical access, or commit violence.
At Columbia, where Jewish students were physically assaulted, school President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik originally had about 100 protesters arrested for criminal trespass, but her follow-up has been culpably weak. She let protesters defeat her by ordering that classes be held online instead of in person and asking nonresident students to stay away. Professor Shai Davidai, who is a supporter of Israel, has been temporarily banned from campus because the feckless administration says it cannot ensure his safety.
If campus life has been disrupted to the point that it ceases to include life on campus, if the university cannot guarantee the safety of its professors, protesters must be neutralized by force.
At Yale, it took until Monday, after days of violence, before administrators called for arrests. Students literally blocked a Jewish student from entering campus, as Nazis did in Germany back in the 1930s. Protesters blocked all access to the main campus dining hall. Students went off campus to block a major traffic intersection in New Haven. A Jewish student was jabbed in the eye with a flagpole and hospitalized, later telling reporters how disconcerting it is to understand that her peers have joined the Nazi Party.
Yale, Columbia, the University of Michigan, New York University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were among the growing number of campuses where demonstrators trespassed to show their support for Hamas terrorists by creating “encampments” of tents on school property. For months, college administrations nationwide have failed to distinguish between legitimate, non-invasive protests and physically obstructive or verbally threatening actions targeted not just against Israeli policy abroad but against Jews in general, very much including those in their own midst. Many have also made it plain that their animosity is also directed against this country, as they shout “death to America.”
Nobody should doubt that their opinions are odious and evil. But, in terms of taking remedial action, the important point is that their behavior is criminal. Free speech and the right to assemble do not entail a privilege to threaten others or invade their rights.
Just as it should be outside university cloisters, criminal actions merit police responses. Wherever police have authority without university approval, they should begin enforcing the law by making arrests. Where university approvals for police are needed, university administrators should not only invite police on campus but urge them to use whatever appropriate measures are necessary to stop the lawbreaking.
Even the right, firm response from police will be unavailing, though, if prosecutors won’t do their jobs. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, for example, usually declines to prosecute in instances where numerous individuals are arrested as part of “civil disobedience.” This must change. Hate-filled demonstrations and riots aren’t mere “civil disobedience.” They are real crimes with real victims — victims who deserve the full protection of the law. The students and their agents provocateurs should be prosecuted.
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Finally, while the identity of the victim group should not matter when deciding whether to arrest and prosecute lawbreaking demonstrators, the nature of the current wave of campus unrest is particularly disturbing.
Just as no Russian American is responsible for the murderousness of dictator Vladimir Putin in Moscow, no Jew in America is responsible for what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does 5,600 miles away. The brutal history of Jew-hatred for several millennia, full of pogroms and holocaust, is a stain on humankind. It is abominable, and it must not be abided. The pretense has largely been dropped that the baiting and intimidation of Jews is directed legitimately against Zionism. It is, rather, the oldest, most visceral, and most odious hatred in our civilization.
