Alex Gourevitch in the Boston Review:
If history is any guide, rescuing the rights now being rolled back will require a range of tactics, including vigorous protest itself. It will also require building broad and unwavering consensus about the speciousness of the rationales being offered for today’s draconian crackdowns. Those have taken three principal forms. First, the Gaza protests were said to be disruptive to the ordinary life of the community. Second, because protests took place on private property—the property of the university—protesters who refused to disperse were said to be trespassing. Third and perhaps most perniciously, university community members stated that they felt the protests were threatening or harmful, which schools appear to have interpreted as sufficient evidence of a “hostile environment” for Jewish and Israeli students that may violate Title VI.
All of these are bad justifications. When they are interpreted and applied as they have been in recent months, there can be no right to protest at all. That is an outcome anyone committed to the mission and health of the university, not to mention democracy in general, must emphatically reject.
More here.
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