Supporting Students During Mass Protest
Resources for students, faculty, and non-academia folks.
Hey all, this would normally be a “paid newsletter” week, but there’s so much happening on college campuses that I thought I would share some important resources.
On college campuses around the country, protests are taking place in support of Palestinian liberation and divestment of those colleges from the military-industrial complex. These protests have led to some major wins, such as UC Davis and other schools divesting from Israeli businesses. However, police and military have been called on students everywhere from USC, UT Austin, Princeton, an Emory. The student encampments at Columbia University have drawn the most media attention due to the police brutality involved, comparisons to past protests, and the extreme irony that the school’s Arab president (Minouche Shafik) was the one who called the cops on students protesting for Palestine.
In addition, USC initially canceled its Muslim valedictorian’s graduation speech out of fear that she would discuss Palestine, and in response to the outcry about this, have since canceled their entire graduation ceremony. Let’s say that another way: USC would rather not have their graduation ceremony than let a Muslim student speak at it. The racism is beyond words.
As my feed is awash in videos of extreme police brutality, including allegedly snipers on the roof on Ohio and Indiana, it’s hard not to think about how students feel in moments like these. I stand in full solidarity with the encampments, sit-ins, and other protests happening around the country. I also fully condemn any anti-Semitism taking place in the periphery of these protests (although this is usually only brought up as a tactic to delegitimize the student action; in reality, Jewish students are the ones protesting and being brutalized by cops).
While the main theme of the protests is Palestinian liberation and divestment from war profiteering, it’s fascinating to see how this intersects with broader issues of free speech, corporate donors at universities, and police violence in general. Faculty, in particular, have been moved to join students due to the inherent issue of academic freedom (perhaps even more so than being pro-Palestine). I think it’s so important for faculty to stand in solidarity with students, as we’ve seen at Columbia and even my own institution, UMass Amherst! (Who, by the way, are being investigated for anti-Arab bias at the institutional level as we speak. “Be Revolutionary”!)
