Universities should not be bullied by politicians into cracking down on pro-Palestine protests

As hundreds of NYPD officers storm Columbia University’s campus and detained a numer of Pro-Palestinian protesters who were occupying one of the building, human rights lawyer Eric Lewis examines how universities are struggling to allow students to show dissent

NYPD officers arrest a protestor who participated in an encampment on the Columbia University campus (AP)

When I was an undergraduate, we marched about divestment from companies doing business in apartheid South Africa and exploitation of textile workers in the American South. The moral issues seemed clear even if our depth of understanding of the issues was not great. Apartheid fell and textile jobs moved to Asia; I suspect our protests had negligible impact, but we did our part and finding political consciousness was also part of our becoming adults.

I suspect the administration knew that by the time warm weather and exams rolled around, the protests would peter out, awaiting next spring’s causes and marches. One year, a few hundred students took over the historic main administration building, slept uncomfortably all night and left the next day, fists raised and chanting loudly.

Student stringers, working for various newspapers, were able to get a few column inches in the next day’s papers. Various mild disciplinary measures were imposed, although there seemed to be a view that civil disobedience should be praised and that imposing discipline was morally unacceptable.