The Left and their media allies want you to believe the protests roiling college campuses are spontaneous uprisings of morally fervent students worried about Gaza war victims. Don’t fall for that claim. It’s a scam. These protesters don’t represent most students or the American public.
Yet Monday, Columbia University canceled graduation ceremonies, kowtowing to the radical fringe, with whom they largely agree. Students and their families be damned.
Here are the facts: A minuscule 2% of people ages 18 to 29 polled by Harvard’s Kennedy School named the Israel-Hamas conflict as their top political concern, compared with double digits who were concerned about the economy. Students couldn’t care less about this issue.
Claims that today’s campus riots are reminiscent of 1968 when students closed down campuses to protest the Vietnam War, are nonsense. Back then, Gallup found 46% of respondents in that age group considered the Vietnam War the nation’s biggest problem. Not 2%.
Ray Kelly, former New York Police commissioner, nailed it Sunday when he said the nationwide turmoil “looks like a conspiracy. … We need the federal government’s investigative capacity to look at this whole situation.”
Organized outside groups are behind much of the campus violence. Hours before the storming of Columbia’s Hamilton Hall, an outside organization called The People’s Forum — known for its anti-Israel activities and links to the Chinese Communist Party — started gearing up for its Hamilton Hall invasion. In a meeting, TPF’s leader spewed invectives against Columbia.
Hours later, protesters smashed the glass doors of Hamilton Hall, vandalizing and seizing the building. When Minouche Shafik, university president, finally called in police, 13 of the 44 arrested in the building had no affiliation with the university.
Reflecting on the incidents at Columbia and other New York campuses, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said after the arrests, “Individuals unaffiliated with these schools had entered these different campuses and, in some cases, were even training students in unlawful protest tactics.”
New York University Board Vice Chairman Bill Berkley says these occupations appear to have been orchestrated by external groups. He wants the FBI to investigate.
As these groups seize control of our universities, where is the FBI? Director Christopher Wray says the bureau does not directly track college protests but will provide information to campuses if the agency becomes aware of a specific threat.
Huh? The FBI should be proactively identifying and heading off campus terrorists.
Where is the Department of Justice? Two weeks ago, 27 Republican Senators sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking for the DOJ to investigate how students’ rights are being violated on campus. Radio silence.
Where is President Joe Biden? When the President was asked if he would use the National Guard to restore order, he emphatically said, “No.”
Why not? The National Guard were deployed in 1962 to protect the right of Black students to attend the newly integrated University of Mississippi. Students of all races and religions who want to go to class or attend their graduation deserve protection.
The Biden administration is missing in action. Is it because the same big Dem donors supporting Biden — the Pritzker family, George Soros, David Rockefeller Jr. — also support pro-Palestine groups orchestrating campus protests?
Meanwhile, images of campus invaders in headscarves are not winning over Americans. The latest Harvard CAPS-Harris survey shows that 61% of Americans polled want a ceasefire only after Hamas is removed from power and the hostages captured on Oct. 7 are released.
The public also knows what they are seeing on campuses is not freedom of expression — a sacred American right — but lawlessness and dangerous disorder. Universities need to be evenhanded, guaranteeing that all sides get to speak and students can attend class.
Columbia’s students were heckled and threatened, had their classes canceled and now are robbed of the grandeur of a university graduation. It’s a slap in the face to them, and to their families who sacrificed to make college possible.
Colombia’s motto is, “In thy light shall we see light.” Truth is, darkness has descended on Columbia and most elite college campuses.
Alumni and taxpayers alike should withhold their support until these institutions see the light and prioritize their students.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey. To find out more about Betsy McCaughey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website.
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“Natural Selection” will sort out the woke from the unwoke in American colleges. In spite of their hatred of capitalism, leftist universities will feel the pinch as their outside capital dries up. Bloated endowments, bequeathed by now betrayed donors, will be next.”Poison Ivies” will become the brand name for a once great caste of education.
For to long academia has been dominated by radical liberals. Hippies that never grew up. Our generation has been asleep at the switch while these America hating, never going to grow up types have infiltrated our society
Understanding of these things can be amplified by studying Marxism. One of the principle objectives, falling closely behind getting rid of Judeo-Christianity, is taking over the education system. American universities are a pitcher’s mound for slinging the Satanic nonsense Marxism espouses into the heads of the upcoming voting class. It is in this world that Palestine (which doesn’t exist) becomes more important than Israel which has a Jewish history going back to the Bronze Age. A bizarre modern educational version of critical thinking, in which reality doesn’t apply.
Biden won’t use the National Guard to clean up the pro-Hamas ignoramuses, because he is in the pockets of the Marxist fringe groups — who have sided with the Moslem hate mongers, Also, many radical university presidents are horrified at allowing National Guard on university grounds,
If enough parents start demanding a refund on tuition, things would quickly change.
Regardless of what that do-nothing idiot in the WH says or thinks, the governors of the states where the campus protests are taking over the campuses, disrupting operations, and keeping students from attending graduation ceremonies, should call out the National Guard and remove all the encampments and the protesting students and nonstudents, even over the objections of the administrators and faculty.
Seems to me that the adults running the campuses and the children vandalizing them are essentially the same type of critter. They all try to look “vital” and “outraged” at times, but they also know (and attempt to conceal) that it’s only cheap window dressing that they apply to look like they have heartfelt conviction, and, well… like they’re all….. “really somebody”.
Yea, I know… How sad, indeed.
This is not unexpected! They’ve been censoring speech if it goes against THEIR SPEECH for decades. So NOW it’s a surprise they’re all “far left”?
It is just beyond my comprehension that anyone would be in support of terrorism of any kind. These dumb kids are actually in favor of killing and raping innocent people. Do they not understand that Hamas who the people of Palestine voted in attacked not Israeli soldiers, but no, innocent people attending a concert. And then when Israel retaliates, they cry ceasefire! Bullcrap! They get what they deserve and theses stupid kids don’t see that?
Also, it sounds like some of them aren’t happy with the U.S. Well, I would gladly chip in to send them to Gaza where they can truly support their heroes!
Since the ‘college’ professors are majority Marxists, the students learn how to be good Nazis. What do people expect? You put beans in a pot, you get cooked beans.
What the hamas animals did was beyond horrific and the palestinians support hamas so.chose your”frekkceen” sides.
The reason why colleges are aligning themselves is because this is what they taught them
Students don’t know the true history, they haven’t been taught it, the Palestinians’ history books are untrue, they are pawns. See the Epoch TV American Thought Leaders for a great education on this and the UN UNRWA. Stop all federal funding to these colleges, teach real history, defund the UN, deport people!
Who is the adult? Certainly not the chanellors, admin personnel, profs. The students that did not get involved should get a major refund or super big tuition cut. I wouldn’t pay to send my student back to any of the schools that are letting the students dictate the rules.