Berkeley takes hands-off approach to Gaza campus protests. Columbia
called the police
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[May 02, 2024]
By Andrew Hay
(Reuters) - At Columbia University, tensions between the administration
and students protesting over Israel's war in Gaza have reached the point
that scores of New York City police marched onto campus to clear an
encampment and arrest demonstrators who had commandeered a classroom
building.
It was the second time in as many weeks that the administration has
called on police to control the protests. Students have been suspended,
and threatened with expulsion. Police are now stationed around-the-clock
on campus.
Nearly three thousand miles away at the University of California,
Berkeley, the scene has been far different. Student demonstrations have
so far taken place without arrests or disruption of campus operations.
The contrast in how protests have played out at the two prestigious
institutions - both with long histories of student activism -
illustrates the range of factors at play in how school administrations,
students and the police navigate what can quickly turn into a full-blown
crisis.
South of Berkeley at UCLA, part of the same university system, police on
Wednesday night prepared to clear out a pro-Palestinian camp, a day
after it was attacked by pro-Israeli counter protesters. Authorities at
the Los Angeles school declared the encampment an unlawful assembly.
Also in Los Angeles, police in riot gear last week swarmed the private
University of Southern California campus arresting dozens of
pro-Palestinian protesters.
Similar crackdowns have occurred at colleges across the country, from
Arizona State to Virginia Tech and Ohio State to Yale. Police have
arrested more than 1,000 students to date.
Still, some universities - including Berkeley, Northwestern and Brown -
have managed to avoid confrontations between the police and students.
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Education experts say these cases offer lessons in keeping tensions from
boiling over, a key one being a university's experience with balancing
student activism against pressure from donors, interest groups and
politicians.
Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ has allowed students to maintain a
protest space on campus since they began erecting tents April 22 on the
steps of Sproul Hall, where Martin Luther King gave a 1967 civil rights
speech. Dan Mogulof, a spokesman for the university, said that remained
the case Wednesday, in the hours after UCLA and Columbia called in
police.
"UC Berkeley has long experience with nonviolent political protest,"
Mogulof said, adding that the school was responding to demonstrations in
line with University of California policy.
That guidance tells administrators to avoid police involvement unless
it's absolutely necessary and the physical safety of students, faculty
and staff is threatened. That policy is rare, with most universities
having some kind of regulation that prohibits permanent encampments or
outlaws overnight student activities on campus.
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![](../images/050224PIX/news_o33.jpg)
Students attend a protest encampment in support of Palestinians at
University of California, Berkeley during the ongoing conflict
between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in
Berkeley, U.S., April 25, 2024. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
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The University of California system has seen in the past where
police involvement can lead.
In a 2011 Berkeley protest during the Occupy movement against
economic inequalities, campus police clubbed and jabbed students
with batons. Then-Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau later apologized,
and the UC system shifted to the policy of restraint Berkeley
spokesman Mogulof described.
Amid current protests, administrators across the country are seeking
to ease tensions with talk. In Illinois, Northwestern University
reached a deal with protesters to remove tents and sound systems in
return for a new advisory committee on investments, a key policy for
students who object to their school's financial ties to companies
that back Israel's government.
Protesters at Brown University in Rhode Island also agreed to take
down their encampment in return for a vote by the college's
corporation on whether to divest funds from companies tied to
Israel's military attacks on Gaza.
Still, some deals have failed to resolve tensions. While Portland
State University in Oregon agreed to pause donations from Boeing, a
company that makes attack helicopters used in Gaza, students there
have nonetheless occupied the library, scrawling messages like "END
GENOCIDE NOW" on windows.
Other factors at play as institutions navigate balancing free speech
and campus security include how students react to daily developments
in the Middle East as well as those at other campuses in the United
States.
Columbia has often proven to be a beacon for protest movements at
other universities. President Minouche Shafik has said the campus
has become "intolerable," citing factors ranging from antisemitic
language to loud protests going into the night.
"One group’s rights to express their views cannot come at the
expense of another group’s right to speak, teach, and learn," Shafik
said in a Monday statement.
Adversaries of pro-Palestinian protesters accuse them of
antisemitism, a claim Columbia student protesters and their faculty
advocates strongly deny.
Zach Greenberg of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
said no matter how hateful or offensive the speech on campuses, it
was not a justification for police crackdowns.
"It's always better to counter the speech you dislike with more
speech," said Greenberg, a program leader at the campus rights
advocacy group.
(Reporting By Andrew Hay; editing by Donna Bryson, Diane Craft and
Michael Perry)
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