A lot of details in here that I hadn’t heard before, from a faculty member living in Columbia housing and thus having a front row seat:
Columbia Law School Dean Gillian Lester backed the school’s graduates Tuesday after a group of conservative judges said they wouldn’t hire them following weeks of pro-Palestinian protests on the campus.
Lester said in a statement that Columbia Law graduates are “consistently sought out by leading employers in the private and public sectors, including the judiciary,” Reuters reported.
Her statement follows a letter signed by right-leaning federal judges that was sent to her and Columbia University President Minouche Shafik stating they would refuse to hire graduates after the school experienced pro-Palestine demonstrations that went on for weeks.
Here’s a student laying it out pretty clearly. Tiktok spreading dissent, ie real people telling unvetted stories that the official voices like Blinken wish silent to control the narrative.
https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnewsvideo/comments/1cmtqy5/interview_with_university_of_chicago_student_on/
No matter how much I try to ward it off, a certain curse of my career repeats: Every time protest signs bloom, scribes seek my input for “historical parallels” pieces. Isn’t this just like in Nixonland when …?
My initial response is always the same: Maybe—but there will be time to reflect on that later, and wouldn’t it be better to spend energy figuring out what’s going on now?
I’ve never felt more that way than during these past several weeks. Angry kids setting up tents on university quads, taking over administration buildings, cops dragging them away: The more energy we spend on baby boomer games of compare and contrast, the less we can understand how, this time, the response to students protesting Israel’s war on Gaza has taken shape as a pure product of the interlocking derangements of the Trumpocene. I’m trying desperately here to start that conversation, because what we’re witness to now has the potential to make Kent State on May 4, 1970, seem like a spring picnic.
I’m gonna cross-post this in the systems of education thread, if you don’t mind. It fits there, too, me thinks!
Nearly 700 Jewish professors call on Biden not to sign controversial antisemitism legislation
https://thehill.com/homenews/education/4651826-jewish-professors-biden-antisemitism-legislation/
It seems Matt Gaetz and Jerrod Nadler can agree on this, as well.
SOME UNIVERSITIES CHOSE VIOLENCE. OTHERS RESPONDED TO PROTESTS BY CONSIDERING STUDENT DEMANDS.
