The saga of the college protests to “support” Hamas and Palestine continues. Students (and others who have nothing to do with the college campus but who wouldn’t miss a good protest for anything) are “occupying” their campuses with their expensive tents, their demands the colleges divest themselves of any investments in Israel, and their expectations that they will not face any consequences for their actions. I wonder what they will do if the trend of colleges canceling graduation ceremonies, or all remaining classes for the rest of the semester, continues.

Of course, the reaction of some college administrations only reinforces their belief that they can do whatever they want without fear of negative consequences. The University of Texas initially said any students arrested earlier this week during their “occupation” would be charged with trespassing and would not be allowed back on campus except for academic purposes. Later, the administration changed its position and now says those very same students could access the campus for any reason they want After all, they don’t want these students “distracted during finals”. Oh, those poor babies. Let’s pat them on the head, make sure they have a clean nappy and send them off with a juice box and their class notes because they mustn’t be distracted in case they blow their finals.

But what about the other students? Those who feel threatened by the protests? Those who are distracted by the tents on the campus, the protesters getting in their faces, all the TV cameras and media-types invading the campus. The short answer is they don’t matter because they aren’t the ones being painted as the good guys in all this.

Then you have the Washington D.C. police refusing a request from George Washington University officials to enter the campus to remove the protestors. Read that again. GWU asked for the police to remove protestors. The police refused. Why? “[T]hey worried about the optics of moving against a small number of peaceful protesters.”

What sort of precedence does that set? Because the protest isn’t violent, because the police don’t want the media painting them as the bad guys, the DC police are basically saying it is all right to occupy anyone’s private property for whatever reason.

But it isn’t all as frustrating as the above examples. The news out of the University of Washington proves at least some of the protestors are more interested in how their occupations and protests look in the media than they care about the issue:

A planned anti-Israel encampment at the University of Washington was scrapped at the last minute because of a lack of diversity — following fierce backlash for not involving any Muslim, Palestinian or Arab students.

“After long discussions, we have had to make the hard decision to postpone our action for several days,” the school’s Progressive Student Union announced Thursday, the day it was supposed to take over a quad at 8 a.m.

But that’s about the only humor coming out of this situation.

The University of Southern California has canceled its commencement exercises “because of safety concerns over student protests”. But these same campuses are doing little to nothing to remove the students and other protestors. Even when they do, they run into situations like GWU faced where the cops don’t want to look bad because the protestors won’t follow their instructions and leave. Instead, they will fight the officers, go limp and make the officers drag them out. You get the idea.

And the only students not being disrupted by all this are those taking part in the occupation force.

USC isn’t the only campus to cancel its commencement. Cal Poly Humboldt had decided to close its campus for the rest of the semester.

“The occupation of Siemens Hall and Nelson Hall East is causing ongoing inability to open other campus facilities,” a statement from the university read. “Since Monday night, protestors have attempted several times to break into multiple locked buildings with the intention of either locking themselves in, vandalizing, or stealing equipment. Vandalism and theft have continued across campus.”

But these are peaceful and law-abiding protestors.

Riiiiiight.

Their demands are simple and fall into the realm of “are you kidding me?”. They demand “the disclosure of all holdings and collaborations with Israel; cutting all ties with Israeli universities; divesting from companies and corporations complicit in the occupation of Palestine; and dropping all charges against, and halting the harassment of student organizers by law enforcement.”

So, it is no longer just the cessation of working with Israel business interests and all pro-Israel companies. Now they want to universities to stop collaborating with Israeli universities. That would mean stopping research projects, etc. Like that would change the Israeli government’s mind about their objectives with regard to Hamas, et al.

NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations, Kaz Daughtry, points out something many in the media would like to keep buried. Everyone would do well to read his comments and then remember what we saw during the BLM protests where so-called “protestors” were brought in from other areas to increase the protest/occupation numbers. After all, it made for better media coverage to have more folks with their fists raised high, screaming for justice, etc.

What may have started as a group of Columbia students wanting to express their constitutional right to protest has drawn crowds of outside agitators who are trying to hijack a peaceful protest and turn it something far more sinister. The NYPD sees these same groups of… https://t.co/68nrEgT7rb

— NYPD Deputy Commissioner, Operations Kaz Daughtry (@NYPDDaughtry) April 27, 2024

I may not agree with the protestors, but I have nothing against them exercising their First Amendment right to free speech. However, that doesn’t give them the “right” to say whatever they want, wherever they want. It does not give them the right to make others on the college campuses across our nation feel threatened. It doesn’t give them the right to break into locked buildings, etc. Isn’t it time they faced the consequences of their actions? We shouldn’t have to sit around and wait until those calling for the deaths of Jews realize they might have said too much and public opinion is turning against them.

Isn’t it time for the college administrators and local police department to man up and protect not only their right to free speech but the rights of all their students and employees?

Featured image, College Protesters, created by Amanda S. Green using Midjourney AI.