The anti-Israel protests on college and university campuses may have died down, but they are not burned out completely.
Several hundred anti-Israel protestors gathered on the campus of Columbia University on January 21.
Columbia was one of the main campuses for anti-Israel protests in the spring of 2024.
Now student activists have vowed to step up their protests after the start of the spring semester, according to The Times of Israel. Some masked protestors even disrupted a class, The History of Modern Israel, taught by an Israeli instructor. One student in the class talked to Times of Israel, saying three demonstrators entered the classroom, reading a speech and distributing anti-Israel flyers.
Zachary Marschall is Editor in Chief of Campus Reform. "Well, you know the story right now from Columbia is about the Modern Israel class that was taken over by Hamas protesters this week. While that was despicable, I'm very encouraged by the university's reaction."
The Trump administration and Republicans are putting more pressure on higher education institutions to take care of threatening persuasive tactics like this on their campuses. "They acted immediately. They came out with a suspension, and they immediately beefed-up security on campus. So, these are all things that they needed to do, which they weren't doing in fall 2023 and for much of last year. So, I think this is further evidence that higher education is turning a corner and realizing they can't not be proactive about protecting all students from anti-Semitic and anti-American, protests like this."
Marschall pointed out we have seen the protests get smaller and smaller and more sporadic. “I think we are now down to the zealots and the die-hards on campus, which were always there. They were the ring leaders of the protests last year, and the people that joined the tent encampments that did the big demonstrations, those were lost people who needed a cause in their lives and couldn't find Gaza on a map."
Marschall thinks the people left now are the ones who have no respect for freedom of speech or diversity of thought. Or anything else “that isn't 100 percent in line. So, these are not students who represent American values, or are acting like Americans should be acting, and I would expect that if you were able to identify all of them who were active in Columbia, we would find a lot of foreign students in that mix, and luckily, we now have an administration that is willing and able to kick them out of the country for supporting terrorism."
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Webster
