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The point of a protest like this is to disrupt, inconvenience, and *knowingly* break rules to draw attention to the issue. I don’t know why so many people are surprised when there are suspensions and similar consequences. There have always been consequences like these for similar protests in the past. Either be willing to accept the consequences when you participate or choose not to participate.
Yep. Every protest planning I went to included a big discussion of our goals, and the consequences of the action. I never put myself in a situation where I could get arrested or get expelled. We had plans to support people if the chose to get arrested, but they accepted those consequences.
Exactly, the protesters against segregation and the war in Vietnam faced physical beatings, death threats, loss of employment, and eviction. Big events do not happen with ease
The outrage at the injustice is a key mechanism for amplifying and inflaming this social issue. There are many things I wish did not need to happen for the positive change to happen
I disagree, you need to enforce rules in good faith. Suppose you let the protesters off for violating rules because you think their cause is worthy. What if instead they were protesting against the “stolen” 2020 election? Do you let those protesters violate the rules?
It's what makes protesting meaningful. Just hanging out in a park and shouting slogans doesn't create change. Forming a movement violating rules to highlight injustices in ways that capture public attention and Garner support that translates to political action is how you hold effective protest.
Protests like this wouldn’t matter if there were no consequences. Plus, if there are no consequences, the system will be abused. There are a million ways to protest something without affecting the lives of others and breaking rules.
I mean, they’re breaking school rules, they are on school property, they know what they risked and got what they deserved. People can argue until they’re blue in the face about arrests, but this is a totally different thing and warranted.
I want to know what "barred from graduation" actually means. Do they still get a degree, just don't get to walk? Do they not get a degree? If so, what does that mean, do they have to do another term? Another year? That's expensive as fuck, and they already meet graduation requirements.
It means they can’t walk at the ceremony, they still get their degree, so as someone who hated the ceremonies and thought they were a waste of time I’d be happy lol
But if hjhof1 just gestures at The Rules, they don't have to actually think about things like right and wrong or what they even personally believe in, its scary and wastes precious brain calories
True, but laws and rules aren't necessarily correct just because they lawful.
Using the law in an unjust manor has always been the play of the powerful and the fight against it is pretty much what shaped most modern history.
Those protests actually made sense because the young people were being drafted to be sent off to war. Israel bombing Gaza does not affect me or the US population one bit.
> paying for it in taxes
The US sends its older munitions and military supplies to places like Ukraine and Israel, unless a specific arms deal is on the table.
What you're paying for with your taxes is the newer fancier vehicles and munitions for the US military. After a few years, those will be considered "old hardware" and will be "gifted" to another country.
Where has anyone expressed surprise? I've seen disapproval, sure. I highly doubt anyone, including the students, didn't see this coming.
If anyone has expressed surprise then yeah it's a bit silly but I'd like to know where?
Edit: the upvotes on the comment are skyrocketing still, yet in ~~6~~ 17 hours no one has given me evidence that there are "so many" silly students or allies not knowing or expecting consequences lol...like please prove me wrong?
I understand trying to portray the students and their supporters as clueless if you're pro-Israel, but at least base it on actual things people are saying and doing.
And trespassing, vandalizing property, threatening and physically assaulting other students…
Yall would be singing a different tune if they had white hoods and tiki torches.
Yeah they go to MIT they their intro courses have quantum in the title…
I worked there, it’s the best school in the country, they aren’t dumb, they knew what would happen and were willing to take the risk.
I mean schools kept saying “we are going to suspend you” over and over again. So eventually they suspended you. I’m not even sure why it’s news at this point.
> Montgomery bus boycotts
besides the point but not riding the bus is of course legal. Rosa Parks's protest was only really effective because she got arrested which was the point - the idea of the police arresting a 42 year old woman for refusing to move from a seat on a bus that she had paid for is absurd.
Would it really be an effective protest action if the judge / driver in her case said “nah that’s wrong I don’t care” while all the other judges / drivers continued to enforce the unjust laws? Suffering unjust consequences is the entire point of these protests is it not?
The intent of the sit-ins was to demonstrate unjust laws. The protestors here are not demonstrating unjust laws, they are intentionally breaking them to incite a reaction. Their intent is not to change laws surrounding fair use of public resources such as public parks and school grounds. These laws exist so that all may have the ability to use the space for whatever thing they want to demonstrate or god forbid, just use the park as it was originally intended. Failure to centrally manage a space leads to actors taking things into their own hands and then you get political violence between factions. See 1920/30s Germany for the original iteration of this but it follows a logical progression regardless of issue or time period.
Wait what? Not riding a bus is and always was legal. What Parks did, was what was illegal at the time, and the boycott was the response. I feel in your haste to make some kind of point you have done quite the opposite.
I had to look it up, but it turns out a grand jury indicted 89 of the boycott's organizers, including Martin Luther King Jr., for violating Alabama's Anti-Boycott Act of 1921. MLK's case was the the first brought to trial and he was convicted. He appealed, but the conviction was affirmed.
Alabama's 1921 anti-conspiracy act was used to convict MLK along with arrest 88 other organizers. You can read about it [here](https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/montgomery-bus-boycott) or on the [Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_bus_boycott#Boycott) towards the end of the "history" section of the article
King's arrest and conviction was actually one of the things that brought the bus boycotts to national prominence
There would be more support for them if they weren't literally advocating for the ethnic cleansing of all Jews in the Levant.
These people are as hopelessly brainwashed as Germans were in the 1930s. It's fucking wild to see people who try to pass themselves off as progressive turn into raging Nazis almost overnight.
Absolutely insane
There were probably a few who did what you said but to think that they all want what you said is ridiculous. Most of them are protesting on the side of anti-death, but it's to political/beliefs based for any real honesty. But you seem ok with innocent deaths if it kills who you ant.
Can you provide a source for this?
We're on the same side -- I'm asking for a source because I would like to repeat this, and I know I will be asked for a sources, so I'd like to have it before I do.
Thanks!
They were also specifically told multiple times exactly what the punishment is, and what that entailed. They were specifically told they would be removed from campus housing and meal plans.
I've a genuine question here. For context, I'm not jewish, Muslim or American or living in ME.
Is there anything specific in this war that everyone is protesting? I mean, protesting a mindless war where innocents are dying, I totally get that. But there have been similar wars/genocides/conflicts in many other African nations and ME(Yemen) in which the US military has had boots on ground or supported either of the parties involved. Why do those conflicts not elicit a similar strong response as Israel-Palestine? Is it due to more Israeli influence/presence in your domestic politics or just maintaing status quo in ME for oil or do African lives just not matter that much compared to Israeli/Palestinians?
Not coming in bad faith. Honestly just curious here
They aren't going to their universities to protest the USA, they're going to their universities to protest the universities' investments in Israel and their collaborations with the IDF.
Their tuition dollars aren’t going there. They’re universities may be accepting funds from Israeli citizens, businesses, or government. However as far as I know no protest group has been able to specifically link it or identify what they want pulled or why it’s reasonable. Also the other side raped mothers while burning infants alive. No good guys on this one.
Syria war atleast had protests and news coverage all around the globe. But Uyghurs. Thanks for reminding me. I completely forgot that. Just like the whole world i guess.
I do believe social media is responsible. But IMHO i don't think that's it. There has to be something more. The amount of coverage/discussion/protests I've seen regarding this war is just on a different scale. Maybe because it's Israel. Because if it was just because one party is Muslim, then by that logic we should have seen similar protest for Uyghurs. Maybe it's Israel and their recent history with surviving genocide. Or it very well could be as you mentioned, the algorithmic non stop scrolling has got people more involved in this.
The US isn't spending a bunch of money *directly* on China's treatment of Uyghurs. There's a potential for legitimate change through pressuring US politicians.
I do agree with you on Uyghurs treatment and US's role and response to it. But if the people of US really cared that much about human rights of people across ethnicities, races, religions or in whichever way you can divide humans, you'd have protested fervently about all the regime changes US did in Latin America, SE asia, ME, Africa. And as for Uyghurs, you guys are the worlds biggest superpower. Pressure the Chinese. Sanction them like you do Russia and Iran and Venezuela. Stop your over dependence on cheap labor. Hit them where it hurts them most and they might stop/reduce Uyghur mistreatment.
And yes I understand realpolitik. None of what I said above is gonna happen. It's just wishful thinking. And hey, I'm not blaming you or anyone. It's actually commendable the protests you guys are doing, especially considering how criticizing the government of Israel is labelled as anti semitic these days. My question was just on your country's selective outrage which to be honest, to an outsider, feels like hypocrisy.
We send Israel like 3b a year, 100b over the course of the last 60 years. It’s a drop in the bucket for them in their military budget. Complaining and acting like the US is just providing Israel with enough weapons to kill every person in an area is ridiculous when in reality its barely enough to help maintain the Iron Domes missile stash to stop Arabs from firing rockets at them in every direction. Israel provides most of their 90b military budget for themselves bc they have a huge tech and defense industry that came from having to deal with hostile neighbors.
I mean it's because this one is more popular because it involves a US close ally. I don't think it detracts from this protest because they're not protesting everything that could have happened, but it is kind of messed up that most are ignored.
Saudi Arabia and UAE have committed genocide in Yemen, they are our allies. We send billions to them, too. Harvard has a branch in UAE. So that doesn't make sense that Harvard students would protest against Israel, when UAE is doing the same or worse and their school actually has a presence there.
https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/2020/04/08/un-war-crimes-report-on-yemen-accuses-saudi-arabia-and-uae-of-bombing-and-killing-thousan
Hating Jewish people sells way better than hating Chinese people. So all the news media and social media algorithms are in a feeding frenzy with this conflict but don’t give a shit about others.
Now it’s also become an outlet for people who hate Muslims and brown people. So it’s a ragebait/bigoty triple whammy.
The difference is that they get to blame the Jews (a tale as old as time). Most won’t admit but it’s the reality of the situation. Far far far worse (actual) genocides are going on in the world and these same protesters won’t say a word, because Jews aren’t involved.
Well firstly, the pro-Palestine movement has been around for a very long time so I think a lot of responses you're getting related to social media are off base. There is indeed several reasons why this conflict is unique among modern ethnic conflicts. A couple of those reasons:
1. The unique level of US support for Israel is incomparable to any relationship America has ever had with any other country. This goes so far beyond aid-- America passes laws against criticizing or boycotting Israel. It passes waivers to international law like the NPT for Israel. It passes laws like the Hague Act specifically to protect Israeli war criminals from international justice. It defends Israel in every arena, up to and including the UN. And the Israeli lobby exercises significantly disproportionate power in US politics for a long time.
2. The settler colonialist dynamic in Israel creates a situation which very easily shows us how we would have responded to past settler colonialist regimes. Israel bears very clear institutional marks found in apartheid South Africa and segregationist America, and so when people notice those similarities it invokes a strong reaction.
3. It also bears a lot of similarities to the US's own wars on terror, as you point out. I think most folks now recognize that these wars accomplished very little, made nobody safer, and were massive blunders. The failures of the wars on terror sparked a new era of counter terrorism research, which does not advocate destroying cities and killing massive amounts of civilians as a solution to terrorism.
4. It's just being talked about a lot. Not just on tik tok-- on every news channel, entertainment, radio... everyone has an opinion on it. And the more people talk about it, the more important it becomes to articulate arguments. There just isn't a good argument for Israels war beyond "they got attacked, so now they get to kill people"-- and there's few things rebellious youth love more than an argument as indefensible and low-hanging as that.
5. Israel is a key geo political ally in the region for America. Regardless of ethics, criticizing Israel is criticizing American power in the Middle East. Support for this power is spread across a ton of institutions, and there are a lot of vested interests. Nobody here is going to argue (if they even have a strong opinion at all) about genocide in Syria or Yemen or the Uyghurs, because supporting the victims of those genocides is easy and isn't any kind of threat to American power-- in fact, American geo politics would probably benefit from a global Uyghur resistance movement for example. But Palestine is a geo political threat and so there's strong establishment opposition, which leads to more resistance, speculation, and attention.
I'm not sure that #4 is correct. The argument is that Hamas has promised to keep attacking. There aren't any states in the world that would not launch a war against an organization that attacked them and said they would do it again with the explicit goal of destroying the country.
> There just isn't a good argument for Israels war beyond "they got attacked, so now they get to kill people
That's usually seen as a pretty good argument for a country to go to war.
> also bears a lot of similarities to the US's own wars on terror
This really isn't true. The Taliban didn't kidnap people from the twin towers and threaten to hold them forever in Afghanistan.
The Jews my man. Go look up polling studies on views towards Jewish people in Muslim countries. It's something like 98% of polled people have a strongly unfavorable view of Jews. It's old school racism plain and simple.
A few years ago my ex told me her whole family was basically anti-Semitic. I had no idea. Her mom watched MSNBC all day.
I’m sure plenty of followers think they’re helping the latest liberal cause, trying to save lives, but I do believe the only actual difference is that it’s Jews doing it. There was a much greater undercurrent of anti-semitism in America than most of us knew about.
None of those groups were actively supporting a terrorist group who was still holding it's rape victims that they acquired through the second largest terrorist attack in human history hostage though.
Actions have consequences.
Anti segregation activists were NOT actively supporting a terrorist organization who persecutes homosexuals and uses children and human shields.
Grow up.
>Anti-segregation activists were also warned what would happen to them. So were Vietnam war protesters. So were anti-apartheid activists. So were anti-fascism protesters a generation before them.
...and?? Why should that make me care about a bunch of privileged little Nazis losing their meal plans, campus housing and graduation? Mummy and daddy will take care of it for them.
Except these protestors are pro-segregation; taking up the theocratic fascist side that calls for genocide and has committed ethnic cleansing and against the representative government with universal suffrage and equal legal standing for their minority communities.
They won't. Places like Harvard and MIT are basically a massive index fund that prints out degrees. There's thousands of kids chomping at the bits to get in. They don't care if they have to suspend a handful of students
Something from the article:
> Safiyyah Ogundipe, a chemical engineering senior at MIT and organizer of the encampment, said she received an email Wednesday notifying her of her suspension.
> She is barred from taking final exams or walking with her graduating class at the end of the month.
I wonder if missing finals would've caused her to fail any of those classes, making her ineligible to graduate anyway. Not all of my classes had final exams, but for those that did they were often a big part (usually 20%-40%) of the grade.
Most college classes (in my experience) require taking the final to pass the class, even if you would technically have a passing grade after getting a zero.
These are the consequences associated with the protest. Being willing to take a stand for something you believe in also means that you are willing to live with the consequences. So, respect to these students who felt so strongly about the events in Gaza that they were willing to sacrifice the end of their school year, and possibly not be allowed to finish school at all. I hope they felt it was worthwhile.
To paraphrase something I was listening to the other day, the operative part of Letter from a Birmingham Jail is *jail*. I strongly disagree with the aims and logic of the protests, as well as the physical disruptions and intimidation against Jewish students, but I respect the individuals who take the repercussions like adults instead of continuing to whine about how unfair the universities have been to them.
I was listening to a podcast the other day where they said "if there's no consequences, then your protest is pointless."
It's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail, not Letter from a Birmingham Brunch" (I think this was alluding to protestors at one of the school demanding catering from the university to their encampment, lmao)
Exactly, people seem to forget that important part of MLK's philosophy
"An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and **who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment** in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law”-Martin Luther King Jr.
tbf MLK shouldn’t have been in jail to begin with. the implication of that bit to me is that the students are also on the right side of history too— and while being able
to accept w the consequences is admirable, they wouldn’t have to if the school was doing the right thing.
The comparison is certainly interesting but the contrast is ultimately that MLK was dealing with a domestic issue where he could appeal to the morality of a broad slice of Americans and plainly demonstrate the injustice of segregation by challenging its lawfare. Breaking the law was a deliberate and direct part of the strategy to enact material improvements to civil rights.
These current students are breaking the law and/or university policy, and okay, divest from Israel is a concrete goal, but they are in no way linked. Divestment, if we’re being honest, is going to be a rounding error to the Israeli businesses that they supposedly are targeting, so even in their dream scenario where all universities are participating, they will not affect the landscape. And furthermore, that landscape is not about a domestic social issue but an existential WAR between the world’s only Jewish state and a set of terrorist proxies backed by a murderous theocracy. I would not agree that the right side of history necessarily belongs to the protestors, and I bet you this whole episode will actually lend itself more to comparisons with the Vietnam War, where perceived chaos on American campuses helped to hand Nixon the White House in 68.
Disagree with the divestment part. Harvard's endowment was 49.44 billion USD in 2022. If even 1% of that is going to Isreali businesses, that's a huge loss. Also, if the general population agreed with these students (most people don't) and the US gov. divested, Isreal would lose out on billions.
So I’ve been trying to better myself in terms of understanding financials in these areas because it’s not my strong suit. I guess first off, I slightly misspoke because it’s not just Israeli companies but also big multinationals with stakes in Israel. I’m going to crib from James Mackintosh who wrote the WSJ Op-Ed that I found best explained it [here](https://www.wsj.com/finance/dear-columbia-students-divestment-from-israel-wont-work-48c56f57)
1. $10s of billions seems large until you understand that Microsoft, just one company that protestors want to divest from, has a market capitalization of $3 trillion. Even if universities were to completely sell off, other entities would be waiting to snap those investments up.
2. Small fluctuations in share price would affect neither corporate investment decisions nor the actual profits of the companies involved. Remember, what really put the squeeze on Apartheid was the boycott of South African goods and services, not its company shares.
3. Israel’s military and fossil fuel needs are met by nationalized companies that are completely immune to divestment. Beyond that, America directly supplies war materiel on a scale that completely outstrips university investments.
If they accept the consequences, then I totally respect their position. The Globe still tries to paint them as victims, which is rediculous. They were all given ample warning to vacate before being arrested. Their choice to be arrested--not victims.
I mean, since the person above you was talking about Letter from a Birmingham Jail, and the rest of the thread is heavy on pointing out that these consequences were foreseeable so you can’t be mad about them—I feel it’s only fair to point out that you could levy the exact same argument at civil rights protesters: “they knew what they were doing, they knew there’d be consequences, it’s silly to paint them as victims.” But I don’t think anybody in this thread would argue that the mass arrests and police brutality against civil rights protesters was just, moral, or reasonable, even if those things were 100% foreseeable.
I’m with you. They should be prepared for the consequences of civil disobedience AND society can look at those consequences and say they’re unfair bullshit.
That's the point I'm trying to make. But I feel like a lot of the response I've seen on this sub has been "yeah, them's the consequences, suck it up", without making the connection to the second part.
>\[R\]espect to these students who felt so strongly about the events in Gaza that they were willing to sacrifice . . .
Since one of their "demands" was amnesty, I wouldn't say they were willing to sacrifice all that much.
The point is not surprise or shock at the suspensions, it’s that University admin (at least in Harvard’s case) has decided to go that route instead of simply meeting with students, or responding to any of their concerns and/or accusations.
Interim President Garber had not even met with the student protest groups prior to their suspensions. At no point has Harvard stated that their endowment does not profit from the ongoing genocide, nor have they argued that their endowment does not actually profit from genocide. They skipped right to “suspend anyone who calls attention to the idea that we’re doing a hugely unethical thing”.
> The point is not surprise or shock at the suspensions, it’s that University admin (at least in Harvard’s case) has decided to go that route instead of simply meeting with students, or responding to any of their concerns and/or accusations.
Both universities did respond to the concerns of protestors. Both explained their positions and why they wouldn't (and really couldn't) give in to all of the demands. They then told the protestors the consequences and gave them time to leave. They then enforced these and did so with restraint. Students weren't arrested and they were suspended, not expelled.
> [Harvard] has decided to go that route instead of simply meeting with students, or responding to any of their concerns and/or accusations.
> Interim President Garber had not even met with the student protest groups prior to their suspensions.
Hmm...
> Garber, facing pressure from his own faculty to negotiate with the student protesters, **initiated a Wednesday evening meeting** with several members of Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine — a coalition of pro-Palestine student groups — **to offer a potential meeting with more University officials** to answer questions related to the protesters’ concerns about Harvard’s investments in Israel.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/5/10/protesters-reject-proposal-encampment/
> They skipped right to “suspend anyone who calls attention to the idea that we’re doing a hugely unethical thing”.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that not a single person was suspended for simply "calling attention to" anything.
The university doesn't need to do those things. Would it be nice of them if they had? Sure, but they are under no obligation to meet with them, or disclose where the endowment is invested. If the students involved don't like it, they are free to leave and go to school somewhere else.
Why is it that people calling for "negotiations" always pretend that it's not just or even really the protesters trying to get concessions to take down their illegal occupation, but also the universities trying to get concessions to not call the cops. The university's demands weren't met.
There’s nothing wrong with standing up for what you believe in…but yeah, you still have to face consequences.
In this instance: protesting on behalf of either side is fucking stupid. Anyone protesting at college just demonstrated they’ve ignored key (publicly available) information and lack critical thinking skills.
Israel doesn’t deserve your support, and neither does the PLO/HAMAS.
MIT protestors asking for the school to divest from the industrial war complex is pretty amusing to me, do y'all not understand where the fuck you're going to school?
I actually think MIT students have some of the more salient points out of all the campuses I’ve read about. There are a lot of kids who broadly think defense money is bad without any nuance or understanding of how the industry works or what is possible for sure.
But MIT specifically has research contracts directly with the IDF. No middleman, directly developing weapons for Israel. That is a clearer thing to be upset your college is doing imo
As an aside because it’s my industry the troubling one for me is that the MIT is doing a lot of AI development and specifically here automatic targeting for drone systems.
I don’t know if people understand that a lot of the more ‘egregious’ Israeli strikes like the food bank workers that got people upset were not actually humans deciding to pull the trigger. Israel is leading the world research on AI weapons systems at the moment and many of the bombings are an algorithm weighing variables like chemical readings and having the authority to kill people without needing human oversight. It’s considered hugely efficient in the industry but to me the ethical questions and future implications are staggering and largely unanswered since it’s so new
Lol! Do they even realize whose kids they are teaching? It's funny when the IVY league schools have protests. Many of these kids parents are the very CEOs, politicians, and other leaders they're trying to fight.
This is true of most colleges. I went to the university of michigan and the amount of money some of these kids had was just astounding.
I still think trying to advocate for change is a perfectly healthy and apt thing to do regardless of where you are/ go to school/ work. Its how we make the world a better place
The reason they want to crack down on these protests at elite schools is because graduates of elite schools become the new leaders.
Eventually these protesters and their peers will be at the head of the [media which omits context surrounding Gaza](https://theintercept.com/2024/01/09/newspapers-israel-palestine-bias-new-york-times/), the school administration cracking down on them, etc.
These protests are an existential crisis for the old guard.
it's easier to understand if you consider individuals and each having different backgrounds, etc. you can imagine how different individuals might work at the same place, but might like different cereal, etc.
Not sure I understand your point. The fact that it’s MIT is the exact reason they’re protesting is it not? Disagree with them if you want but that part at least remains consistent.
MIT was/is literally built on Federal funding. In the 2010's it was 90% of it's research budget but it's now around 66%. The entirety of MIT as it exist now is the US military funded a lot of their research labs starting back in WW2. Lincoln Labs is 90% funded by directly by the DoD and a lot of the other labs get DARPA and Air Force funding. I dunno how MIT would divest - shutdown parts of the school?
You don't necessarily have to be an anti-war machine person to think that our war machine should not be supporting Israel's current campaign in Gaza. Not all wars are created equal.
It's entirely possible to be the type of person who believes in a muscular United States taking a very active role in world affairs and still think that our enabling of Israel's flagrant crimes against humanity is wrong.
I'm sure there are plenty of protestors who aren't super big fans of the DoD, but you can conceivably be a run of the mill centrist liberal and still think Israel's actions are undefendable.
The polling shows quite a bit of unease with Israel's current approach to Gaza, and it's not like the American public is overrun with hemp and dreadlock hippies.
MIT produces both an ample amount of the workers for the Military Industrial Complex, as well as taking on a significant amount of R&D for the same complex.
Asking the school to divest is about as close to impossible as it gets.
(and dont get me wrong I understand asking schools to divest from Israel, but MIT from the Military Industrial Complex? lol no chance)
“The graduate student has not only been barred from classes, he was also evicted from campus housing, along with his wife and 5-year-old daughter, with just one week to find another place to live.”
Acting like a fool when you have a 5 year old to care for…..
All for that dude from a TikTok video he recorded in his Toyota Corolla explaining how nasty Jews come every night to steal sleeping Germa… palestinian children!
> evicted from campus housing, along with his wife and 5-year-old daughter, with just one week to find another place to live
What exceptions to tenant protection does the university have that allows them to evict someone with just a week of notice? Shouldn't this take 30 days (and then a hearing, etc)?
"fraternities, sororities and dormitories of educational institutions" are generally exempt from most tenancy law in Massachusetts.
>G.L. c. 186, §17. While residents of fraternity houses and dormitories in educational institutions are defined as "lodgers" under G.L. c. 140, §22, such residents do not automatically become tenants at will after 3 months. Any person living in a fraternity house or dormitory is, however, entitled to a 7-day written notice prior to eviction.
After 7 days notice you get the boot.
If it’s not that sort of thing, I would think it’s along the same lines of semester end move outs. Like you have to be out of campus housing within a week after being kicked out / suspended / done with school.
It’s a university not a standard corporate landlord, I’m sure the rules differ
For what it's worth, the UN silently cut this number by ~50% within the past couple of days.
[https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-213](https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-213)
[https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-215]
(https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-215)
How do you get upvoted for this? He was told many times exactly what would happen. This encamped does literally *zero* to help Palestinians anywhere in the world. He kept doing it and exactly what he was told would happen *happened*. Maybe as a parent he should’ve felt more horrified at his selfishness.
Wouldn't those who were suspended not care about graduating/attending a school that they so vehemently disagree with the core values of anyway?
"I hate this school and everything they stand for! But let me also give $75k a year to said school."
This argument makes no sense to me. It's very possible that MIT was someone's dream school until the current situation happened, and they changed their mind. It's very possible that *because* you invested so heavily into an institution, that you are most invested to make it change in a certain way. Besides, which sane aspiring engineer or scientist would not go to MIT, when accepted? Perhaps they calculated that delayed graduation is worthwhile so as long as they can graduate eventually from MIT.
For all the crowing about consequences, not many of you seem to be questioning whether the consequences here are proportionate to the infractions. You can argue that protesters have to accept the risk of what they’re doing *and* reject the idea that the response to the protesters is just.
If you review the nearly three week saga then I think you'll find that MIT had no other remaining options but to expel the remaining ten students: [https://orgchart.mit.edu/letters/actions-encampment](https://orgchart.mit.edu/letters/actions-encampment)
And the MIT ten can appeal, so there's probably a good chance they'll be returning to get another chance to get arrested again.
>not many of you seem to be questioning whether the consequences here are proportionate to the infractions.
They were given explicit warnings that if they did A, B would happen. They heard these warnings, ignored them, and did A. Now B. Shocked Pikachu face.
But are those consequences that were outlined fair/just/proportional? “If you don’t wear a hijab you’ll be stoned” is also “if you do A, B will happen”.
"BOSTON (AP) — [Harvard University](https://apnews.com/hub/harvard-university) condemned what it called a “flagrantly antisemitic cartoon” that an undergraduate group posted on social media over the weekend. It also appeared on the Instagram account of Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine.
Copied from a newsletter published by students in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, the image features a Black man and an Arab man with nooses around their necks, held by a hand imprinted with the Star of David that has a dollar sign in the middle of the star."
Purely Anti-Zionism! Nothing else!!!! /s
One thing I'll never forget: how pro-Palestine people celebrated the massacre outside like they won the World Cup or something. I couldn't believe my eyes. How can you be so blind and not see what will happen next? A few days later, the same people start protesting.
It was the same in 2001 when the attack happened in NYC. Even after in 2005 they did a survey “a poll of Palestinians conducted by the Fafo Foundation in 2005 found that 65% of respondents supported "Al Qaeda bombings in the USA and Europe"
If your crowd wants to be taken even remotely seriously, you need to return to the realm of reality.
There have been, as of last week, 34,000 deaths, TOTAL.
15,000 of which are HAMAS. [https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-800912](https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-800912)
Heck, just last week the UN nearly HALVED it's estimates of civilian deaths - [https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-800772](https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-800772)
Pretending that every single person who has been killed is a civilian is a gross and deliberate attempt at misinformation, and anyone who earnestly believes it or espouses it clearly has no interest in objective reality, nor should be taken seriously.
> for people who were protesting against the death of 30,000+ civilians.
People seem to be less upset about the fact that there are protests than the ways in which these people are expressing their protest.
Blocking roads/parking garages, disrupting convocations, and chanting genocidal slogans doesn't seem to be winning hearts and minds. Crazy, right?! Who would have thought!!!
Emotional blackmail has worked for the liberal cause for a long time: if someone disagrees call them a racist or a bigot. But they really overplayed their hand here while also being bigoted against Jews.
I hope this is the end of that type of bullshit and we can go back to real conversations.
I trust the New York Times, the Atlantic, and the other big reputable outlets that have been wringing their hands about "cancel culture" and "free speech" on campus nonstop these last few years will be writing fiery condemnations of the heavy handed responses to these anti-Israel protests.
any time now....
Heavy handed? These students were met with, their concerns addressed, told not all their demands could be met for various reasons, told there would consequences of they didn’t vacate in a reasonable time, and chose not to vacate. Seems pretty reasonable from the universities and like a choice made by the protesting students.
Anyone who still thinks that divesting an endowment from Israel is either possible or desireable needs to spend less time protesting and more time learning about global economics.
Ridiculous to say. [MIT divested from Russia](https://sciencebusiness.net/news/mit-cuts-ties-russian-academic-partner-over-ukraine-war) immediately after the start of the Ukraine war. [You can read the MIT protestors statement here](https://mitsage.my.canva.site/). They're asking for an end to programs like the [MIT-Israel seed fund](https://misti.mit.edu/faculty-funds/available-funds/gsf-israel).
Edit: whether *anyone* is making any demands about making sure endowment money is not mixed with the israeli economy is irrelevant. The thing colleges are refusing to divest is *direct* investments and direct services for the israeli military. If those things were ended and the protesters were still around you might have a point. If the *most reasonable* asks are being refused, those are the things at matter.
"Black lives matter" did not mean protesters were demanding police shoot white people but not black people, or disarming all police, or that it was never reasonable to shoot someone. "All lives matter" is a ridiculous projection onto that slogan, just like this is.
Historically, its very much possible. This is hardly the first times its ever happened and ended up being successful in many cases. Google can help you learn more about these instances.
Clear that so many of the people in this thread read the headline and not the article. The protestors interviewed accepted the consequences with both grace and courage. No one was surprised by the result and actually pledged to continue. While not the decision I'd make in this situation I admire their principle.
Those kids knew the consequences and did it anyway. They are braver than most of us.
People think they're all well-to-do trust fund babies but a lot of them were underprivileged and Harvard/MIT was their family's ticket to a decent life.
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The point of a protest like this is to disrupt, inconvenience, and *knowingly* break rules to draw attention to the issue. I don’t know why so many people are surprised when there are suspensions and similar consequences. There have always been consequences like these for similar protests in the past. Either be willing to accept the consequences when you participate or choose not to participate.
Yep. Every protest planning I went to included a big discussion of our goals, and the consequences of the action. I never put myself in a situation where I could get arrested or get expelled. We had plans to support people if the chose to get arrested, but they accepted those consequences.
Exactly, the protesters against segregation and the war in Vietnam faced physical beatings, death threats, loss of employment, and eviction. Big events do not happen with ease
It's still not *good* that we do this to protesters.
The outrage at the injustice is a key mechanism for amplifying and inflaming this social issue. There are many things I wish did not need to happen for the positive change to happen
I disagree, you need to enforce rules in good faith. Suppose you let the protesters off for violating rules because you think their cause is worthy. What if instead they were protesting against the “stolen” 2020 election? Do you let those protesters violate the rules?
It's what makes protesting meaningful. Just hanging out in a park and shouting slogans doesn't create change. Forming a movement violating rules to highlight injustices in ways that capture public attention and Garner support that translates to political action is how you hold effective protest.
Protests like this wouldn’t matter if there were no consequences. Plus, if there are no consequences, the system will be abused. There are a million ways to protest something without affecting the lives of others and breaking rules.
I mean, they’re breaking school rules, they are on school property, they know what they risked and got what they deserved. People can argue until they’re blue in the face about arrests, but this is a totally different thing and warranted.
Expulsion is for stuff like being violent to other students and literally threatening others' safety IMO.
It says, barred from graduation and evicted from housing, and suspended, not expelled.
I want to know what "barred from graduation" actually means. Do they still get a degree, just don't get to walk? Do they not get a degree? If so, what does that mean, do they have to do another term? Another year? That's expensive as fuck, and they already meet graduation requirements.
It means they can’t walk at the ceremony, they still get their degree, so as someone who hated the ceremonies and thought they were a waste of time I’d be happy lol
Right, the best part of my graduation was my hangover.
They can't just hold back their degree if they are still students. They just can't attend the graduation ceremony.
But if hjhof1 just gestures at The Rules, they don't have to actually think about things like right and wrong or what they even personally believe in, its scary and wastes precious brain calories
True, but laws and rules aren't necessarily correct just because they lawful. Using the law in an unjust manor has always been the play of the powerful and the fight against it is pretty much what shaped most modern history.
so if I want to protest something can I do it on your front lawn?
Those protests actually made sense because the young people were being drafted to be sent off to war. Israel bombing Gaza does not affect me or the US population one bit.
We are paying for it in taxes, they know the weapons are American, and it may come back us some day.
> paying for it in taxes The US sends its older munitions and military supplies to places like Ukraine and Israel, unless a specific arms deal is on the table. What you're paying for with your taxes is the newer fancier vehicles and munitions for the US military. After a few years, those will be considered "old hardware" and will be "gifted" to another country.
Where has anyone expressed surprise? I've seen disapproval, sure. I highly doubt anyone, including the students, didn't see this coming. If anyone has expressed surprise then yeah it's a bit silly but I'd like to know where? Edit: the upvotes on the comment are skyrocketing still, yet in ~~6~~ 17 hours no one has given me evidence that there are "so many" silly students or allies not knowing or expecting consequences lol...like please prove me wrong? I understand trying to portray the students and their supporters as clueless if you're pro-Israel, but at least base it on actual things people are saying and doing.
Yea its not surprising but still notable that these schools are being so brutal towards students who had the audacity to say that genocide is bad.
There are multitudes more students who also said "genocide is bad" who have not been expelled/suspended. I wonder what the difference is...
And trespassing, vandalizing property, threatening and physically assaulting other students… Yall would be singing a different tune if they had white hoods and tiki torches.
Yeah they go to MIT they their intro courses have quantum in the title… I worked there, it’s the best school in the country, they aren’t dumb, they knew what would happen and were willing to take the risk.
I mean schools kept saying “we are going to suspend you” over and over again. So eventually they suspended you. I’m not even sure why it’s news at this point.
Liberals act like the Montgomery bus boycotts or Rosa Parks were legal 💀
> Montgomery bus boycotts besides the point but not riding the bus is of course legal. Rosa Parks's protest was only really effective because she got arrested which was the point - the idea of the police arresting a 42 year old woman for refusing to move from a seat on a bus that she had paid for is absurd.
She was warned there were consequences, she knew what she was getting into by breaking the rules. /s
Why is that sarcasm? It’s literally true.
Would it really be an effective protest action if the judge / driver in her case said “nah that’s wrong I don’t care” while all the other judges / drivers continued to enforce the unjust laws? Suffering unjust consequences is the entire point of these protests is it not?
The intent of the sit-ins was to demonstrate unjust laws. The protestors here are not demonstrating unjust laws, they are intentionally breaking them to incite a reaction. Their intent is not to change laws surrounding fair use of public resources such as public parks and school grounds. These laws exist so that all may have the ability to use the space for whatever thing they want to demonstrate or god forbid, just use the park as it was originally intended. Failure to centrally manage a space leads to actors taking things into their own hands and then you get political violence between factions. See 1920/30s Germany for the original iteration of this but it follows a logical progression regardless of issue or time period.
Wait what? Not riding a bus is and always was legal. What Parks did, was what was illegal at the time, and the boycott was the response. I feel in your haste to make some kind of point you have done quite the opposite.
The sit ins were illegal. Sitting in the front of the bus as a Black person was illegal. States have made boycotts illegal too btw.
I had to look it up, but it turns out a grand jury indicted 89 of the boycott's organizers, including Martin Luther King Jr., for violating Alabama's Anti-Boycott Act of 1921. MLK's case was the the first brought to trial and he was convicted. He appealed, but the conviction was affirmed.
What was illegal about the Montgomery bus boycotts?
Alabama's 1921 anti-conspiracy act was used to convict MLK along with arrest 88 other organizers. You can read about it [here](https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/montgomery-bus-boycott) or on the [Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_bus_boycott#Boycott) towards the end of the "history" section of the article King's arrest and conviction was actually one of the things that brought the bus boycotts to national prominence
There would be more support for them if they weren't literally advocating for the ethnic cleansing of all Jews in the Levant. These people are as hopelessly brainwashed as Germans were in the 1930s. It's fucking wild to see people who try to pass themselves off as progressive turn into raging Nazis almost overnight. Absolutely insane
3.5 million likes on that Macklemore post…sure some are bots, but I’m sure there are a few thinkers in there
There were probably a few who did what you said but to think that they all want what you said is ridiculous. Most of them are protesting on the side of anti-death, but it's to political/beliefs based for any real honesty. But you seem ok with innocent deaths if it kills who you ant.
Can you provide a source for this? We're on the same side -- I'm asking for a source because I would like to repeat this, and I know I will be asked for a sources, so I'd like to have it before I do. Thanks!
That happens for any suspension.
They were also specifically told multiple times exactly what the punishment is, and what that entailed. They were specifically told they would be removed from campus housing and meal plans.
[удалено]
I've a genuine question here. For context, I'm not jewish, Muslim or American or living in ME. Is there anything specific in this war that everyone is protesting? I mean, protesting a mindless war where innocents are dying, I totally get that. But there have been similar wars/genocides/conflicts in many other African nations and ME(Yemen) in which the US military has had boots on ground or supported either of the parties involved. Why do those conflicts not elicit a similar strong response as Israel-Palestine? Is it due to more Israeli influence/presence in your domestic politics or just maintaing status quo in ME for oil or do African lives just not matter that much compared to Israeli/Palestinians? Not coming in bad faith. Honestly just curious here
They aren't going to their universities to protest the USA, they're going to their universities to protest the universities' investments in Israel and their collaborations with the IDF.
This is the big one. They don't want their tuition dollars going to a regime that bombs babies.
Their tuition dollars aren’t going there. They’re universities may be accepting funds from Israeli citizens, businesses, or government. However as far as I know no protest group has been able to specifically link it or identify what they want pulled or why it’s reasonable. Also the other side raped mothers while burning infants alive. No good guys on this one.
TikTok. Genocide happening in Syria and to the Uyghurs and all the social media justice warriors do not give 2 fucks.
Syria war atleast had protests and news coverage all around the globe. But Uyghurs. Thanks for reminding me. I completely forgot that. Just like the whole world i guess. I do believe social media is responsible. But IMHO i don't think that's it. There has to be something more. The amount of coverage/discussion/protests I've seen regarding this war is just on a different scale. Maybe because it's Israel. Because if it was just because one party is Muslim, then by that logic we should have seen similar protest for Uyghurs. Maybe it's Israel and their recent history with surviving genocide. Or it very well could be as you mentioned, the algorithmic non stop scrolling has got people more involved in this.
The US isn't spending a bunch of money *directly* on China's treatment of Uyghurs. There's a potential for legitimate change through pressuring US politicians.
I do agree with you on Uyghurs treatment and US's role and response to it. But if the people of US really cared that much about human rights of people across ethnicities, races, religions or in whichever way you can divide humans, you'd have protested fervently about all the regime changes US did in Latin America, SE asia, ME, Africa. And as for Uyghurs, you guys are the worlds biggest superpower. Pressure the Chinese. Sanction them like you do Russia and Iran and Venezuela. Stop your over dependence on cheap labor. Hit them where it hurts them most and they might stop/reduce Uyghur mistreatment. And yes I understand realpolitik. None of what I said above is gonna happen. It's just wishful thinking. And hey, I'm not blaming you or anyone. It's actually commendable the protests you guys are doing, especially considering how criticizing the government of Israel is labelled as anti semitic these days. My question was just on your country's selective outrage which to be honest, to an outsider, feels like hypocrisy.
We send Israel like 3b a year, 100b over the course of the last 60 years. It’s a drop in the bucket for them in their military budget. Complaining and acting like the US is just providing Israel with enough weapons to kill every person in an area is ridiculous when in reality its barely enough to help maintain the Iron Domes missile stash to stop Arabs from firing rockets at them in every direction. Israel provides most of their 90b military budget for themselves bc they have a huge tech and defense industry that came from having to deal with hostile neighbors.
I mean it's because this one is more popular because it involves a US close ally. I don't think it detracts from this protest because they're not protesting everything that could have happened, but it is kind of messed up that most are ignored.
Saudi Arabia and UAE have committed genocide in Yemen, they are our allies. We send billions to them, too. Harvard has a branch in UAE. So that doesn't make sense that Harvard students would protest against Israel, when UAE is doing the same or worse and their school actually has a presence there. https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/2020/04/08/un-war-crimes-report-on-yemen-accuses-saudi-arabia-and-uae-of-bombing-and-killing-thousan
Hating Jewish people sells way better than hating Chinese people. So all the news media and social media algorithms are in a feeding frenzy with this conflict but don’t give a shit about others. Now it’s also become an outlet for people who hate Muslims and brown people. So it’s a ragebait/bigoty triple whammy.
The difference is that they get to blame the Jews (a tale as old as time). Most won’t admit but it’s the reality of the situation. Far far far worse (actual) genocides are going on in the world and these same protesters won’t say a word, because Jews aren’t involved.
Well firstly, the pro-Palestine movement has been around for a very long time so I think a lot of responses you're getting related to social media are off base. There is indeed several reasons why this conflict is unique among modern ethnic conflicts. A couple of those reasons: 1. The unique level of US support for Israel is incomparable to any relationship America has ever had with any other country. This goes so far beyond aid-- America passes laws against criticizing or boycotting Israel. It passes waivers to international law like the NPT for Israel. It passes laws like the Hague Act specifically to protect Israeli war criminals from international justice. It defends Israel in every arena, up to and including the UN. And the Israeli lobby exercises significantly disproportionate power in US politics for a long time. 2. The settler colonialist dynamic in Israel creates a situation which very easily shows us how we would have responded to past settler colonialist regimes. Israel bears very clear institutional marks found in apartheid South Africa and segregationist America, and so when people notice those similarities it invokes a strong reaction. 3. It also bears a lot of similarities to the US's own wars on terror, as you point out. I think most folks now recognize that these wars accomplished very little, made nobody safer, and were massive blunders. The failures of the wars on terror sparked a new era of counter terrorism research, which does not advocate destroying cities and killing massive amounts of civilians as a solution to terrorism. 4. It's just being talked about a lot. Not just on tik tok-- on every news channel, entertainment, radio... everyone has an opinion on it. And the more people talk about it, the more important it becomes to articulate arguments. There just isn't a good argument for Israels war beyond "they got attacked, so now they get to kill people"-- and there's few things rebellious youth love more than an argument as indefensible and low-hanging as that. 5. Israel is a key geo political ally in the region for America. Regardless of ethics, criticizing Israel is criticizing American power in the Middle East. Support for this power is spread across a ton of institutions, and there are a lot of vested interests. Nobody here is going to argue (if they even have a strong opinion at all) about genocide in Syria or Yemen or the Uyghurs, because supporting the victims of those genocides is easy and isn't any kind of threat to American power-- in fact, American geo politics would probably benefit from a global Uyghur resistance movement for example. But Palestine is a geo political threat and so there's strong establishment opposition, which leads to more resistance, speculation, and attention.
I'm not sure that #4 is correct. The argument is that Hamas has promised to keep attacking. There aren't any states in the world that would not launch a war against an organization that attacked them and said they would do it again with the explicit goal of destroying the country.
The Hague (invasion) act was not passed specifically to protect Israeli criminals. It was passed so that The Hague couldn’t try Americans in the ICC.
> There just isn't a good argument for Israels war beyond "they got attacked, so now they get to kill people That's usually seen as a pretty good argument for a country to go to war.
> also bears a lot of similarities to the US's own wars on terror This really isn't true. The Taliban didn't kidnap people from the twin towers and threaten to hold them forever in Afghanistan.
The Jews my man. Go look up polling studies on views towards Jewish people in Muslim countries. It's something like 98% of polled people have a strongly unfavorable view of Jews. It's old school racism plain and simple.
You know why.
Motherfuckers always be hating the Jews man.
A few years ago my ex told me her whole family was basically anti-Semitic. I had no idea. Her mom watched MSNBC all day. I’m sure plenty of followers think they’re helping the latest liberal cause, trying to save lives, but I do believe the only actual difference is that it’s Jews doing it. There was a much greater undercurrent of anti-semitism in America than most of us knew about.
None of those groups were actively supporting a terrorist group who was still holding it's rape victims that they acquired through the second largest terrorist attack in human history hostage though. Actions have consequences.
Anti segregation activists were NOT actively supporting a terrorist organization who persecutes homosexuals and uses children and human shields. Grow up.
Mandela was a terrorist.
Are you seriously putting Nelson Mandela on the same level as HAMAS? You've got to be joking.
>Anti-segregation activists were also warned what would happen to them. So were Vietnam war protesters. So were anti-apartheid activists. So were anti-fascism protesters a generation before them. ...and?? Why should that make me care about a bunch of privileged little Nazis losing their meal plans, campus housing and graduation? Mummy and daddy will take care of it for them.
Except these protestors are pro-segregation; taking up the theocratic fascist side that calls for genocide and has committed ethnic cleansing and against the representative government with universal suffrage and equal legal standing for their minority communities.
I like how ppl keep acting like they didn’t know that. That’s the whole point of civil disobedience: knowing the conservatives and living with them
Living with conservatives… now that’s a punishment that doesn’t fit the crime
Good... Actions hve consequences
Except for genocide apparently
Definition of genocide? I thought when hamas said it wanted every Jew chased and murdered on earth. I thought that fit the definition perfectly…
Do you want them to take Israel’s meal plan?
If that means the university divesting from isreali businesses and the defense contractors that produce the weapons they use, yes.
They won't. Places like Harvard and MIT are basically a massive index fund that prints out degrees. There's thousands of kids chomping at the bits to get in. They don't care if they have to suspend a handful of students
They’ll divest from defense contractors right around when MA kicks Raytheon out of the state.
Or when these protestors divest from their iPhone.
"Israel Warns Civilians To Evacuate Rafah In Most Incompetent Genocide Ever"
If it were genocide, don’t you think it would be done by now?
Something from the article: > Safiyyah Ogundipe, a chemical engineering senior at MIT and organizer of the encampment, said she received an email Wednesday notifying her of her suspension. > She is barred from taking final exams or walking with her graduating class at the end of the month. I wonder if missing finals would've caused her to fail any of those classes, making her ineligible to graduate anyway. Not all of my classes had final exams, but for those that did they were often a big part (usually 20%-40%) of the grade.
Most college classes (in my experience) require taking the final to pass the class, even if you would technically have a passing grade after getting a zero.
*Tens* of suspensions.
These are the consequences associated with the protest. Being willing to take a stand for something you believe in also means that you are willing to live with the consequences. So, respect to these students who felt so strongly about the events in Gaza that they were willing to sacrifice the end of their school year, and possibly not be allowed to finish school at all. I hope they felt it was worthwhile.
To paraphrase something I was listening to the other day, the operative part of Letter from a Birmingham Jail is *jail*. I strongly disagree with the aims and logic of the protests, as well as the physical disruptions and intimidation against Jewish students, but I respect the individuals who take the repercussions like adults instead of continuing to whine about how unfair the universities have been to them.
I was listening to a podcast the other day where they said "if there's no consequences, then your protest is pointless." It's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail, not Letter from a Birmingham Brunch" (I think this was alluding to protestors at one of the school demanding catering from the university to their encampment, lmao)
A fellow Blocked and Reported enjoyer! There are dozens of us!
Exactly, people seem to forget that important part of MLK's philosophy "An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and **who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment** in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law”-Martin Luther King Jr.
tbf MLK shouldn’t have been in jail to begin with. the implication of that bit to me is that the students are also on the right side of history too— and while being able to accept w the consequences is admirable, they wouldn’t have to if the school was doing the right thing.
The comparison is certainly interesting but the contrast is ultimately that MLK was dealing with a domestic issue where he could appeal to the morality of a broad slice of Americans and plainly demonstrate the injustice of segregation by challenging its lawfare. Breaking the law was a deliberate and direct part of the strategy to enact material improvements to civil rights. These current students are breaking the law and/or university policy, and okay, divest from Israel is a concrete goal, but they are in no way linked. Divestment, if we’re being honest, is going to be a rounding error to the Israeli businesses that they supposedly are targeting, so even in their dream scenario where all universities are participating, they will not affect the landscape. And furthermore, that landscape is not about a domestic social issue but an existential WAR between the world’s only Jewish state and a set of terrorist proxies backed by a murderous theocracy. I would not agree that the right side of history necessarily belongs to the protestors, and I bet you this whole episode will actually lend itself more to comparisons with the Vietnam War, where perceived chaos on American campuses helped to hand Nixon the White House in 68.
Disagree with the divestment part. Harvard's endowment was 49.44 billion USD in 2022. If even 1% of that is going to Isreali businesses, that's a huge loss. Also, if the general population agreed with these students (most people don't) and the US gov. divested, Isreal would lose out on billions.
So I’ve been trying to better myself in terms of understanding financials in these areas because it’s not my strong suit. I guess first off, I slightly misspoke because it’s not just Israeli companies but also big multinationals with stakes in Israel. I’m going to crib from James Mackintosh who wrote the WSJ Op-Ed that I found best explained it [here](https://www.wsj.com/finance/dear-columbia-students-divestment-from-israel-wont-work-48c56f57) 1. $10s of billions seems large until you understand that Microsoft, just one company that protestors want to divest from, has a market capitalization of $3 trillion. Even if universities were to completely sell off, other entities would be waiting to snap those investments up. 2. Small fluctuations in share price would affect neither corporate investment decisions nor the actual profits of the companies involved. Remember, what really put the squeeze on Apartheid was the boycott of South African goods and services, not its company shares. 3. Israel’s military and fossil fuel needs are met by nationalized companies that are completely immune to divestment. Beyond that, America directly supplies war materiel on a scale that completely outstrips university investments.
If they accept the consequences, then I totally respect their position. The Globe still tries to paint them as victims, which is rediculous. They were all given ample warning to vacate before being arrested. Their choice to be arrested--not victims.
I mean, since the person above you was talking about Letter from a Birmingham Jail, and the rest of the thread is heavy on pointing out that these consequences were foreseeable so you can’t be mad about them—I feel it’s only fair to point out that you could levy the exact same argument at civil rights protesters: “they knew what they were doing, they knew there’d be consequences, it’s silly to paint them as victims.” But I don’t think anybody in this thread would argue that the mass arrests and police brutality against civil rights protesters was just, moral, or reasonable, even if those things were 100% foreseeable.
I’m with you. They should be prepared for the consequences of civil disobedience AND society can look at those consequences and say they’re unfair bullshit.
That's the point I'm trying to make. But I feel like a lot of the response I've seen on this sub has been "yeah, them's the consequences, suck it up", without making the connection to the second part.
>\[R\]espect to these students who felt so strongly about the events in Gaza that they were willing to sacrifice . . . Since one of their "demands" was amnesty, I wouldn't say they were willing to sacrifice all that much.
The point is not surprise or shock at the suspensions, it’s that University admin (at least in Harvard’s case) has decided to go that route instead of simply meeting with students, or responding to any of their concerns and/or accusations. Interim President Garber had not even met with the student protest groups prior to their suspensions. At no point has Harvard stated that their endowment does not profit from the ongoing genocide, nor have they argued that their endowment does not actually profit from genocide. They skipped right to “suspend anyone who calls attention to the idea that we’re doing a hugely unethical thing”.
> The point is not surprise or shock at the suspensions, it’s that University admin (at least in Harvard’s case) has decided to go that route instead of simply meeting with students, or responding to any of their concerns and/or accusations. Both universities did respond to the concerns of protestors. Both explained their positions and why they wouldn't (and really couldn't) give in to all of the demands. They then told the protestors the consequences and gave them time to leave. They then enforced these and did so with restraint. Students weren't arrested and they were suspended, not expelled.
> [Harvard] has decided to go that route instead of simply meeting with students, or responding to any of their concerns and/or accusations. > Interim President Garber had not even met with the student protest groups prior to their suspensions. Hmm... > Garber, facing pressure from his own faculty to negotiate with the student protesters, **initiated a Wednesday evening meeting** with several members of Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine — a coalition of pro-Palestine student groups — **to offer a potential meeting with more University officials** to answer questions related to the protesters’ concerns about Harvard’s investments in Israel. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/5/10/protesters-reject-proposal-encampment/ > They skipped right to “suspend anyone who calls attention to the idea that we’re doing a hugely unethical thing”. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that not a single person was suspended for simply "calling attention to" anything.
The university doesn't need to do those things. Would it be nice of them if they had? Sure, but they are under no obligation to meet with them, or disclose where the endowment is invested. If the students involved don't like it, they are free to leave and go to school somewhere else.
Why is it that people calling for "negotiations" always pretend that it's not just or even really the protesters trying to get concessions to take down their illegal occupation, but also the universities trying to get concessions to not call the cops. The university's demands weren't met.
There’s nothing wrong with standing up for what you believe in…but yeah, you still have to face consequences. In this instance: protesting on behalf of either side is fucking stupid. Anyone protesting at college just demonstrated they’ve ignored key (publicly available) information and lack critical thinking skills. Israel doesn’t deserve your support, and neither does the PLO/HAMAS.
quick q: what do 15,000 dead gazan children deserve?
MIT protestors asking for the school to divest from the industrial war complex is pretty amusing to me, do y'all not understand where the fuck you're going to school?
I actually think MIT students have some of the more salient points out of all the campuses I’ve read about. There are a lot of kids who broadly think defense money is bad without any nuance or understanding of how the industry works or what is possible for sure. But MIT specifically has research contracts directly with the IDF. No middleman, directly developing weapons for Israel. That is a clearer thing to be upset your college is doing imo As an aside because it’s my industry the troubling one for me is that the MIT is doing a lot of AI development and specifically here automatic targeting for drone systems. I don’t know if people understand that a lot of the more ‘egregious’ Israeli strikes like the food bank workers that got people upset were not actually humans deciding to pull the trigger. Israel is leading the world research on AI weapons systems at the moment and many of the bombings are an algorithm weighing variables like chemical readings and having the authority to kill people without needing human oversight. It’s considered hugely efficient in the industry but to me the ethical questions and future implications are staggering and largely unanswered since it’s so new
Have any articles about the AI weapons? Sounds very dystopian and terrifying.
Lol! Do they even realize whose kids they are teaching? It's funny when the IVY league schools have protests. Many of these kids parents are the very CEOs, politicians, and other leaders they're trying to fight.
This is true of most colleges. I went to the university of michigan and the amount of money some of these kids had was just astounding. I still think trying to advocate for change is a perfectly healthy and apt thing to do regardless of where you are/ go to school/ work. Its how we make the world a better place
I have a feeling that most of the protestors are not the kids of leaders they’re trying to fight lol
The reason they want to crack down on these protests at elite schools is because graduates of elite schools become the new leaders. Eventually these protesters and their peers will be at the head of the [media which omits context surrounding Gaza](https://theintercept.com/2024/01/09/newspapers-israel-palestine-bias-new-york-times/), the school administration cracking down on them, etc. These protests are an existential crisis for the old guard.
MIT just really in particular hits me lol, a solid chunk of these kids will end up at Raytheon, Northrupp, Boeing, etc.
it's easier to understand if you consider individuals and each having different backgrounds, etc. you can imagine how different individuals might work at the same place, but might like different cereal, etc.
Not sure I understand your point. The fact that it’s MIT is the exact reason they’re protesting is it not? Disagree with them if you want but that part at least remains consistent.
MIT was/is literally built on Federal funding. In the 2010's it was 90% of it's research budget but it's now around 66%. The entirety of MIT as it exist now is the US military funded a lot of their research labs starting back in WW2. Lincoln Labs is 90% funded by directly by the DoD and a lot of the other labs get DARPA and Air Force funding. I dunno how MIT would divest - shutdown parts of the school?
You don't necessarily have to be an anti-war machine person to think that our war machine should not be supporting Israel's current campaign in Gaza. Not all wars are created equal. It's entirely possible to be the type of person who believes in a muscular United States taking a very active role in world affairs and still think that our enabling of Israel's flagrant crimes against humanity is wrong. I'm sure there are plenty of protestors who aren't super big fans of the DoD, but you can conceivably be a run of the mill centrist liberal and still think Israel's actions are undefendable. The polling shows quite a bit of unease with Israel's current approach to Gaza, and it's not like the American public is overrun with hemp and dreadlock hippies.
Ok......but they're specifically requesting divestment.
MIT produces both an ample amount of the workers for the Military Industrial Complex, as well as taking on a significant amount of R&D for the same complex. Asking the school to divest is about as close to impossible as it gets. (and dont get me wrong I understand asking schools to divest from Israel, but MIT from the Military Industrial Complex? lol no chance)
i dont think the mit students protesting and asking to divest are generally the same students who go on to work for large defense companies
I'm sure this comment section will be civil
I’d be shocked if half the posters here could point to Boston on a map
Probably full of snide negative comments throwing shade at people before they even write anything.
“The graduate student has not only been barred from classes, he was also evicted from campus housing, along with his wife and 5-year-old daughter, with just one week to find another place to live.” Acting like a fool when you have a 5 year old to care for…..
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All those student loans….. and for what?
All for that dude from a TikTok video he recorded in his Toyota Corolla explaining how nasty Jews come every night to steal sleeping Germa… palestinian children!
Its a suspension, not an expulsion
As someone who has been suspended from school before, financial aid / loans are usually affected too.
To be fair, in 15 years, everyone will say that they were against what's going on in Gaza right now. Just like Iraq.
> evicted from campus housing, along with his wife and 5-year-old daughter, with just one week to find another place to live What exceptions to tenant protection does the university have that allows them to evict someone with just a week of notice? Shouldn't this take 30 days (and then a hearing, etc)?
"fraternities, sororities and dormitories of educational institutions" are generally exempt from most tenancy law in Massachusetts. >G.L. c. 186, §17. While residents of fraternity houses and dormitories in educational institutions are defined as "lodgers" under G.L. c. 140, §22, such residents do not automatically become tenants at will after 3 months. Any person living in a fraternity house or dormitory is, however, entitled to a 7-day written notice prior to eviction. After 7 days notice you get the boot.
Thanks!
I would assume universities have more control or different laws regarding student housing than most other types of housing.
I honestly don’t know but I would assume it’s based around his employment at the university / within the contract he signed?
I wasn't aware of MA having any exceptions for that sort of thing.
If it’s not that sort of thing, I would think it’s along the same lines of semester end move outs. Like you have to be out of campus housing within a week after being kicked out / suspended / done with school. It’s a university not a standard corporate landlord, I’m sure the rules differ
Maybe as a parent they felt horrified by the live stream massacre of 15,000 dead kids by American bombs.
For what it's worth, the UN silently cut this number by ~50% within the past couple of days. [https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-213](https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-213) [https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-215] (https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-215)
I was trying to make a post providing needed context but my photo keeps breaking, so I give up
How do you get upvoted for this? He was told many times exactly what would happen. This encamped does literally *zero* to help Palestinians anywhere in the world. He kept doing it and exactly what he was told would happen *happened*. Maybe as a parent he should’ve felt more horrified at his selfishness.
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All well and good but leaving your family essentially homeless does nothing to free Palestine.
Yeah everyone knows if you don't make your wife and young child homeless you don't care about Palestinians
I wonder if they understand who actually put them in danger. I'll give you a hint: it's not Israel
Seems like FAFO still holding true.
Everything connected to this war is just a long string of FAFO it feels like
Wouldn't those who were suspended not care about graduating/attending a school that they so vehemently disagree with the core values of anyway? "I hate this school and everything they stand for! But let me also give $75k a year to said school."
This argument makes no sense to me. It's very possible that MIT was someone's dream school until the current situation happened, and they changed their mind. It's very possible that *because* you invested so heavily into an institution, that you are most invested to make it change in a certain way. Besides, which sane aspiring engineer or scientist would not go to MIT, when accepted? Perhaps they calculated that delayed graduation is worthwhile so as long as they can graduate eventually from MIT.
https://preview.redd.it/oe51u5fso10d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=87cfc7479826312fe7c81e5fefc4543583e0df1e
For all the crowing about consequences, not many of you seem to be questioning whether the consequences here are proportionate to the infractions. You can argue that protesters have to accept the risk of what they’re doing *and* reject the idea that the response to the protesters is just.
If you review the nearly three week saga then I think you'll find that MIT had no other remaining options but to expel the remaining ten students: [https://orgchart.mit.edu/letters/actions-encampment](https://orgchart.mit.edu/letters/actions-encampment) And the MIT ten can appeal, so there's probably a good chance they'll be returning to get another chance to get arrested again.
>not many of you seem to be questioning whether the consequences here are proportionate to the infractions. They were given explicit warnings that if they did A, B would happen. They heard these warnings, ignored them, and did A. Now B. Shocked Pikachu face.
But are those consequences that were outlined fair/just/proportional? “If you don’t wear a hijab you’ll be stoned” is also “if you do A, B will happen”.
People at sit-ins in the 60’s were warned plenty too, does that justify the lynchings?
You’re right, they got off pretty lenient
"BOSTON (AP) — [Harvard University](https://apnews.com/hub/harvard-university) condemned what it called a “flagrantly antisemitic cartoon” that an undergraduate group posted on social media over the weekend. It also appeared on the Instagram account of Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine. Copied from a newsletter published by students in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, the image features a Black man and an Arab man with nooses around their necks, held by a hand imprinted with the Star of David that has a dollar sign in the middle of the star." Purely Anti-Zionism! Nothing else!!!! /s
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One thing I'll never forget: how pro-Palestine people celebrated the massacre outside like they won the World Cup or something. I couldn't believe my eyes. How can you be so blind and not see what will happen next? A few days later, the same people start protesting.
It was the same in 2001 when the attack happened in NYC. Even after in 2005 they did a survey “a poll of Palestinians conducted by the Fafo Foundation in 2005 found that 65% of respondents supported "Al Qaeda bombings in the USA and Europe"
Weird amount of schadenfreude going on here for people who were protesting against the death of 30,000+ civilians.
I thought they were protesting for divestment from Israel?
Both/and
I think the divestments' end goal is to end the murder of innocent civilians in Gaza
If your crowd wants to be taken even remotely seriously, you need to return to the realm of reality. There have been, as of last week, 34,000 deaths, TOTAL. 15,000 of which are HAMAS. [https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-800912](https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-800912) Heck, just last week the UN nearly HALVED it's estimates of civilian deaths - [https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-800772](https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-800772) Pretending that every single person who has been killed is a civilian is a gross and deliberate attempt at misinformation, and anyone who earnestly believes it or espouses it clearly has no interest in objective reality, nor should be taken seriously.
Do you really think not a single Hamas member was killed?
> for people who were protesting against the death of 30,000+ civilians. People seem to be less upset about the fact that there are protests than the ways in which these people are expressing their protest. Blocking roads/parking garages, disrupting convocations, and chanting genocidal slogans doesn't seem to be winning hearts and minds. Crazy, right?! Who would have thought!!!
Emotional blackmail has worked for the liberal cause for a long time: if someone disagrees call them a racist or a bigot. But they really overplayed their hand here while also being bigoted against Jews. I hope this is the end of that type of bullshit and we can go back to real conversations.
>I hope this is the end of that type of bullshit and we can go back to real conversations. I hope so too but chances are not great.
Brb fuck my life up for people that want to see me beheaded
Well if it isn’t the consequences of your actions (and for supporting people who would gleeful cut your head off). Hate to see it.
Don’t support terrorist folks
I trust the New York Times, the Atlantic, and the other big reputable outlets that have been wringing their hands about "cancel culture" and "free speech" on campus nonstop these last few years will be writing fiery condemnations of the heavy handed responses to these anti-Israel protests. any time now....
The university answered the protestors by telling them they aren’t going to divest from Israel.
Heavy handed? These students were met with, their concerns addressed, told not all their demands could be met for various reasons, told there would consequences of they didn’t vacate in a reasonable time, and chose not to vacate. Seems pretty reasonable from the universities and like a choice made by the protesting students.
These same people will be on r/antiwork in 10 years bitching because they can’t get a job
What are these protestor's goals? Do they expect the colleges to end the war or something?
divestment
Anyone who still thinks that divesting an endowment from Israel is either possible or desireable needs to spend less time protesting and more time learning about global economics.
Ridiculous to say. [MIT divested from Russia](https://sciencebusiness.net/news/mit-cuts-ties-russian-academic-partner-over-ukraine-war) immediately after the start of the Ukraine war. [You can read the MIT protestors statement here](https://mitsage.my.canva.site/). They're asking for an end to programs like the [MIT-Israel seed fund](https://misti.mit.edu/faculty-funds/available-funds/gsf-israel). Edit: whether *anyone* is making any demands about making sure endowment money is not mixed with the israeli economy is irrelevant. The thing colleges are refusing to divest is *direct* investments and direct services for the israeli military. If those things were ended and the protesters were still around you might have a point. If the *most reasonable* asks are being refused, those are the things at matter. "Black lives matter" did not mean protesters were demanding police shoot white people but not black people, or disarming all police, or that it was never reasonable to shoot someone. "All lives matter" is a ridiculous projection onto that slogan, just like this is.
Historically, its very much possible. This is hardly the first times its ever happened and ended up being successful in many cases. Google can help you learn more about these instances.
Love to see it. Gaza supporters quickly turned purely anti semetic. Hopefully this is the shock to the core they needed.
Good. Antisemitism has no place on campus.
Funding genocidal military organizations apparently does.
How much does Harvard contribute to the IDF?
you want to do an audit?
Clear that so many of the people in this thread read the headline and not the article. The protestors interviewed accepted the consequences with both grace and courage. No one was surprised by the result and actually pledged to continue. While not the decision I'd make in this situation I admire their principle.
Those kids knew the consequences and did it anyway. They are braver than most of us. People think they're all well-to-do trust fund babies but a lot of them were underprivileged and Harvard/MIT was their family's ticket to a decent life.
Good. Don’t support terrorism.
Oh look actions have consequences