University campus protests encapsulate a moment of febrile divisiveness where nuance is too often lost
In the fog of a time which feels deeply discombobulating for so many groups of people, it’s vital to see and hear what’s going on up close.
It’s a fearful time for many. Positions are entrenched, views are polarised and emotions are very high.
And in that environment, issues can be conflated, judgements can be rash and deeply complex issues can be condensed to their simplest, most digestible form.
There are a multitude of prisms through which people see things. Nuance is too often lost.
Columbia University on New York City’s upper west side is one of America’s most prestigious institutions.
It’s one of a number of Ivy League schools where protests against Israel’s war in Gaza have become a national issue confounding the police and splintering the politicians.
Those who look for nuance end up tied in knots as they seek balance.
“I condemn the antisemitic protests…” President Biden said in his latest comments on the growing movement, adding: “I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians, and their, how they’re being…”
He failed to finish his sentence. There is an election coming. Being unequivocal, either way, isn’t an option.
From a surface level, some have concluded that all the student protesters are antisemitic terrorist sympathisers and/or all the vocal counter-protesters are genocide-condoning colonialist monsters. Of course neither is true.
What I saw from my albeit limited, allotted time on the Columbia campus was a spectrum.
Pro-Palestinian protesters have created an encampment in the quadrangle of Columbia University
Hollywood star blasts ‘lowlife scumbags’
There was the young Lebanese-American woman who wouldn’t bring herself to condemn Hamas. There was the young American man who just wanted “the genocide to end”.
There was the British professor of Middle Eastern history who sought to provide the context of a conflict stretching back so many years. And there were Jewish students whose message for Israel was “not in my name”.
The thrust of their demands was for the university to cut all links with Israel and to divest financially.
At a time when definitions are condensed, their views would, by some but not all, be interpreted as antisemitic or, in the case of the Jewish students, self-hating.
One Jewish-American politician, Bruce Blakeman, speaking on the street outside the campus, declared angrily: “They are traitors.”
Alongside him was actor and comedian Michael Rapaport who described the campus encampment protesters as: “bullies, cowards, and pathetic lowlife scumbags”.
Read more:
Baby saved from womb of mother killed in Israeli strike
Dozens arrested at Yale and Colombia cancels classes amid protest
Israeli intelligence chief quits over 7 October attack
Hollywood actor Michael Rapaport joined pro-Israel demonstrations outside the university
University president warns of ‘clear and present’ danger
It is a deeply depressing statement of fact that some Jewish students and professors do not feel safe on their own campuses.
Shai Davidai, an assistant professor at Columbia Business School, wrote on X: “Earlier today, Columbia University refused to let me onto campus. Why? Because they cannot protect my safety as a Jewish professor. This is 1938.”
We are at another moment of febrile divisiveness and division where extremes are amplified and fear is visceral.
Slogans are interpreted as genocidal and they are compounded by the violent threats of a minority.
What was my campus takeaway, as an observer with no alliances but also no visual identifier – a kippah or a keffiyeh – to attract the potential ire of one side or the other?
Well, the prevailing vibe within my snapshot of the campus spectrum, which by definition has its extremes, was one of tolerance, with a call for an end to all killing and to occupation.
It did not chime with the way the university president had framed the situation just days ago: “A clear and present danger to the substantial functioning of the university.”
Pro-Israel demonstrators in New York
President Minouche Shafik, who is British-American-Egyptian and a member of the UK House of Lords, chose to call in the police last week to tackle the growing protest movement.
She had, the Associated Press reported, “focused her message on fighting antisemitism rather than protecting free speech”.
The thorny line between free speech and hate speech is a judgment so often left to the police.
It’s important to note that the police chief overseeing the Columbia arrests last week later said: “The students that were arrested were peaceful, offered no resistance whatsoever, and were saying what they wanted to say in a peaceful manner.”
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators outside Columbia University
Yet, in this febrile and condensed moment, they can be all of those things and, to the beholder, be antisemitic too.
At the heart of all this is the challenge of how to moderate the conversation; how to keep it moderate, when that now seems to be so open to interpretation.
As I write, news is emerging of more arrests, this time at another of the city’s universities, NYU. It is prompting angry reactions.
“NYU’s administration tonight joined the shameful list of US universities that called the police to arrest their own students and faculty for protesting against an ongoing genocide”, NYU professor Mohamad Bazzi posted on X.
Clara Weiss, the National Secretary of IYSSE, a student social equality movement wrote: “The Biden admin and the Democratic admin of NY and NYC have all backed a state crackdown but protests against the #Gazagenocide continue to grow and expand.”
NYPD Deputy Commissioner Michael Gerber has spoken of the challenges in policing such demonstrations
I asked NYPD Deputy Commissioner Michael Gerber to characterise the challenge.
“It’s a great and important question,” he said.
“Determining when something goes from protected speech to unprotected speech can be very context specific; can require a lot of nuance. And you’re right, you have to make calls on a daily basis, making judgment calls. We’re doing it to the very best of our ability. [The] stakes are high, there’s no question about that.”
It is, then, a balance between respecting free speech and restricting it.
It’s about finding the right tools to allow for a sober, objective deciphering of the red line which lies between free speech and hate speech.
The UK-US trade deal has been signed and is “done”, US President Donald Trump has said as he met Sir Keir Starmer at the G7 summit.
The US president told reporters: “We signed it, and it’s done. It’s a fair deal for both. It’ll produce a lot of jobs, a lot of income.”
As Mr Trump and his British counterpart exited a mountain lodge in the Canadian Rockies where the summit is being held, the US president held up a physical copy of the trade agreement to show reporters.
Several leaves of paper fell from the binding, and Mr Starmer quickly bent down to pick them up, saying: “A very important document.”
President Donald Trump drops papers as he meets with Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Kananaskis, Canada. Pic: AP
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Sir Keir Starmer hastily collects the signed executive order documents from the ground and hands them back to the US president.
Sir Keir said the document “implements” the deal to cut tariffs on cars and aerospace, adding: “So this is a very good day for both of our countries – a real sign of strength.”
Mr Trump added that the UK was “very well protected” against any future tariffs, saying: “You know why? Because I like them”.
However, he did not say whether levies on British steel exports to the US would be set to 0%, saying “we’re gonna let you have that information in a little while”.
Sir Keir Starmer picks up paper from the UK-US trade deal after Donald Trump dropped it at the G7 summit. Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also praised Sir Keir as a “great” prime minister, adding: “We’ve been talking about this deal for six years, and he’s done what they haven’t been able to do.”
He added: “We’re very longtime partners and allies and friends and we’ve become friends in a short period of time.
“He’s slightly more liberal than me to put it mildly… but we get along.”
Sir Keir added that “we make it work”.
The US president appeared to mistakenly refer to a “trade agreement with the European Union” at one point as he stood alongside the British prime minister.
Mr Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs on countries in April. At the time, he announced 10% “reciprocal” rates on all UK exports – as well as separately announced 25% levies on cars and steel.
Read more:
G7 summit ‘all about the Donald’ – analysis
Scrambled G7 agenda as leaders race to de-escalate Israel-Iran conflict
In a joint televised phone call in May, Sir Keir and Mr Trump announced the UK and US had agreed on a trade deal – but added the details were being finalised.
Ahead of the G7 summit, the prime minister said he would meet Mr Trump for “one-on-one” talks, and added the agreement “really matters for the vital sectors that are safeguarded under our deal, and we’ve got to implement that”.
US
Doctor to plead guilty to giving Matthew Perry ketamine before Friends star suffered fatal overdose
A Los Angeles doctor has agreed to plead guilty to giving Friends actor Matthew Perry ketamine in the lead up to his death from a fatal overdose, prosecutors have said.
Dr Salvador Plasencia, who will admit to four counts of distribution of ketamine, faces up to a maximum of 40 years in prison.
He is among five people charged in connection with the death of Friends star Perry, 54, whose body was found in his hot tub by his assistant in October 2023.
The medical examiner ruled that ketamine and other factors caused him to lose consciousness and drown.
The actor had been using the drug through his regular doctor in a legal treatment for depression, but had begun seeking more ketamine than his doctor would give him.
Salvador Plasencia. Pic: Malibu Canyon Urgent Care
Plasencia is accused of supplying the bulk of Perry’s ketamine in his final weeks. He and three other defendants, including another doctor, agreed to plead guilty in exchange for their cooperation.
Jasmine Sangha, who prosecutors allege was a major ketamine dealer, is alleged to have provided the dose that killed the actor and is the only defendant who has pleaded not guilty to the prosecution’s case.
About a month before the actor’s death, Perry found Plasencia, a doctor who allegedly asked another doctor, Mark Chavez, to obtain the drug for him, according to court filings in the Chavez case.
“I wonder how much this moron will pay,” Plasencia texted Chavez, according to court filings from prosecutors.
Dr Mark Chavez has pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute ketamine to Perry. File pic: AP
Read more from Sky News:
Courteney Cox pays tribute to Perry
Lisa Kudrow talks about star’s death
The pair who practised in California met up the same day and exchanged at least four vials of ketamine, the filings said.
After selling the drugs to Perry for $4,500 (£3,314), Plasencia allegedly asked Chavez if he could keep supplying them so they could become Perry’s “go-to” prosecutors said.
Chavez has pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute ketamine to Perry.
Perry struggled with addiction for years, dating back to his time on Friends, when he became one of the biggest stars of his generation as Chandler Bing.
He starred alongside Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike