From Columbia University in New York City to the University of California in Los Angeles, students are again troubling the waters. As U.S. political and economic leaders aid and abet Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people, tens of thousands of students have risen in revolt. And campus and state authorities have responded by arresting 1,500 students in 23 states at 30 colleges.
In some significant ways this recent upsurge of resistance recalls earlier eras of protest. However, it is occurring at a different sociohistorical moment; therefore, in a different political environment.
Since the high tide of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, First Amendment rights to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition for redress of grievances have been drastically curtailed. The architects of repression have since 2017 enacted 56 laws that limit the right to protest.
In addition to criminalizing traditional protest tactics, the state generally simply falsifies behavior and charges protesters with an existing criminal act.
Even peaceful protesters, who used traditional civil disobedience tactics such as linking arms and going limp, as it appears George Vassilatos did, are being met with suspensions and expulsion notices and in the case of Vassilatos, a charge of Mob Action, a Class 4 felony that carries a 1- to 3-year prison sentence and a $25,000 fine.
Historically, students have played an especial role in the struggle to move the U.S. toward a genuine democracy and a more humane society. In many ways, they, along with African Americans, have been the conscience of the empire.
Led by Students for Justice in Palestine, the demands of University of Illinois students participating in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment mirror the national ones. They want a full public accounting of the university’s assets and for UIUC to divest from entities that “profit from or support the occupation of Palestine.”
Additionally, the protesters desire an end to all collaborations with Israeli institutions such as student and faculty exchange programs. Further, they demand the university sever relations with corporations such as Caterpillar, which contribute to the oppression of Palestinians. And they demand that protesters not be subject to retribution.
Too many, the students’ demands may seem outrageous, and some might even characterize them as antisemitic. Yet, their position aligns perfectly with the statement issued by the Council of Bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E. Church). Describing Israel’s onslaught in Gaza as “mass genocide,” the A.M.E. Bishops noted it had “trapped 1.6 million desperate Palestinians . . . in Rafah . . . denied them food, water, shelter and healthcare” and “plan to murder them.” Like the National Council of Churches, the A.M.E. Bishops called for “an immediate permanent ceasefire.” But they went further and asked the “United States Government to immediately withdraw all funding and other support from Israel.”
The students are on the right side of history. Sure, a few overzealous incidents have occurred. Nonetheless, they should be commended for their bold, courageous, and humane stance against the slaughter of a people. But instead, across the empire and even here in Champaign-Urbana they are being condemned and met with overly aggressive police tactics.
This is especially disheartening. Given that we are entering a scared time, a moment in which blood was unnecessarily spilled.
Fifty-four years ago, on May 4 and May 15, 1970, students at Kent State and Jackson State universities protesting the U.S.’s invasion of Cambodia during the Vietnam War were shot, killed, and wounded. At Kent State, the national guard killed four students and injured nine others. Eleven days later, City of Jackson and Mississippi Highway Patrol officers killed two students and wounded 12 other demonstrators at Jackson State.
Richard Nixon’s President’s Commission on Campus Unrest found the shootings at Kent State “unjustified” and the 468 shots fired in 28 seconds at Jackson State “an unreasonable, unjustified overreaction.” Moreover, though you would not know it from scenes of police officers confronting today’s protesting students, the Commission recommended Kent State “mark the last time that, as a matter of course, loaded rifles are issued to guardsmen confronting student demonstrators.”
If university administrators are committed to the values of dialogue, then they should follow the example of Brown University President Christina H. Paxson. She took the unprecedented path of creating an opportunity for students to present their case for disinvestment to the university’s governing body.
At present Brown is an outlier. At this moment, things may look dim. But we know a very similar struggle was victorious 40 years ago. In 1984, African American activists organized the Free South Africa Movement (FSAM). These veteran activists combined struggle on campuses with struggle in the community. Building on existing networks, first in the Black community, and then more broadly, and by combining disruptive civil disobedience tactics with the hard day-to-day tasks of community organizing they constructed a historic bloc that enacted the 1986 Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act.
Times have changed. The right is much stronger, and liberals are willing to defend Israel in ways they never did South Africa. Yet, the concrete facts mark apartheid South Africa and Zionist Israel as both racist colonialist states. Indeed, Israel was allied with the apartheid regime and contributed to it, militarily well as economic and political support from 1967-1987.
With each atrocity, it’s harder for its defenders to cover up the genocidal Zionist regime’s crimes against humanity.
Sundiata Cha-Jua is a professor of African American studies and history at the University of Illinois and a member of the North End Breakfast Club. His email is schajua@gmail.com.
