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Higher Education Under Siege
As pro-Palestine protests on campus intensify and spread, university administrators seem to be at a loss.
“Columbia’s senate calls for investigation into university president over reaction to Gaza protests,” Mike Bedigan revealed for the Independent on Friday.
“The resolution was based partly on a damaging report by the senate executive committee, which accused Ms Shafik’s administration of engaging in ‘many actions and decisions that have harmed’ the institution,” wrote Bedigan, adding that “The resolution also calls for establishing a senate task force to investigate university decision-making in future.”
The backlash against pro-Palestine protests on campuses like Columbia’s, some of which have turned violent, is growing — particularly on the left.
“I think you’ve got to cut a 19-year-old a pretty wide berth,” NYU professor Scott Galloway told host Bill Maher on Friday’s episode of Real Time. “The point of being 19 is you act stupid and you learn and you move on. I’m glad a camera wasn’t following me around…when I was 19.”
“Look, it’s easy to poke fun at these kids, but history has a way of repeating itself, and this is how it starts,” added Galloway. “In ’30s Germany, a progressive community, a thriving gay community, excellent academic institutions. And how it started, was it was…