A new protest sign on campus

While walking home yesterday afternoon, I came across this protest sign just off the Quad. Like yesterday’s “installation,” this one was also approved by the University for public display, but I didn’t get a look at who put it up, though there’s a reference to the Instagram site “@ek_taskforce” (environmental justice task force) at the bottom. I’ll check later on.

At any rate, its theme is clear, giving all the reasons why the University of Chicago hates “you”, meaning the campus community.  They including “arresting students” (those students who either attacked cops or violated campus regulations and trespassed; the latter were all let off), “investing in death” (i.e., Israel), evicting local residents, helping destroy the planet, and even “losing millions of dollars on cryptocurrency” (that’s one I haven’t heard.) You can read most of the reasons given, or expletives, but clicking on the photo to enlarge it. It may have been erected to criticize the university on Earth Day.

The hatred of the University here is palpable, including the straightforward “Fuck UChicago” and assertions that “The board of trustees are criminals” and the University “hates people of color.” While I remain a free-speecher, some of my free-speech colleagues think that no “installations” of any kind should be put in the Quad, as they’re said to impede free speech by being corrosive of intellectual discussion and inimical to civil and rational engagement. (As a private university, we aren’t obligated to adhere to the First Amendment on our campus.)  I go back and forth on this, but it’s clear that our Administration favors complete First-Amendmen-legal expressions in the “public square.”

At any rate, what struck me was that those who put up  this “installation” was backwards. The University of Chicago does not hate its community. Rather, the people who put up this sign (and the tent I showed yesterday) hate the University because it doesn’t behave the way they want. And that has led me to think that those people not only favor the destruction of Israel, but also the destruction of Western civilization and Enlightenment values as a whole. Sometimes they say this explicitly, and it’s a recurring theme in Douglas Murray’s speeches and books.  Until recently I hadn’t thought much about that, but now I think it’s worth considering. I surely do not want to live in a world run according to the values of those who erect these installations.