Once again, pro-Palestinian protestors at the University of Chicago violate campus rules but don’t get punished
If you’ve read about the various pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protests across American campuses, one thing you’ll notice is a general reluctance to punish demonstrators when they violate university rules. Of course protests are usually fine if they conform to First Amendment principles (though some schools don’t hold those principles), but they’re never fine when they … Continue reading Once again, pro-Palestinian protestors at the University of Chicago violate campus rules but don’t get punished
If you’ve read about the various pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protests across American campuses, one thing you’ll notice is a general reluctance to punish demonstrators when they violate university rules. Of course protests are usually fine if they conform to First Amendment principles (though some schools don’t hold those principles), but they’re never fine when they violate campus rules. These latter rules are usually called “TPM rules”, meaning that universities can regulate the “time, place, and manner” of demonstrations in a way that doesn’t impede the mission of the institution: teaching, learning, and research.
So at the University of Chicago, for example, we’ve laid out the rules for protests and demonstrations at this website, which gives information about noise levels permitted, building occupancy (not permitted at all) and the like. In 2024, I gave four examples of pro-Palestinian demonstrators violating University regulations without any punishments meted out. The only sanction levied was a tepid warning to Students for Justice in Palestine that they disrupted a Jewish gathering, a warning that they’d better not do it again or else. . . .
As I always say, rules that aren’t enforced are not rules at all. Even our encampment, which involved several hundred people—both students and outsiders—which was declared in violation of university rules, was dismantled by the university police, but none of the demonstrators faced any punishment.
Is it any wonder, then, that the anti-Israel demonstrators feel empowered to break any campus rules they want? And they did—two weeks ago when the pro-Pals, a consortium called “UCUP”, for “UChicago United for Palestine” held a week of demonstrations commemorating last year’s encampment, which, not coincidentally, also included Alumni Weekend. (One wonders what mindset thinks that these loud and obnoxious intrusions will change peoples’ opinions.)
At any rate, the Chicago Maroon, which loves nothing more than an anti-Israel demonstration, had an article about a week of protests that included several violations of University rules, all of which seem to have been unpunished. Oh, well, there’s one exception: the police confiscated one megaphone being used illegally. I suppose they arrested it for “excessive loudness.”
Click below to read the article. I’ve bolded the bits where illegal actions went unpunished. The cops and deans-on-call showed up, but the former are constrained by the administration and can’t take action without permission from above, and deans-on-call are, to me, a joke; mere observers who can’t enforce anything and barely want to report anything. In fact, some of the deans-on-call are blatantly pro-Palestinian, and so can’t be objective. Here’s a photo of the “watermelon” (Palestinian colors) fingernails of one of those deans-on-call taken by a student during the encampment last year:
I’ll give some excerpts showing how the U of C ignores violations, as well as giving the article’s introduction. Click headline below to read; unpunished violations are in bold.
Marking the one-year anniversary of the 2024 pro-Palestine encampment, UChicago students and community members launched a week-long protest and installation outside Swift Hall. The students, organized as the “Popular University for Gaza,” called for solidarity with Palestine and the divestment of University funds from institutions tied to Israel.
Between Monday, April 28, and Friday, May 2, the group held teach-ins, workshops, and demonstrations—some resulting in confrontations with the University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD) and deans-on-call—as they sought to maintain public pressure on University leadership.
Shortly after 1 p.m. on April 28, protesters gathered on the quad outside of Swift Hall, raising a banner reading “Free Palestine, Bring the Intifada Home.” UCPD officers and deans-on-call observed from a distance as the group began a series of chants over a megaphone. Deans repeatedly informed the protesters that they were in violation of University policies regulating the use of amplified sound on campus.
Did anybody stop the violations? Are you kidding me?
Around an hour and a half into the demonstration, the UCPD officers and deans-on-call requested identification from those who had been using megaphones. The protesters initially locked arms to prevent possible arrests, with the crowd gradually dispersing as officers continued to ask for identifying information.
And again it seems as if the protestors, who are obliged to provide identification, did not do so; nor did the cops take any IDs.
Here’s a protestor waving a Houthi flag; photo by Grace Beatty. Love that AK-47! Note the covered faces of the protestors, indicating two things: they are cowards who don’t want to be identified, and they are not enacting civil disobedience, whereby you break a law considered immoral and voluntarily take the punishment.
On Thursday they arrested. . . .a megaphone:
Two UCPD officers, along with several deans-on-call, gathered to observe the protest.
As protesters continued to chant, UCPD officers chased after demonstrators and confiscated at least one megaphone. The demonstration, which took place after 1 p.m., was again in violation of University policy regarding amplified sound. An unidentified protester flew a flag identifying with the Houthi movement in Yemen; one UCPD officer was overheard saying “As long as they’re holding [the flag], it’s free speech.”
The cop is right about free speech; our campus police are well aware of what is a violation and what is not. But they cannot move against real violations without permission of the administration.
Finally, although again this is legal, they heckled the President and Provost. Not THAT is going to change their minds!
Here’s President Alivisatos being heckled as he walks to the alumni tent. He kept his cool and did not respond. And you have to hand it to the heckler that he didn’t cover his face. (This was published on the UC United Instagram page.)
So the week was a mixture of legal and illegal activities by the protestors, but the only thing arrested was a megaphone.
Below you see a poster in the Quad. If you know what “Intifada” means, it’s a term in Arabic for “shaking off” and has come to mean “shaking off the Jews”, i.e., killing them. These are really congenial sentiments.
I’m not sure whether the students had permission to post such a banner, but even if they did the sentiments surely create a hostile climate for Jewish students:
These demonstrations used to bother me more, especially their implicit calls for genocide of Jews (the poster above and the “From the river to the sea. . ” chants), but now that Hamas is losing, and the University of Chicago has made it clear that it will not divest from Israel, these demonstrators strike me as pathetic, cosplaying as Houthis and members of Hamas. Surely a large moiety of them are antisemitic, and it’s okay to do that so long as you don’t create a climate inimical to the participation of Jewish students at the University. Do we have such a climate? You’d have to ask the Jewish students, but some of them have, I’ve heard, said “yes.” I know some of them won’t wear their Stars of David necklaces in a way that make them visibly Jewish.
I wish only that my University would be serious about its demonstration rules. When students break those rules, they should be punished, bar none. If Columbia can do it, so can we.
