News @lemmy.world jeffw @lemmy.world 4mo ago

U.S. University Did Something Crazy: Listened to Student Protesters Instead of Calling the Cops on Them

www.jezebel.com U.S. University Did Something Crazy: Listened to Student Protesters Instead of Calling the Cops on Them

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AMUSING, INTERESTING, OUTRAGEOUS, or PROFOUND @lemmy.world Doug Holland @lemmy.world 4mo ago

Jezebel

California State University Sacramento did something crazy: listened to student protesters instead of calling the cops on them

www.jezebel.com /us-university-did-something-crazy-listened-to-student-protesters-instead-of-calling-the-cops-on-them

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89 comments

This is the fourth or fifth one I’ve read about today. The kids are effecting change. I love it.
- Thank you for spelling effecting correctly.
  
  Isn't effect a noun, affect a verb? Am I supposed to discern which in other ways?
  
  You know, I'm also super pedantic about this and only learned I'd been doing it wrong very recently.
- These are full-grown adults in university. They are not kids.
  
  It's all relative
  
  I greeted my fellow 20-ish-year-olds with "what's up kids" at that age as a way of saying we were still young party machines. I am not disrespecting these folks.
  
  I don't think I'd consider most 18 year old "full grown adults"
- In this case, no change happened because the university didn't invest in Israel in the first place.
  
  The students being allowed to peacefully protest at all is a nice change, and hearing about it could encourage other peaceful protesters, who could enact more direct change
it's like violence is the response of an idiot or something
Sacramento State’s updated policy states that it “does not have any direct investments in these areas” right now but, in accordance with students’ demands, its investment portfolios will “remain free of such direct investments.”

Students: We're protesting until our school stops investing in stuff that's bad!

University: Uh, we already don't.

Students: We did it! We freed Palestine!
- I don't think the students though that divesting would save all the Palestinians. I mean, I am sure one person did, but that is what happens when you have a large group of people. I think they just wanted to apply pressure against Israel where they could.
  
  I think it is based and probably the most effective thing they could do to stop the genocide.
  
  Divesting is a step, but it just allows them to remove personal responsibility for the death/suffering. (Which matches the latent cultural narcissism)
  
  It does not actually stop anything, it may delay the scheduled future.
  
  Meanwhile bombs and bullets already in production will go down range.
- I mean, you jest, but a lot of the time, all you can do in this world is limit your own contribution to the problem
  
  That and vote to regulate wrongdoings. It sounds so obvious and yet somehow we're losing that battle.
- You attempt a lazy joke here because it seems you need attention, but policy like this matters, especially when things get "quiet" again after the spotlight fades. Also, in addition to divestment, the university also met their demand to appoint “a faculty member from Faculty for Justice in Palestine to sit on the finance committee, ensuring that investments remain ethical every year.”
  
  Attention seeking? It seems like this could have been a single student government vote.
  
  The university’s communications office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Jezebel on whether it is referring explicitly to Israel, or whether it regards Israel’s actions in Gaza as falling under the umbrella of “genocide, ethnic cleansing, and activities that violate fundamental human rights.”
  
  And more effective, too.
- They did win. They know now that University is morally right and doesn't support a genocide.
  
  They could have just asked first
Wow, I guess listening to the protesters instead of calling cops on them is crazy 🙄
- Yeah that’s… that’s the joke
  
  You know what, honestly, I can't blame the above commenter. Have you seen some of the trash headlines are made of these days?
- what if they listened but still disagreed with the protestors?
  
  Then at least they should be able to say why they disagree exactly instead of "aNtiSeMiTiSm"
Ok listen, I'm all in favor of Israel knocking it the f*ck off and students protesting, but this article is written with a very specific skew.

Last week, Columbia University summoned an army of heavily armed, riot gear-clad police officers to attack its own students for peacefully protesting Israel’s war on Gaza and the university’s financial ties to Israel.

Couple of notes here.

It has evolved to a non peaceful protest. Some neo-nazi assholes were physically engaging with Jewish students. That's not cool.

A good number of nom-students showed up and we're the ones causing the problems.

Columbia called the local police to disperse a situation that was getting unsafe fast, because a university isn't really qualified to do that. Which is the right call IMO. It's the NYPD that choose riot gear.

Should it have been handled differently? Yes. Was the school dumb? Yes. We really don't need this slanted BS news to see that.

This is some of the quotes from a Newsweek article:

One video posted on X, formerly Twitter, showed a masked protester outside the university's gates appearing to chant: "Go back to Poland!"

Another video showed a man telling Jewish students outside the campus gates that "the 7th of October is going to be every day for you."
- Devolved into non peaceful protests?
  
  You got a source there, buddy?
  
  I live nearby, I walked by.
  
  I think (I don't know for sure) that the students were peaceful, it looks like it got co-opted by a few loud neo-nazis who were being assholes.
  
  My thing is the original article was pretty off.
- So many words for a useless response with no substance or meaningful source
- Columbia called the local police to disperse a situation that was getting unsafe fast
  
  Got it, so they called in backup for the neo-nazi assholes.

89 comments