‘SNL’ highlights parents’ response to open-air college protests

‘Saturday Night Live’ poked fun at parents’ conflicting responses to their students’ participation in open-air college protests this weekend.

The sketch centered on three parents in an interview on NY1 radio in which they expressed concern about their students’ participation.

“Well, for me it’s been hard,” one parent said on the sketch talk show. “Now I’m all for free speech, but I don’t understand what they think they’re achieving. And this is really damaging the relationship between me and my daughter.”

“I want to let my son make his own choices. But to be honest, it’s a little scary. These protests are becoming much more aggressive,” said the second father.

The third father, played by Kenan Thompson, expressed support for the protest – until he learned that his daughter, who, in the cartoon, is a student at Columbia University, might be participating.

“Well, I think it’s great, you know, it’s wonderful. Nothing makes me prouder than young people using their voices to fight for what they believe in,” said Thompson’s character.

The interviewer responded by saying, “Your daughter must feel very supported when she’s there.”

“What is this now? When whose daughter is outside? he said, adding, “No, no, no, no, man. You are bothering. Alexis Vanessa Roberts better have an ass in class.

“Let me find out she’s in one of those damn tents instead of the dorm I paid for,” he continued, referring to the camps that student protesters have erected on campus, with many sleeping in their tents instead of in their dormitories, in protest against the war in Gaza.

The interview said he thought his father supported the student protests.

“I support your children’s protests. Not my children. My kids know better, shoot. Alexis Vanessa is not crazy.

Thompson’s character then noted Columbia University’s high price tag in response to protesters’ demands for a “Free Palestine.”

“My business is Alexis Vanessa Roberts. OK. She’s not talking about ‘free this’, ‘free that’ because I’ll tell you what’s not free: Columbia,” he said, to applause from the audience. “Damn, do you know they had the nerve to want $68,000 a year?”

Thompson’s character also attempted his daughter’s chosen major, African-American studies.

“I’m here trying hard to pay all those monthly payments,” he said, adding, when asked what he does for a living: “I do everything. Uber all day. Uber eats all night. Mow the lawn on weekends. Selling Gucci wallets out of my trunk. Life coaching on IG. I hunt bounties whenever possible.

“All this so she can say she majored in African-American Studies. It’s like, look girl, you’ve been black your whole life. You know what it is,” he said.

The draft comes as university protests against the war in Gaza have escalated on university campuses in recent weeks. At some schools, including Columbia University in New York, police were called in to help control protests after administrators struggled to control protesters.