Colleges that used police force to put an end to their recent student protests on campus are facing criticism for their handling of the situation, but so is the small group that struck deals to end the demonstrations.
The few universities that have successfully negotiated to end the pro-Palestinian camps – among them Northwestern, Brown, Rutgers and Johns Hopkins – have made concessions that are proving controversial, particularly a full amnesty or more favorable disciplinary processes for the protesters who violated campus rules.
However, activists praise the results and experts say only time will tell whether colleges made the right decision.
“I think the university leaders who made the deal with the protesters were wise in doing so and really showed what leadership in higher education should look like,” said Marcella Bombardieri, a senior fellow on the higher education team at the Center for American Progress. . “I think they’re recognizing that there’s really a teachable moment here on both sides.”
One of the main objectives of the protests against the war in Gaza was the divestment of school resources from Israel, which no camp was able to immediately achieve.
Some of the schools that reached agreements with activists agreed to allow students to present their arguments in favor of divestment to the school board, or to create a new committee on the issue. Brown University assured that its board would vote on the matter.
The president of Sonoma State University agreed to an academic boycott of Israel, but was later suspended due to “insubordination” regarding the agreement.
Northwestern committed to providing free tuition to a certain number of Palestinian students and hiring more Palestinian professors, while Rutgers said it would explore the creation of an Arab Cultural Center.
All agreements ended with school administrations condemning in some way the violence in Gaza.
“I recognize the deep sadness that many in our community feel at the tragic effects of the ongoing war. There will continue to be deep disagreements and strong emotions as we feel pain and anguish over events around the world,” Harvard’s interim president said in a statement.
In exchange, the students withdrew their camps and agreed to abide by school rules regarding demonstrations until the end of the academic year.
Critics, however, say administrators have set a poor standard by agreeing to more lenient disciplinary processes for activists.
Schools that “make deals with groups of students who engage in repeated violations of school policies is a horrible idea because it encourages and rewards rule-breaking at the university. This will lay the groundwork for increasingly disruptive behavior in the future,” said Jay Greene, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy.
“The worst part of the agreements is the amnesty for rule violations,” Greene said, “because no one knows what impermissible behavior can be forgiven at any time, so that’s a very dangerous precedent.”
Brown University said that although protesters violated several policies by setting up tents and camping on school property, this would appear “favorable in disciplinary proceedings” for the protesters given the circumstances.
The University of Minnesota, in turn, offered full pardons to students who participated in protests in recent weeks with the aim of ending those demonstrations.
“Universities have broad decision-making power when it comes to punishing and enforcing their rules. And I think they need to exercise that to ensure that the punishments are not disproportionate to what the students did,” Bombardieri said.
“When you have people peacefully expressing their opinions about a really disastrous and tragic situation that is unfolding before our eyes and they should be, they really should be looking for opportunities to make this, again, a learning experience for the students and not a punishing experience. one,” Bombardieri added.
Some suspect that the reason schools capitulated and simply did not withstand the protests until the summer, when students returned home, was the proximity of graduation ceremonies.
“Graduation is the day the grass has to be green, the flowers have to be pretty so all the parents and alumni can see the beautiful campus they will remember and write checks – so they had to get rid of of these protests” Greene said.
But he said future attempts to implement disciplinary measures could potentially land schools in legal trouble over their decisions today.
“They could change their mind in the future and decide to enforce the rules going forward, but that will become increasingly difficult,” Greene said, pointing to “the problem of discriminatory enforcement.”
“So if you apply the rules to one group of protesters but not another, that could also expose those universities to Title IX or other legal liabilities.”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
