Students at Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley, learned a new lesson this week: They can get what they want in life by being obnoxious and disruptive.
On Tuesday, pro-Palestinian protesters packed up their tents at Harvard — not because the school told them to, but because administrators caved to their demands.
The school capitulated, reinstating suspended students and agreeing to conversations about establishing a Palestinian Studies program and divesting the Harvard endowment from Israel.
In return, student protesters “democratically voted” to end the encampment, which lasted 20 days on Harvard Yard.
Across the country, UC Berkeley’s “Free Palestine Camp” disbanded its 150-tent campsite on Tuesday after negotiating for a new task force, which will review school investments related to “weapons manufacturing, mass incarceration, and/or surveillance industries.”
At first, it seemed laughable that protesters ever thought they had the right to tell these schools — especially Harvard, the most prestigious and most well-endowed institution of higher education in the US — what to do.
But it turns out, student protesters were right to believe that they actually run the place.
Campuses have become centers of chaos. And this is what school gets for negotiating with terrorist sympathizers.
Despite Harvard’s repeated refusal to negotiate, administrators apparently acquiesced in desperation to make sure graduation goes on as planned.
Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine student organizers and University President Alan M. Garber negotiated the pack-up, according to the Harvard Crimson.
Nearly two dozen students who were placed on involuntary leaves of absence were reinstated and, among other demands, Garber agreed to facilitate a meeting between campers and members of the Corporation Committee on Shareholder Responsibility, which oversees the investment of the school’s $50 billion endowment.
Student demonstrators — who earlier this month unfurled a banner depicting Garber as “Alan Garbage,” a devil sitting on a toilet — were seen deconstructing the encampment overnight.
“Now more than ever, it is crucial to do what we do at our best, creating conditions for true dialogue, modeling ways to build understanding, empathy, and trust, and pursuing constructive change anchored in the rights and responsibilities we share,” Garber wrote in an email to the Harvard community following the news.
Of course, the university will be glad to see graduation ceremonies going as planned, unlike at Columbia University where an all-school commencement was canceled in light of chaotic protests.
Over at Berkeley, Chancellor Carol Christ indicated her intention to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
“I plan to make a public statement by the end of the month sharing my personal support for government officials’ efforts to secure an immediate and permanent ceasefire,” she wrote in an open letter. “Such support for the plight of Palestinians, including protest, should not be conflated with hatred or antisemitism.”
These administrators — desperate not to take the necessary measures to enforce order on campus — appeased and appeased and appeased student protesters in blatant violation of university policies.
No wonder kids believe they have the right to dictate what stances their school takes, how its campus should operate, and how it invests its money.
They’re learning that the rules do not apply when it comes to their activism. This time it’s a pro-Palestine encampment, but who knows what sorts of demonstrations — and demands — will be popping up next?
Universities are setting a damaging precedent: If you can hold out long enough and be disruptive enough, you will, ultimately, get your way.
