Columbia is speedrunning fastest university decline in the public eye
this post was submitted on 09 May 2025
492 points (98.8% liked)
World News
46500 readers
2018 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News [email protected]
Politics [email protected]
World Politics [email protected]
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Not the first time they did this
If peaceful protest is going to be consistently met with violent police response; maybe they should stop being peaceful from the outset.
I wonder how long it will take for enough to realise their government is not compatible with protests. Peer pressure does not encourage authoritarians.
The running platform was making empathetic people angry; small scale protests are a badge of honor and large scale protests are a mild annoyance to be dealt with however they deem fit.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." -JFK
It won’t happen at this rate. Last thing that was closest to that was the CHOP zone in Seattle a few years ago. And that still fell through. Most protest folks that participate won’t fight back since most are against baring arms and only want it to be via peace since they are too afraid to die for something. They will shift that fear on to their peers and react as well with “I don’t want to have people miss me” or “I don’t have the time to up and remove my life from what I’ve worked towards so far”
load more comments
(3 replies)
If security shows up to stop protestors from leaving, they aren't there to secure the peace, they are there to oppress.
load more comments
(4 replies)
Sure, but let's step back and analyze it a little more.
Protest itself does not achieve political change. Its usefulness is in direct action or in recruiting those present into further action, education, and organizations. Liberal protests are state-sanctioned parades. Real protests tend to have an actual action to take, demands to be met, people to impact, costs to incur on others.
The terminology of "peaceful protest" is already poisoned and should be questioned. The media and politicians - and those propagandized downstream, all conflate private property destruction and violence. If a protest breaks windows, suddenly it is no longer "peaceful" and can be rejected by the propagandized as invalid and not to be supported. The US is full of such good little piggies, happy to align with the ruling class picking their pocket and doing actual violence because they exist exclusively in a world of capitalist propaganda.
Under these auspices, all direct action that the capitalist system wants to crush is, will, and has been labelled terrorism. It's already done this for private property destruction by environmentalists, peace activists during all major wars (except WWII, where American Nazis were coddled and of course did not damage private property), labor organizers, anti-segregation organizers, socialists, communists, Mexicans, Chinese, Native Americans, etc. They happily do it again against anti-genocide protesters, particularly because they can play on the islamophobic use of the terrorism label at the same time. Like all fascistic logic, they must frame themselves as the true victims, so they also happily call every critic of Israel an antisemite.
All of this bombards the US population 24/7. Americans exist in a haze of accusations and terms they barely understand, trying to slot it into what could only charitably called an ideology - the naked reactionaries in red and the obfuscated reactionaries in blue.
All of this is to say that the greatest barrier in the US is education, and education begins with agitation, e.g. these protests in any form. Get as many people as possible to show up to the next thing, to organize the next thing, and spread knowledge.
Under these auspices, all direct action that the capitalist system wants to crush is, will, and has been labelled terrorism.
Fun fact that runs parallel to your point: it's not terrorism if you only destroy property.
Terrorism is defined as using violence (or the threat of violence), against civilians, in pursuit of a political goal. All 3 requirements must be met for it to be terrorism: violence, civilians, politics.
Burning down a Tesla dealership is thus not terrorism. It is violent, and it's definitely political, but the target is not civilians but property. In a similar manner, the destruction of the NordStream pipeline was also not terrorism, by definition.
On the flipside, you can argue that some things politicians do are terrorism - if you remove someone's disability benefits that could cause them tangible harm, and thus could be considered violence, in which case a politician attacking someone's benefits would be committing terrorism against the benefit recipients. It's also plain to see that invading a country, slaughtering a bunch of people, and bringing some back as hostages is terrorism; but so is raising entire cities and levelling buildings full of civilians.
Terrorism has many different flavours under its definition, yet so many people just have a vague idea of what terrorism is in their minds that doesn't hold any rationality.
Fun fact that runs parallel to your point: it's not terrorism if you only destroy property.
Terrorism is defined as using violence (or the threat of violence), against civilians, in pursuit of a political goal. All 3 requirements must be met for it to be terrorism: violence, civilians, politics.
Many people who only damage property are still labeled as terrorists by the powers that be. The dictionary can be quite misleading, as it does not really analyze inconsistent usage, particularly for political or propaganda purposes.
For example, "ecoterrorists". Classically labeled as such even when just destroying property. Or even sometimes just for slowing down logistics. Predominately First Nations protesters and activists were labelled "ecoterrorists" by Rick Orman, citing examples like chaining themselves to equipment.
The inconsistent usage has at least two means of biased use. I've already mentioned one, which is using the term for those damaging private property or slowing down enterprise, i.e. equating damage to private property as violence (when private enterprise seizes land or destroys water this is never called ecoterrorism). The other is in inconsistent application: it is a label only routinely used by the targets of capitalist-run states. When their states destroy entire cities and target civilians, it is not called terrorism. When their targets go after a politician insteas of strictly military installations, suddenly they are terrorists. Hell, they can be called terrorists even when going after only military targets. The actusl use of the term corresponds to the means used and the political and ethnic background of those engaging in the acts more than whether the acts are violence for political (isn't everything political?) ends. Terrorism is when a car bomb and not a JDAM.
The real meaning of terrorism must be understood through describing its actual mainstream use. Descriptivism not prescriptivism, lest we miss the reality of propaganda. This is important because the term will continue to be used as I described and to justify rounding up protesters that occupy buildings or block highways or burn down a Tesla dealership. It doesn't really matter ehat the dictionary says, tge law will say enough, the cops will arrest on orders of preventing "terrorism", the judge will convict and sentence based on calling a dumpster fire terrorism, and one might even get sent to a black site to contain such "dangerous" people, "terrorists".
And this is not new. Anarchists and other cool people were lazily labelled exactly the same way over a century ago for the same types of acts.
Your reply is very well written and on the whole I agree. The one thing I would say is that I am not simply dismissing the mainstream usage of the word, but pointing out its misuse as intentional deception given that the usage contradicts what the word describes. I aim to point out that the word is actively being used for propaganda, and encourage others to associate it as such.
Thanks!
I would say that if a word has been misused for a century it actually just has a new meaning. And I'm not aware of it ever being used consistently.
load more comments
(7 replies)
load more comments
(22 replies)
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" -JFK
I gotta say, Hong Kongers put up way more of a fight than Americans seem to be. Hong Kong Polytechnic University went through a full blown siege in 2019. Six years later, in the land of the free, student leaders get picked off and any protests that manage to get going are easily crushed by the police.
fwiw, Hong Kong protestors were protesting about their own home, rather than these universities protesting in international solidarity against their university's investments and policies. I'd kinda expect the Hong Kong ones to be defended more viciously.
More specifically, the Hong Kong protests were about the possiblity of HKers being sent to the mainland. Here and now we have multiple actual renditions of US residents to El Salvador and elsewhere (including one of the protesters!)...
The students’ demands include Columbia’s financial divestment from Zionist organizations, an academic boycott of complicit institutions, cops and ICE off campus and amnesty for all university members unfairly targeted and disciplined for pro-Palestinian actions.
Not a single one of which wouldn't be a given in a sane and civilized modern society.
Columbia’s Public Safety officers immediately responded and violently barred protesters from leaving unless they showed identification, which created a prolonged standoff...
Because of COURSE they did!
When it comes to Apartheid regimes (and indeed most big picture stuff), student protesters are always on the right side of history and the people who derive income directly dependent on the atrocities continuing always react with the subtlety and intelligence of trying to remove a splinter with a machete.
load more comments
(9 replies)
I'll bet Columbia's fall enrollment will be greatly decreased. If I was a student there, I'd definitely be going somewhere else in the fall.
Are people still applying to go to school there?
zionists who want a chance to sue for discrimination. imagine their shock if their entire class shows up wearing Israeli flags etc. the disappointment.
shut down a pro-Palestinian student occupation of the campus’ Butler Library
I don't understand, though. Were they expecting not to be arrested? I thought that was the point of civil disobedience. What was the point of occupying the library if not to instigate a response from police or campus police?
They probably were intending/expecting arrests. There are probably protesters who didn't go into the library because they specifically don't want a criminal record (especially if they're on a visa or some such).
And you can see in the comments here how angry the arrests are getting some people.
That's the goal of a lot of nonviolent protest. Get your allies loud about it and split some moderates away from the authorities that they hadn't really thought of as "the bad guys" before.
funny how occupation is unacceptable all of a sudden
If trump admin is smart enough, they will bus police from other states to go to New York, learn and practice, trump will soon have his Schutzstaffel
view more: next ›