Jack Petocz, a 19-year-old student at Vanderbilt University, is among multiple students who have just been expelled from school, while others have been suspended.
When it becomes illegal to protest a genocide, we don't live in a democracy.
Words that are worth repeating:
"What we’re seeing here is the real balance of power. If we focus solely on what appears to be the hypocrisy of these major universities, conservatives, and the media, we miss the consistency in their stances. The arguments they make openly are just a distraction. It’s not really about disruption, or rules, or decorum. It’s about enforcing imperialism and capitalism, it’s about maintaining an imbalance of power between these institutions and the students who attend them, and an imbalance of power in society at large. The wealthy people who populate private college boards don’t want students rocking the boat politically, either at these schools or outside of them. And the political actors who control public universities often feel the same.
When people decry anti-Zionist protesters at Columbia University, for example, then fail to denounce the how former IDF soldiers who attend the school skunk sprayed their peers, or the administration that has relentlessly attacked its own students and their right to speech, we don’t have to spend time calling them hypocrites and debating the merits of their arguments. This applies to the discourse around, or with, any disingenuous actor. We can instead say, “I see you for what you are.” When schools and their boards are willing to hurt their students to defend Israel, defend their own power, and defend the broader status quo of this lopsided society, we don’t have to treat the arguments they put out as legitimate.
We can instead openly lead with the truth, undercut their arguments, and combat them on an honest terrain instead of a playing field where we become disadvantaged because we’ve legitimized their dishonest and illegitimate arguments. There is a great power in that undercutting, in that refusal to let disingenuous people set the terms of engagement, the terms of debate. If conservatives and Zionists cared about academic freedom, they would have raised their voices about Israel leveling every university in Gaza. They have not. So we can free ourselves to confront them with the truth, on a playing field of our choosing. These schools are suppressing and attacking their own students for speaking up, for protesting, for opposing genocide. And since that reality will not be granted significant visibility by mainstream outlets, it’s on us to call it out, confront the powerful, and help student organizers. Colleges are one of the many fronts where the battle for a better future will be won or lost, and we need to lend our strength to the side of liberation, as we do in every struggle."
Silberman School of Social Work, of Hunter College, has also suspended students in an incredibly targeted and retaliatory way. Please spread the word and sign this petition to pressure the administration to reverse their position! https://bit.ly/reversebransuspension
Thank you for this newsletter - so important to continue highlighting.
I also can't helo but notice that this McCarthyite assault on student organizers is coming right as student-workers are fighting to unionize... Student struggles are more important than people realize, which I only realized after I helped adapt and expand a pamphlet from a UK IWW branch.
Why is no one talking about how institutions and governments came to adopt a definition of antisemitism that includes criticism of The government of Israel? And the introduction of a later definition written in response and signed by hundreds of Jewish academics and public figures? If we can talk about this, and get institutions and governments to adopt the second definition…but not one story I’ve read since the early Columbia and Harvard stories has addressed the definitions. Or, is no one going to sue the universities?
Spread the word, per individual universities - what they stand for, what they're doing - on social media? As often as possible?
'The authoritarian regime you're so worried about under trump? It's already happening at our universities. Be afraid. But also fight back against the fascist corporate takeover of our education. It's happening now. "
"Voting won't change this. What you do about it will."
Vanderbilt is historically racist, they fired civil rights leader James Lawson in 1961 for his peaceful protest of segregation, he’s still alive with us today.
I was at Yale this weekend for an event. I visited the occupation several times - at night, in the morning, in the afternoon. It was beautiful, the theme was books not bombs, there were books throughout the area, music, artwork, food, prayers, speakers, tents, it was beautiful - it felt like the world I want to see
Nothing new in the Nazi America... the only western State that in 1960 had different seats for blacks and whites. It can't be better now 60 years after... in fact they're now showing their real face and soul, they're not afraid anymore to be Nazi as they've always been!
Who supports the concept that USA is a Democracy only because is written somewhere or they say it so, is either a dumb fool or a Nazi.
Just watch the clip at the beginning of this post to remind yourself how nazi US was in the 60s!
Really makes you reconsider the notion of a university as a place of learning and exchanging ideas, doesn't it. Seems to be much more about conformity and control.
If you had to make a reading list beginning with a more simplistic approach and gradually more and more complex, for people trying to educate themselves for free vs taking courses from a university.
So give me your Radical Reading list as short or long as you wish. If you wouldn't mind.
Halberstam said the best and brightest lead us to disastrous wars and ethnic cleansing often without purpose. Deschooling society is necessary as Ivan Illich noted.
When it becomes illegal to protest a genocide, we don't live in a democracy.
Words that are worth repeating:
"What we’re seeing here is the real balance of power. If we focus solely on what appears to be the hypocrisy of these major universities, conservatives, and the media, we miss the consistency in their stances. The arguments they make openly are just a distraction. It’s not really about disruption, or rules, or decorum. It’s about enforcing imperialism and capitalism, it’s about maintaining an imbalance of power between these institutions and the students who attend them, and an imbalance of power in society at large. The wealthy people who populate private college boards don’t want students rocking the boat politically, either at these schools or outside of them. And the political actors who control public universities often feel the same.
When people decry anti-Zionist protesters at Columbia University, for example, then fail to denounce the how former IDF soldiers who attend the school skunk sprayed their peers, or the administration that has relentlessly attacked its own students and their right to speech, we don’t have to spend time calling them hypocrites and debating the merits of their arguments. This applies to the discourse around, or with, any disingenuous actor. We can instead say, “I see you for what you are.” When schools and their boards are willing to hurt their students to defend Israel, defend their own power, and defend the broader status quo of this lopsided society, we don’t have to treat the arguments they put out as legitimate.
We can instead openly lead with the truth, undercut their arguments, and combat them on an honest terrain instead of a playing field where we become disadvantaged because we’ve legitimized their dishonest and illegitimate arguments. There is a great power in that undercutting, in that refusal to let disingenuous people set the terms of engagement, the terms of debate. If conservatives and Zionists cared about academic freedom, they would have raised their voices about Israel leveling every university in Gaza. They have not. So we can free ourselves to confront them with the truth, on a playing field of our choosing. These schools are suppressing and attacking their own students for speaking up, for protesting, for opposing genocide. And since that reality will not be granted significant visibility by mainstream outlets, it’s on us to call it out, confront the powerful, and help student organizers. Colleges are one of the many fronts where the battle for a better future will be won or lost, and we need to lend our strength to the side of liberation, as we do in every struggle."
Silberman School of Social Work, of Hunter College, has also suspended students in an incredibly targeted and retaliatory way. Please spread the word and sign this petition to pressure the administration to reverse their position! https://bit.ly/reversebransuspension
Thank you for this newsletter - so important to continue highlighting.
Thank you,I signed this, as a social worker I'm appalled. The university of Minnesota school of social work has publicly supported the protesters
I also can't helo but notice that this McCarthyite assault on student organizers is coming right as student-workers are fighting to unionize... Student struggles are more important than people realize, which I only realized after I helped adapt and expand a pamphlet from a UK IWW branch.
https://angryeducationworkers.substack.com/p/students-belong-in-the-union
Why is no one talking about how institutions and governments came to adopt a definition of antisemitism that includes criticism of The government of Israel? And the introduction of a later definition written in response and signed by hundreds of Jewish academics and public figures? If we can talk about this, and get institutions and governments to adopt the second definition…but not one story I’ve read since the early Columbia and Harvard stories has addressed the definitions. Or, is no one going to sue the universities?
Spread the word, per individual universities - what they stand for, what they're doing - on social media? As often as possible?
'The authoritarian regime you're so worried about under trump? It's already happening at our universities. Be afraid. But also fight back against the fascist corporate takeover of our education. It's happening now. "
"Voting won't change this. What you do about it will."
Vanderbilt is historically racist, they fired civil rights leader James Lawson in 1961 for his peaceful protest of segregation, he’s still alive with us today.
I support Palestinians
I support Israelis
I do not support Hamas’ terrorism
I do not support netenyahu’s slaughter of innocents.
In a complex and nuanced world, more than 1 thing can be true at the same time.
I was at Yale this weekend for an event. I visited the occupation several times - at night, in the morning, in the afternoon. It was beautiful, the theme was books not bombs, there were books throughout the area, music, artwork, food, prayers, speakers, tents, it was beautiful - it felt like the world I want to see
❤️❤️❤️
Kent State on repeat. Maybe student actions are necessary to wake America up, again.
Apparently is becoming a specialty of our government…
Nothing new in the Nazi America... the only western State that in 1960 had different seats for blacks and whites. It can't be better now 60 years after... in fact they're now showing their real face and soul, they're not afraid anymore to be Nazi as they've always been!
Who supports the concept that USA is a Democracy only because is written somewhere or they say it so, is either a dumb fool or a Nazi.
Just watch the clip at the beginning of this post to remind yourself how nazi US was in the 60s!
https://propagator.substack.com/p/so-lets-start-with-democracy-its
So crucial and well written
Really makes you reconsider the notion of a university as a place of learning and exchanging ideas, doesn't it. Seems to be much more about conformity and control.
dEmOcRaCy 🤡
If you had to make a reading list beginning with a more simplistic approach and gradually more and more complex, for people trying to educate themselves for free vs taking courses from a university.
So give me your Radical Reading list as short or long as you wish. If you wouldn't mind.
Halberstam said the best and brightest lead us to disastrous wars and ethnic cleansing often without purpose. Deschooling society is necessary as Ivan Illich noted.