Schools like UNC are silencing peaceful protest with police force | Opinion

Dozens of protesters were detained at UNC-Chapel Hill Tuesday after police shut down a pro-Palestinian “Gaza solidarity encampment” in the university’s main quad.

It’s one of many examples of unrest at college campuses across the country, as students have begun to protest the morality of Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza and demand their institutions disclose and divest from any financial ties to Israel. These protests have largely started out peaceful, yet too many universities and elected officials have chosen to respond with force.

Leaders at Columbia University saw fit to call in police in full riot gear on April 18, though the police themselves admitted that the protests had been peaceful until that point. State troopers reportedly monitored protesters from rooftops with “long-range weapons” at Ohio State University. Police in Virginia and Georgia have deployed chemical agents such as tear gas and pepper balls. The governor of Texas sent in state troopers on horseback to crack down on protests.

What’s particularly frustrating is that university leaders insist they have no choice but to call the police on their own students, when it ought to be a drastic action that is only employed when absolutely necessary. Of course, if the protests clearly endanger the rest of the community, that’s a different story. But there is very little evidence of these protests becoming aggressive or violent prior to the police’s arrival. Regardless of whether you agree with the protesters’ tactics or message, it should be alarming to see police force unleashed on students and faculty peacefully protesting in public spaces.

Lost in the conversation is the fact that some of these protests could be avoided in the first place had these universities been at all receptive to the protesters’ demands. Rather than treating them like pesky interlopers, they could have treated them like a part of their population that deserves to be taken seriously. Look at schools like Brown University, which reached an agreement with protesters to dismantle the encampment in exchange for a vote on divestment. What if we focused more on the substance of the protests instead of their methods? Has UNC tried to heed even the most basic of the protesters’ requests, such as transparency about the university’s financial investments?

Not everyone has to like what these students are doing. They may even find it offensive. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have the right to do it, or that it is appropriate to release dozens of police officers on a bunch of students camping out on the lawn. A university quad has always been a place for free expression. It’s why UNC students get used to passing fundamentalist “Pit preachers” and graphic anti-abortion installations while walking to class. It makes plenty of people uncomfortable, but we don’t get to silence viewpoints we don’t like.

While installing tents and flags in the middle of campus, or entering buildings after hours to use the restroom, may indeed violate university policy, it should not be a violation that triggers such a drastic and militarized response. Sending in riot police who arrest protesters doesn’t diffuse the situation — it simply escalates it. Rather than removing a supposed campus disruption, it creates more of one.

Indeed, the situation at UNC got worse as the day went on. Protesters once again gathered in the quad and engaged with police who responded with pepper spray. Soon after, the university announced that classes would be canceled for the rest of the day Tuesday. It’s no coincidence that a protest that existed peacefully for days escalated hours after UNC chose to send in police to arrest dozens of students. Compare that to schools like Wesleyan University and the University of Chicago, where leaders have allowed protests and encampments to temporarily continue as long as they remain non-violent and non-disruptive.

All the while, there exists a clear demonization of the initial protests and a mischaracterization of their motives. Antisemitism does exist, and there certainly are examples of some protesters at campuses across the country demonstrating behavior that is antisemitic. Hate speech and violence should never be tolerated, but those examples appear to be isolated in nature. The protests themselves are not inherently hateful, and it’s not fair to ascribe the motives of a few bad actors to thousands of students protesting across the country.

Young people have every right to protest the fact that their tax dollars and tuition may be financing a war that has killed more than 34,000 people, including vulnerable children. College students have been protesting issues like these, through encampments like these, for decades. We spend so much time teaching young people to think for themselves, to care about people and the world around them, to stand up for what they believe in. Now, we’re discouraging it, simply because we don’t like the cause they’ve chosen to support.

Yes, there are consequences for breaking the law, and most protesters are well aware that standing up for what they believe in may result in their arrest. But there are consequences to sending in the stormtroopers on your own students and faculty, too. Sometimes, it only causes more fear and chaos. But it also may fracture the trust these universities have built with the community, perhaps irreparably. It will be hard for some people to forget the images of hundreds of police descending upon Columbia University. They will remember the snipers and the tear-gassing and the brutal arrests of faculty. I’m not sure how some of these schools come back from that.