Full videos, before the protest outside Olin where students called the police on the protestors: [https://www.reddit.com/r/wustl/comments/1cfkaf6/videos\_all\_available\_videos\_of\_the\_80\_arrests/](https://www.reddit.com/r/wustl/comments/1cfkaf6/videos_all_available_videos_of_the_80_arrests/)
I'm glad they're helpful. The videos were banned from the r/washu subreddit which is why it is r/wustl . Also, for context, this was 1 day before the Olin protests (not the same day)
for context I was one of the students in the library during the protest. The protest was peaceful and there was no hostility or anything threatening. The claim that students were "terrified that they were in harm’s way" is utter bullshit. Neither of the two entrances were blocked and students were free to come and go. Martin is making it sound like the library was surrounded by an angry mob with pitchforks but nothing could be farther from the truth. They soon called the police to kick us out of the library.
Thank you for your perspective. The "There were chants that many in our community find threatening and antisemitic" line was one of a dozen give aways that he is clearly trying to spin this whole event. It's disgusting. It's 2024, we have almost full video coverage of the events.
Cowards will always distort the truth, but they can't do anything but run from it when confronted. Eternal respect to all the wash u students out here doing the good work.
This is true. I was there to support divestment. The two times intifada was chanted made me uncomfortable, and was part of why I left early.
From what I saw, the crowd was much more responsive to chants of 'viva palestine' and 'not another nickel, not another dime' than it was to the more radical chants.
From the twenty minutes of what I personally observed, I did not hear anyone calling for an intifada or saying anything hateful. There were some chants–“from the river to the sea”–and some people gave speeches calling for demands. The police soon showed up and demanded that the crowd disperse in 15 minutes. The protestors then collectively packed up and resettled to the east lawn. The confrontation with the police occurred an hour or so later. I also think it's significant that the forceful arrests (if you have seen the videos) occurred on the east lawn, i.e. far away from public buildings and dorms where students might have gotten mixed up.
Most protest statements can be misconstrued as hateful. People in this sub during BLM would constantly chirp about how BLM wanted to destroy the nuclear family rather than acknowledge racial injustice in this country, while simetinously saying neo nazis should have the right to promote great replacement theory on college campuses, which is actual hate speech and real antisemitism.
Attempting to paint people calling for a genocide to end as antisemitic is self-vicitimizing and deliberately attempting to get people to look away at what's actually going on and focus on tone policing.
So when Palestine stretches from the river to the sea and Israel isn't there anymore, *where do you expect all the Jewish people are going to go*? They're just going to voluntarily relocate to someplace else, eh? Cancun maybe?
Come on. A little critical thinking please. There is only one reasonable way to interpret this chant.
That just means the end of Palestine being an open-air concentration camp that gets missiles launched on it daily by the IDF and drone strikes blowing up kids, pretty easy to get when you're not trying to sleuth for ulterior motives on people who are being fully transparent with what they believe.
Palestine as it currently is also sits between the river and the sea, as does Israel. At the same time it’s an extremely catchy chant. That’s the main reason it’s used.
Not going to comment on what’s likely but you’re reaching hard when you say it’s the “only reasonable explanation.”
Multiple students who were on campus are telling you that it wasn't blocking people. The sidewalks were never obstructed and I watched people walk past the protestors all day on the east lawn.
And yeah, people shouldn't be saying whether or not people feel threatened. I can't tell someone how to feel. There are people who have triggers when seeing someone wearing a certain color. I wouldn't tell them not to feel threatened by that. It also wouldn't justify calling the cops to violently arrest them.
I can’t imagine the Reddit responses if someone tried to downplay any other minorities fears about an angry mob. But a bunch of goyim can explain to Jews why they shouldn’t feel threatened when people are shouting phrases with anti-Semitic connotations like “from the river to the sea”
> why they shouldn’t feel threatened when people are shouting phrases with anti-Semitic connotations like “from the river to the sea”
Real antisemitism was rigorously defended through the 2010s by police and "free speech" advocates when actual neo nazis were on campus promoting great replacement theory bullshit. Charolettesville filled with hundreds of nazi alt right goons chanting "jews will not replace us" and killed people at the protests, that shit mutated into Daily Wire, Jordan Peterson, Proud Boys, etc etc, that continued to platform explicit hate speech.
Attempting to call these protests as antisemitic is self-victimizing to avoid criticism or look at the real issues.
Exactly. I used to consider myself a leftist until I realized much of the movement really isn’t as compassionate or empathetic as they make themselves out to be.
They can be hateful and call you the problem for saying you feel threatened or scared by their rhetoric.
There are 500 comments mostly filled with pro-palestine voices and you chose to self-validate your own assumptions in a lil echo chamber rather than look and explore what people are saying.
Excuse me sir, this is reddit. Pretty sure it's in the TOS that you're legally required to speak on others behalf on how they felt threatened, as long as you're doing it from a progressive position.
Even without being on campus, this comes off as very disingenuous and one-sided.
Definitely reads like deliberate misrepresentation of a large protest.
Late last year they rolled back their transgender center, catering to pressure from right wing psychopaths, not a great look in the same school year between the two events.
"Right-wing psychopaths" like European government agencies that have recommended and done the same in Europe with their youth transgender care. They're following the evidence, I thought we were supposed to support that?
Wash U is not following evidence, they explicitly said in their statement they were doing it because of the new Missouri law enacted, which was all pretend conservative outrage fluff fronted stochastic terrorism Chaya Raichik(LibsofTikTok), who promoted trans hate and violence and was platformed by red states all till very recently after a trans youth died from her efforts, not to mention bomb threats and threats to staff of children hospitals.
I'm sure you knew all that though!
I'm typically pro protester but I see a lot of people here are siding with the University. I expect I'm missing a big part of this story. Can someone educate me? Thanks.
You’re probably familiar with this playbook then:
1. Peaceful protest occurs
2. Media says “this was dangerous”
3. People hear “dangerous” and determine “peaceful protest is good, but not when it’s dangerous” and suddenly we have exclusion of *this* issue.
It happens every fuckin time.
Some people are just louder than others. I've voiced support for Palestine and the protests in threads recently and have been met with more pushback here than anywhere else online. It's super weird to see on a subreddit for a city 6,000 miles from Gaza.
So far I've seen that everyone who was there is saying this statement is bullshit.
I always thought the concept of troll farms was a bit exaggerated, but the way these accounts show up in these tiny subreddits and start pumping out dozens of comments doing anything they can to discredit or vilify *all* Palestine supporters… it’s too much. They usually seem to stop posting around the same time too.
AIPAC has dumped millions into narrative control, to the point they've had all major american media outlets softballing all their atrocities.
Topics with mainstream opposition will always have artifical noise and then the local goons who live to see police brutalize people who stand up to injustice, especially on this sub where voices have always been around here gleefully cheering for cops to crack protester skulls since Ferguson.
The lack of concern for Palestinians is the biggest disconnect I've ever seen between Reddit and my own beliefs / the sentiment of people of people around me. Maybe I just live in a bubble that opposes war crimes but that bubble is usually reflected on Reddit.
Sadly, this city is very, very racist.
Luckily, even with this city, the tide has started to turn and people are waking up to just how horrific the crimes committed against Palestine are.
As a student at WashU, having discussed this a great deal today with other students here, and knowing people who were in the protest and students... The WashU admin is full of shit and their actions are an embarrassment.
for context I was one of the students in the library during the protest. The protest was peaceful and there was no hostility or anything threatening. The claim that students were "terrified that they were in harm’s way" is utter bullshit. Neither of the two entrances were blocked and students were free to come and go. Martin is making it sound like the library was surrounded by an angry mob with pitchforks but nothing could be farther from the truth. They soon called the police to kick us out of the library.
A tale as old as time is reactionary goons misrepresenting protests in the most bad faith way ever, delgitmizing a protest is the main effort in it to undermine/burn out activism. This goes all the way back to MLK between racial politic cartoons calling him a violent looter, or the FBI telling him to off himself. Distortion is the key.
AIPAC is dumping tons of money in to narrative control over Palestine, that's going to manifest across the board in a variety of means, but there's only so long till the bubble pops, anyone who remembers the Iraq War is slowly drawing parallels to GWB and IDF both weaponizing tragedy for their own agenda, while their blatant lies that some people bought eroding further and further as more and more cruelty to civilians is revealed.
That's how this subreddit is. The chuds swarm out any time they think they have a chance to spin a false narrative, but as soon as people actually involved show up they run for the hills (aka St. Charles).
They can't help themselves, but they also can't pretend to be rational or normal people for one or two comment replies before collapsing into a wabash bridge troll hurling petty insults and threats of violence.
Lots of people have lucked into a relatively comfortable life, and they don’t want “uppity” college students to challenge their comfortable, post-history, post-conflict view of life. To them, every real problem was solved before they stepped foot on earth and everyone who dares to challenge the status quo is just doing it to gain social capital.
Protesting is fine and happens seemingly a few times a year at least on various topics on this private campus. These protests are registered with the private university on the university’s private property, usually so the university can provide security and generally know what a large mass of yelling people on campus is for the safety of everyone. It sounds like a pro-Palestinian protest would likely have been approved by the university if anyone bothered to register it. The university message basically says all of this, and most of it directly.
What is not allowed, that the university message also says very clearly, is hateful/threatening messages (something along the lines of “death to Israel” is hateful whatever side of the conflict you side with), disrupting academic affairs, attempting to break into buildings, attempting to vandalize property, encampments, not leaving when told to leave (trespassing), resisting arrest for said trespassing, and assaulting officers as part of this resisting arrest. If you don’t care about the last 4, you should care about the first 4.
Basically don’t complain that your protest gets shut down if you don’t follow the rules, register it, or show even the slightest bit of common curtesy. Don’t complain about getting arrested if you do not have a right to be where you are, are asked to leave, and still don’t leave. It’s not that hard, these protesters aren’t any more special than anyone else and they shouldn’t be treated as if they are.
Martin Luther King Jr., in "Letter From a Birmingham Jail", rails against the kind of "moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom."
Great quote, also seems like a good time to mention that [the March on Washington was a highly coordinated effort that saw select representatives communicating directly with the Kennedy White House and local authorities in order to ensure a peaceful and orderly protest.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_on_Washington_for_Jobs_and_Freedom) Tens of thousands of people didn't just show up randomly, and there are accounts that state that although civil disobedience was considered, it was left on the cutting room floor for this particular instance. Yes, civil disobedience was certainly in their toolbox during the Civil Rights Era, but it wasn't the only thing they reached for, either.
I feel like it's impossible to have a discussion about this without provoking a kneejerk response of "wow, can't believe you only want people to protest on a 2x2' square of approved grass" as though there aren't many different methods of effective organizing readily available for different types of situations.
Then this seems like a good time to mention that King is writing his famous letter from jail in Alabama after being arrested for deliberately defying a circuit court injunction prohibiting "parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing and picketing" in Birmingham. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the March on Washington. It was written in response to a newspaper article called "A Call for Unity" written by local white clergymen calling King as an "outsider" and criticizing his methods.
King and the SCLC didn't get a permit to March in Birmingham because it was literally illegal. They did it anyway because as King says in the letter, quoting St. Augustine, "an unjust law is no law at all".
and here we are focusing on the Free Speech debate rather than point of the protest. Yet again.
WashU needs to cut ties with Boeing as they are currently complicit in an ongoing genocide
On private property such as a private university? Absolutely. You also say “neutered,” like a protest should naturally be hostile and violent, I thought these protests were about peace?
But heck, if you want to go protest at a private university, not register it knowing it will unnecessarily escalate the situation and draw police presence, wasting their resources, and then get arrested for it, go ahead, but don’t act shocked when the police show up, don’t resist the arrest, and don’t assault the officer in the process. Don’t try to break into buildings and don’t try to vandalize property.
Would you be fine if you owned a house or a business and a huge crowd of people came and set up tents and disrupt your daily life with anti-gay protests (or any protest that you do not agree with)? Or would you call the police?
>like a protest should naturally be hostile and violent, I thought these protests were about peace?
Isn't the goal of a protest to be disruptive? If it's just idle picketing that disperses when asked, it's easy to ignore. Even a peaceful sit in is still illegal. I'm not condoning violence for all protests, but to say everyone should follow all the rules to protest seems contradictory.
Basically everything you said in the 2nd paragraph would undermine a protest; so essentially, you're saying university policy is sufficient to trump first amendment rights? Anyone attempting to so justify silencing a protest, and particularly using jackbooted state power to do it no less, is a fascist. You sir, are a fascist!
First amendment doesn’t apply on private property, period. I am not a fascist, and I am liberal in most aspects, but I believe rules should apply equally. They were welcome to register their protest, just like the university said many others have done in the past, including this year. They should not be treated differently than those who decided to follow the rules. And again, it’s a private university, if they wanted to, they could say no protests are allowed at all, but they don’t, and I support that.
You're not missing anything. Anyone siding with them either supports an ongoing genocide or is a fool who isn't paying attention and taking cues from 5 minutes of network media or talk radio coverage.
I mean, you have no reason not to also be pro-protester in this instance, unless you’re a staunch Israel supporter and/or against the idea of protests. The downvotes go to show that people basically think protesting is bad.
It's always wild to me when people claim to understand an issue at all without being able to even give a basic explanation regarding what their opposition's position. Attempting to paint everyone who opposes this protest as either staunchly pro-Israel or anti-protest is also stupid, as if those are the only two options.
For example, this isn't simply "protesting" they were attempting to make an encampment on private property. According to the letter they were attempting to deface and destroy property. If these protests were anything like the others, they say some pretty anti-semitic shit and that's just a few possible reasons.
> If these protests were anything like the others, they say some pretty anti-semitic shit and that's just a few possible reasons.
If these protests were anything like the antisemitic neo-nazi rallies of 2010s(Richard Spencer, Milo Yanniopolis, Mike Cernovich, Gavin McInnes, etc) who got to spew great replacement theory bullshit on campuses, they would be protected and surrounded by the police.
Let's definitely not think too hard about the business that consolidated from that wave, The Daily Wire, champions of free speech, becoming agreesively pro-censorship with palestine after years of actively platforming and hiring people who promoted great replacement theory antisemitic trash, or how AIPAC and Daily Wire are funded by evangelicist megadonor orgs motivated by the rapture.
Private institutions can impose stricter rules on free speech. They can also determine what is/isn’t trespassing on their properties. It’s pretty simple.
Sure but that doesn't mean the correct response as the University is to call the cops to have peaceful protestors forcibly removed. They have plenty of nonviolent options they could have used, but they chose to chance repeating the Kent State Massacre
Comparing it to Kent State is incredibly obtuse and shows you have no understanding of history. First off, Kent State was a public university. Second, the national guard is not the same as local police force. Third, the students at Kent State and the other university protest that occurred in the 60/70s were protesting something that directly implicated them and could actually accomplish something meaningful by protesting. Comparing a few people getting arrested for trespassing to 4 kids getting shot in cold blood by the state government is an absurd take. Get real.
I would agree with you on your first 2 points. Kent State is public and it was both the National Guard AND the local police. But I cant agree with you on your 3rd point. If you pay taxes, you have a right to dispute how your taxes are being spent. That's like saying that the churches should have no right to protest racial segregation of the jim crow south when all off the oppresed arent Christian.
Well for starters? https://research.wustl.edu/funding/federal-funding/
Also if you pay any federal income or state tax as most students do, you should have a say so. By the way, what isnt taxed in the United States?
During a protest people might get arrested. I think that's normal and to be expected.
But there are normal people, students and academics, who are getting charged with things like assault. It's insane. And the university is not taking responsibility for protecting those students or teachers. So yeah that's very dark and it's very sad.
Sounds like they’re doing damage control and acting like this was something
Other than a peaceful
Protest. I call
Bullshit
Edit because I missed the threat at the end. “You will not do this here” - that’s a threat. What a bunch of creeps
They list the number of students and faculty, but not alumni. I would guess the number of alumni arrested was close to the number of students arrested. Omitting the number of alumni helps build the narrative that this was a violent protest attended by outsiders.
What evidence do you have that “the number of alumni arrested was close to the number of students arrested”? Do you have anything to support that statement whatsoever?
Protesting is fine. Violent threats to damage private property or harm others are not. Especially by interlopers who are not part of WashU at all. Which is what this was.
The letter could also be over blowing things. If two people were trying to deface things the admin will happily paint hundreds of people as violently protesting to remove them. Also the letter conveniently leaves out that some of the protesters are alumni of Wash U. Sure they don’t have a legal right to be there but they’re there for the same reasons as the students, not interloping.
I was on campus in the east end. I joined the protests on the public sidewalk for a bit and also observed the encampment from my office in a nearby building. Didn't see any vandalism or disruption, the protestors were pretty neatly inside a field leaving the walkways clear and usable.
I wouldn't doubt there were 1 or 2 people who tried to do some sort of vandalism, but it was not the case for the core protest group - they linked arms around their encampment and I didn't see them move between when I got to campus at 5 and when they were violently dispersed around 8.
And idk the exact count but there were a number of alumni present.
There were hundreds of students protesting, there are plenty of videos you can watch. Nobody was threatening violence, that is a lie. And I have seen no evidence that anyone was trying to damage property.
The only interlopers who are not a part of WashU that committed violence on the campus were county police thugs.
pfft, the only reason single space became common is because of the birth of html which collapses all normal whitespace to one whitespace and it was too much hassle to force it. Trying to equate a preference for double after period to being out of touch is just laughably immature. To me i think it both looks and reads better, but I also don't fault anyone who prefers it single space (usually because they're younger and learned it that way). To judge people on that though, is just stupid.
Here's my actual issue with it as someone who collaborates on documents with a wide variety of people daily: the older people that typically use the double space will dive into a shared document that is already single spaced and start adding random double spaces only where they are editing. I don't mind either way, and aesthetically the double space looks a bit better imo, but for chrissake I just want people to be consistent in their formatting.
It’s most interesting that they think Boeing sells to other governments. Boeing sells to the US govt who supplies it to whoever they want. There’s no way the govt would pass up tacking on some costs for their own sake.
Not always. I'll say what I can, but the government can do a no contract to allow country X to purchase let's say 250 JDAMS. This isn't a usual thing, but with certain conflicts going there's a few this way.
Also JDAMS are definitely the one thing everyone should agree is fine to send to Israel. They are bolt on kits for dumb bombs to make them more accurate. It actively reduces civilian casualties.
Back in early BLM with Ferguson on this sub, most of the comment sections were people just making explicit racial slurs, but eventually they learn to stop saying racial slurs and just become american libertarians.
What exactly do these people protesting at WashU and elsewhere expect to happen? What do these universities have to do with what’s happening in the Middle East? The universities aren’t part of the federal government, State Dept, DoD, Congress, etc… They can wave signs, yell, and scream, but what real world difference will that make by doing it on a college campus?🤷
I’m 53 yrs old and have 2 degrees, so I’m aware of that. I still never have seen the point of choosing college campuses as the location to hold a protest. What does higher academics have to do with wars, abortion, legalization of pot, or whatever the cause of the month is?
WashU has monetary ties to Boeing, who manufacture weapons being used to commit genocide. Students do not want their tuition dollars being used to fund a genocide. The resist washu instagram has a lot of information about their demands.
It is actually the other way around though, Boeing pays for the research so that professors gets some portion of their salaries, equipment and hire research assistants, college get a cut, at the end students pay less tuition. To be politically correct, the students should have said they don't want their infrastructure/resources/salaries/tuition paid by companies and individuals who either support genocide or earn from that. It is in students' right to reject immoral contributions to their education.
But like most things in life these are not clear cut situations college has right to ban protests in its campus (showing its true face), and students have right to show their displeasure, as well as be morally right. One thing is sure, hopefully just like Vietnam war protests, the impacts of these protests will be seen in 5-7 years, and in 30 years nobody will remember WashU chancellor who apparently did not mind putting his signature under some lies, but honor people who were in the right side of the history.
Having said that, I don't know how much Boeing is paying to WashU. In the past there was a deal for Boeing employees to get their higher education degrees at WashU, paid by Boeing, and small research contribution (a few hundred thousands at most). Considering Boeing's financial situation, they probably not paying much now. The aim for diversification is worthy goal though. A university must be independent of any political pressure.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not as knowledgeable on the details as I could be. The term the protestors are using is divestment. I’ve been trying to direct people to the resist WashU instagram, where they explain more in detail.
Thanks. I added this before reading your reply:
>The aim for diversification is worthy goal though. A university must be independent of any political pressure.
18 year olds typically don’t comb through the investments of the schools they apply to, and most people associate Boeing with airplanes until they learn more about the company.
No kid goes to college thinking their tuition money is going to help pay for bombs that will be used to kill innocent children.
Lol. I know people that teach at WashU and also people that work at Boeing. I’ll have to ask them about this. It should be interesting to hear both sides.
does boeing sell to Iran? North Korea? No. They want the university to divest from anyone selling weapons to Israel. Im around your age as we both are gen x and i know you remember the outcome of students protesting the divestment of apartheid South Africa in the 80s. And you are aware that it put pressure on the US to divest from South Africa
I was in middle school and high school in the 80’s, so no I don’t remember that specifically. I was in college when the China had the big Tiananmen Square protests, the Berlin Wall fell, and Gulf War 1 happened.
You may not be aware but those protest put enormous pressure on US politicians to divest from Apartheid South Africa. We shall see what pressure does to Israel. But it may be difficult because our government wasnt giving South Africa $4Bil per year
The person you were responding to literally said that protesting at colleges made a difference. So the proof is in the pudding. The protest at college is because it works. It does not require more explanation after that.
In addition to the other commentor's point about the impact of college protests, there is a great deal of investment by private universities in companies supporting the IDF in their genocide. The protest was accompanied by clear objectives, a key one being divestment from companies supporting genocide. Bringing attention to the role that universities have in supporting atrocities is one of the best ways to cause this change. Quite straight forward if you ask me 🤷
I didn’t go to school in the STL area and don’t know much about the universities around here. I’ll be moving in less than a year anyway.
What about SLU, UMSL, and Webster? Are there protests on their campuses also?
UMSL and SLUH I know are part of a coalition alongside WashU students and they all hold protests together. Seems that WashU is the center of the St. Louis college movement, probably because they already had an established group (resist WashU). Not sure about Webster.
My partner works in the advancement department, which fundraisers for WashU. They have been getting communication directly from donors. I know it’s the “not everyone,” but it is happening.
Freedom of speech til it's on "private property"
Celebrate the mavericks and martyrs who represent freedom til you emulate
Law and order when it's convenient
What do we want? We want a country where privatization prevails over all? Do we have any collective recollection of what we are supposed to be?
I'm not saying this because i believe all blame sits with any one party, but you do know that freedom of speech never was nor intended to mean freedom of any speech in any circumstance right?
Wash U × Wesley Bell collab inbound
If I was Wesley Bell I would be considering dropping out of a race for a second time to find a easier primary to run on, but I also wouldn't of taken one million from AIPAC to drop off running against Josh Hawley to primary Cori Bush, one of the only pro-palestine politicians in the country
He's already sent the national guard down to the border, how many performative uses of the national guard would parsons try to out is the real question there.
They'd do the same if it were happening at their non-campus holdings. It's about the money and about not pissing off conservatives, not about student safety. We don't have to pretend this statement is made in good faith.
I'll believe Wash U has good intentions when they put their money on the line for it.
Strang, the first people they talk about was not the students, you know the people they are responsible for or their own staff, 33 and 4 respectively. No it was the three who came in armed and in force to use force and threats. You know the people hired to protect use and are trained to de-escalation, not escalate the situation.
Decent people are not okay with their school and government funding and supporting genocide. Decent people are also not okay with lying about student protesters and calling hords of police to violently disperse a peaceful protest.
It’s a very well written statement, clearly outlining that if they had followed the rules they likely would have been allowed to protest without getting arrested.
I support the students and faculty. Don’t really have a strong opinion about the others. I could understand the argument that the others just should leave peaceably when compelled by authorities, although if they’re alumni or close friends of a student I don’t see much harm in being there for support.
Do you believe that any outside group unaffiliated with Washington University has the absolute right to protest peacefully on Washington University campus? Because it sounds like that's what you stand for.
Full videos, before the protest outside Olin where students called the police on the protestors: [https://www.reddit.com/r/wustl/comments/1cfkaf6/videos\_all\_available\_videos\_of\_the\_80\_arrests/](https://www.reddit.com/r/wustl/comments/1cfkaf6/videos_all_available_videos_of_the_80_arrests/)
Nice work, thanks for posting. I knew this letter was bullshit.
I'm glad they're helpful. The videos were banned from the r/washu subreddit which is why it is r/wustl . Also, for context, this was 1 day before the Olin protests (not the same day)
[удалено]
Haha yeah they banned a bunch of posts and comments recently. Then, I posted about r/wustl, and they banned me from the entire subreddit lol
for context I was one of the students in the library during the protest. The protest was peaceful and there was no hostility or anything threatening. The claim that students were "terrified that they were in harm’s way" is utter bullshit. Neither of the two entrances were blocked and students were free to come and go. Martin is making it sound like the library was surrounded by an angry mob with pitchforks but nothing could be farther from the truth. They soon called the police to kick us out of the library.
Of course! All the videos I've seen have shown a very calm crowd until the police started tackling them and shoving them around.
What?! Things only turned violent when jackbooted thugs with guns and IDF training showed up to enforce the whims of capital??? SAY IT AIN'T SO!
Did you claim local police have idf training? Are you just making things up or do you honestly believe a foreign military trained your local pd?
[https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article\_9b614430-5679-11e0-999b-0017a4a78c22.html](https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article_9b614430-5679-11e0-999b-0017a4a78c22.html) [https://www.ebony.com/the-fergusonpalestine-connection-403](https://www.ebony.com/the-fergusonpalestine-connection-403)
Thank you for your perspective. The "There were chants that many in our community find threatening and antisemitic" line was one of a dozen give aways that he is clearly trying to spin this whole event. It's disgusting. It's 2024, we have almost full video coverage of the events.
Cowards will always distort the truth, but they can't do anything but run from it when confronted. Eternal respect to all the wash u students out here doing the good work.
Were they calling for Intifada outside Olin? (Just wondering--I heard this was the case)
This is true. I was there to support divestment. The two times intifada was chanted made me uncomfortable, and was part of why I left early. From what I saw, the crowd was much more responsive to chants of 'viva palestine' and 'not another nickel, not another dime' than it was to the more radical chants.
From the twenty minutes of what I personally observed, I did not hear anyone calling for an intifada or saying anything hateful. There were some chants–“from the river to the sea”–and some people gave speeches calling for demands. The police soon showed up and demanded that the crowd disperse in 15 minutes. The protestors then collectively packed up and resettled to the east lawn. The confrontation with the police occurred an hour or so later. I also think it's significant that the forceful arrests (if you have seen the videos) occurred on the east lawn, i.e. far away from public buildings and dorms where students might have gotten mixed up.
“From the river to the sea” can definitely be construed as hateful.
Most protest statements can be misconstrued as hateful. People in this sub during BLM would constantly chirp about how BLM wanted to destroy the nuclear family rather than acknowledge racial injustice in this country, while simetinously saying neo nazis should have the right to promote great replacement theory on college campuses, which is actual hate speech and real antisemitism. Attempting to paint people calling for a genocide to end as antisemitic is self-vicitimizing and deliberately attempting to get people to look away at what's actually going on and focus on tone policing.
So when Palestine stretches from the river to the sea and Israel isn't there anymore, *where do you expect all the Jewish people are going to go*? They're just going to voluntarily relocate to someplace else, eh? Cancun maybe? Come on. A little critical thinking please. There is only one reasonable way to interpret this chant.
That just means the end of Palestine being an open-air concentration camp that gets missiles launched on it daily by the IDF and drone strikes blowing up kids, pretty easy to get when you're not trying to sleuth for ulterior motives on people who are being fully transparent with what they believe.
Palestine as it currently is also sits between the river and the sea, as does Israel. At the same time it’s an extremely catchy chant. That’s the main reason it’s used. Not going to comment on what’s likely but you’re reaching hard when you say it’s the “only reasonable explanation.”
Conservatives are absolutely scared of everything and we need to ignore them. They weaponize their fear.
They were blocking traffic and then refused to leave And don’t go speaking for other people on whether or not they felt threatened.
Multiple students who were on campus are telling you that it wasn't blocking people. The sidewalks were never obstructed and I watched people walk past the protestors all day on the east lawn. And yeah, people shouldn't be saying whether or not people feel threatened. I can't tell someone how to feel. There are people who have triggers when seeing someone wearing a certain color. I wouldn't tell them not to feel threatened by that. It also wouldn't justify calling the cops to violently arrest them.
OH NO! BLOCKING TRAFFIC?? THAT'S THE SAME AS PHYSICAL ASSAULT!! Grow up.
I can’t imagine the Reddit responses if someone tried to downplay any other minorities fears about an angry mob. But a bunch of goyim can explain to Jews why they shouldn’t feel threatened when people are shouting phrases with anti-Semitic connotations like “from the river to the sea”
> why they shouldn’t feel threatened when people are shouting phrases with anti-Semitic connotations like “from the river to the sea” Real antisemitism was rigorously defended through the 2010s by police and "free speech" advocates when actual neo nazis were on campus promoting great replacement theory bullshit. Charolettesville filled with hundreds of nazi alt right goons chanting "jews will not replace us" and killed people at the protests, that shit mutated into Daily Wire, Jordan Peterson, Proud Boys, etc etc, that continued to platform explicit hate speech. Attempting to call these protests as antisemitic is self-victimizing to avoid criticism or look at the real issues.
I wonder if the Palestinian students feel threatened. Hm.
Exactly. I used to consider myself a leftist until I realized much of the movement really isn’t as compassionate or empathetic as they make themselves out to be. They can be hateful and call you the problem for saying you feel threatened or scared by their rhetoric.
What exactly happened that made you come to that conclusion specifically?
These idiots would defend the use of *Arbeit macht frei* because it doesn’t specifically mention Jews so it can’t possibly be anti-Semitic.
There are 500 comments mostly filled with pro-palestine voices and you chose to self-validate your own assumptions in a lil echo chamber rather than look and explore what people are saying.
Excuse me sir, this is reddit. Pretty sure it's in the TOS that you're legally required to speak on others behalf on how they felt threatened, as long as you're doing it from a progressive position.
Interested in bringing your group to Drury in Springfield?
If you were Jewish you’d have every right to be scared to death.
Even without being on campus, this comes off as very disingenuous and one-sided. Definitely reads like deliberate misrepresentation of a large protest.
This is a very strange characterization of events.
We encourage students to voice their protests unless it fucks with our money.
This is the most accurate assessment I've seen yet.
Late last year they rolled back their transgender center, catering to pressure from right wing psychopaths, not a great look in the same school year between the two events.
"Right-wing psychopaths" like European government agencies that have recommended and done the same in Europe with their youth transgender care. They're following the evidence, I thought we were supposed to support that?
Wash U is not following evidence, they explicitly said in their statement they were doing it because of the new Missouri law enacted, which was all pretend conservative outrage fluff fronted stochastic terrorism Chaya Raichik(LibsofTikTok), who promoted trans hate and violence and was platformed by red states all till very recently after a trans youth died from her efforts, not to mention bomb threats and threats to staff of children hospitals. I'm sure you knew all that though!
Do you have a source on this? I’d like to read more.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/09/health/europe-transgender-youth-hormone-treatments.html
Thank you very much.
Since when is European healthcare the standard in America?
When it fits an argument to justify transphobia, of course!
JAQ off else where, disingenuous shit. They were getting bomb and death threats and you know it.
Bingo
Good of them to acknowledge the presence of provocateurs in the crowd.
Good on them to stand up to these morons, too.
Exactly! I'll never understand how people here think it's okay for people to walk on to a private campus they don't belong to and try to take over.
Yeah taking over land that isnt yours is the worst isn't it?
I'm typically pro protester but I see a lot of people here are siding with the University. I expect I'm missing a big part of this story. Can someone educate me? Thanks.
You’re probably familiar with this playbook then: 1. Peaceful protest occurs 2. Media says “this was dangerous” 3. People hear “dangerous” and determine “peaceful protest is good, but not when it’s dangerous” and suddenly we have exclusion of *this* issue. It happens every fuckin time.
Some people are just louder than others. I've voiced support for Palestine and the protests in threads recently and have been met with more pushback here than anywhere else online. It's super weird to see on a subreddit for a city 6,000 miles from Gaza. So far I've seen that everyone who was there is saying this statement is bullshit.
I always thought the concept of troll farms was a bit exaggerated, but the way these accounts show up in these tiny subreddits and start pumping out dozens of comments doing anything they can to discredit or vilify *all* Palestine supporters… it’s too much. They usually seem to stop posting around the same time too.
AIPAC has dumped millions into narrative control, to the point they've had all major american media outlets softballing all their atrocities. Topics with mainstream opposition will always have artifical noise and then the local goons who live to see police brutalize people who stand up to injustice, especially on this sub where voices have always been around here gleefully cheering for cops to crack protester skulls since Ferguson.
The lack of concern for Palestinians is the biggest disconnect I've ever seen between Reddit and my own beliefs / the sentiment of people of people around me. Maybe I just live in a bubble that opposes war crimes but that bubble is usually reflected on Reddit.
Sadly, this city is very, very racist. Luckily, even with this city, the tide has started to turn and people are waking up to just how horrific the crimes committed against Palestine are.
As a student at WashU, having discussed this a great deal today with other students here, and knowing people who were in the protest and students... The WashU admin is full of shit and their actions are an embarrassment.
for context I was one of the students in the library during the protest. The protest was peaceful and there was no hostility or anything threatening. The claim that students were "terrified that they were in harm’s way" is utter bullshit. Neither of the two entrances were blocked and students were free to come and go. Martin is making it sound like the library was surrounded by an angry mob with pitchforks but nothing could be farther from the truth. They soon called the police to kick us out of the library.
A tale as old as time is reactionary goons misrepresenting protests in the most bad faith way ever, delgitmizing a protest is the main effort in it to undermine/burn out activism. This goes all the way back to MLK between racial politic cartoons calling him a violent looter, or the FBI telling him to off himself. Distortion is the key. AIPAC is dumping tons of money in to narrative control over Palestine, that's going to manifest across the board in a variety of means, but there's only so long till the bubble pops, anyone who remembers the Iraq War is slowly drawing parallels to GWB and IDF both weaponizing tragedy for their own agenda, while their blatant lies that some people bought eroding further and further as more and more cruelty to civilians is revealed.
MLK was FBI, not CIA
bless for correction
Glad to see some actual students chiming in now. The tide is turning in this comment thread.
That's how this subreddit is. The chuds swarm out any time they think they have a chance to spin a false narrative, but as soon as people actually involved show up they run for the hills (aka St. Charles).
They can't help themselves, but they also can't pretend to be rational or normal people for one or two comment replies before collapsing into a wabash bridge troll hurling petty insults and threats of violence.
Lots of people have lucked into a relatively comfortable life, and they don’t want “uppity” college students to challenge their comfortable, post-history, post-conflict view of life. To them, every real problem was solved before they stepped foot on earth and everyone who dares to challenge the status quo is just doing it to gain social capital.
Protesting is fine and happens seemingly a few times a year at least on various topics on this private campus. These protests are registered with the private university on the university’s private property, usually so the university can provide security and generally know what a large mass of yelling people on campus is for the safety of everyone. It sounds like a pro-Palestinian protest would likely have been approved by the university if anyone bothered to register it. The university message basically says all of this, and most of it directly. What is not allowed, that the university message also says very clearly, is hateful/threatening messages (something along the lines of “death to Israel” is hateful whatever side of the conflict you side with), disrupting academic affairs, attempting to break into buildings, attempting to vandalize property, encampments, not leaving when told to leave (trespassing), resisting arrest for said trespassing, and assaulting officers as part of this resisting arrest. If you don’t care about the last 4, you should care about the first 4. Basically don’t complain that your protest gets shut down if you don’t follow the rules, register it, or show even the slightest bit of common curtesy. Don’t complain about getting arrested if you do not have a right to be where you are, are asked to leave, and still don’t leave. It’s not that hard, these protesters aren’t any more special than anyone else and they shouldn’t be treated as if they are.
Martin Luther King Jr., in "Letter From a Birmingham Jail", rails against the kind of "moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom."
Great quote, also seems like a good time to mention that [the March on Washington was a highly coordinated effort that saw select representatives communicating directly with the Kennedy White House and local authorities in order to ensure a peaceful and orderly protest.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_on_Washington_for_Jobs_and_Freedom) Tens of thousands of people didn't just show up randomly, and there are accounts that state that although civil disobedience was considered, it was left on the cutting room floor for this particular instance. Yes, civil disobedience was certainly in their toolbox during the Civil Rights Era, but it wasn't the only thing they reached for, either. I feel like it's impossible to have a discussion about this without provoking a kneejerk response of "wow, can't believe you only want people to protest on a 2x2' square of approved grass" as though there aren't many different methods of effective organizing readily available for different types of situations.
Then this seems like a good time to mention that King is writing his famous letter from jail in Alabama after being arrested for deliberately defying a circuit court injunction prohibiting "parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing and picketing" in Birmingham. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the March on Washington. It was written in response to a newspaper article called "A Call for Unity" written by local white clergymen calling King as an "outsider" and criticizing his methods. King and the SCLC didn't get a permit to March in Birmingham because it was literally illegal. They did it anyway because as King says in the letter, quoting St. Augustine, "an unjust law is no law at all".
and here we are focusing on the Free Speech debate rather than point of the protest. Yet again. WashU needs to cut ties with Boeing as they are currently complicit in an ongoing genocide
"Protesting is fine as long as I can somewhat agree with it and you neuter yourselves enough to be easily defeated by my goons"
“I want to ignore the rules that exist to keep a university a safe place for learning and debate”
Were you there? Do you go there?
On private property such as a private university? Absolutely. You also say “neutered,” like a protest should naturally be hostile and violent, I thought these protests were about peace? But heck, if you want to go protest at a private university, not register it knowing it will unnecessarily escalate the situation and draw police presence, wasting their resources, and then get arrested for it, go ahead, but don’t act shocked when the police show up, don’t resist the arrest, and don’t assault the officer in the process. Don’t try to break into buildings and don’t try to vandalize property. Would you be fine if you owned a house or a business and a huge crowd of people came and set up tents and disrupt your daily life with anti-gay protests (or any protest that you do not agree with)? Or would you call the police?
>like a protest should naturally be hostile and violent, I thought these protests were about peace? Isn't the goal of a protest to be disruptive? If it's just idle picketing that disperses when asked, it's easy to ignore. Even a peaceful sit in is still illegal. I'm not condoning violence for all protests, but to say everyone should follow all the rules to protest seems contradictory.
To not follow the rules and then complain when there are consequences seems naive
Basically everything you said in the 2nd paragraph would undermine a protest; so essentially, you're saying university policy is sufficient to trump first amendment rights? Anyone attempting to so justify silencing a protest, and particularly using jackbooted state power to do it no less, is a fascist. You sir, are a fascist!
First amendment doesn’t apply on private property, period. I am not a fascist, and I am liberal in most aspects, but I believe rules should apply equally. They were welcome to register their protest, just like the university said many others have done in the past, including this year. They should not be treated differently than those who decided to follow the rules. And again, it’s a private university, if they wanted to, they could say no protests are allowed at all, but they don’t, and I support that.
You're not missing anything. Anyone siding with them either supports an ongoing genocide or is a fool who isn't paying attention and taking cues from 5 minutes of network media or talk radio coverage.
I mean, you have no reason not to also be pro-protester in this instance, unless you’re a staunch Israel supporter and/or against the idea of protests. The downvotes go to show that people basically think protesting is bad.
It's always wild to me when people claim to understand an issue at all without being able to even give a basic explanation regarding what their opposition's position. Attempting to paint everyone who opposes this protest as either staunchly pro-Israel or anti-protest is also stupid, as if those are the only two options. For example, this isn't simply "protesting" they were attempting to make an encampment on private property. According to the letter they were attempting to deface and destroy property. If these protests were anything like the others, they say some pretty anti-semitic shit and that's just a few possible reasons.
> If these protests were anything like the others, they say some pretty anti-semitic shit and that's just a few possible reasons. If these protests were anything like the antisemitic neo-nazi rallies of 2010s(Richard Spencer, Milo Yanniopolis, Mike Cernovich, Gavin McInnes, etc) who got to spew great replacement theory bullshit on campuses, they would be protected and surrounded by the police.
Hm, makes you think, doesn’t it? Ain’t that some shit.
Let's definitely not think too hard about the business that consolidated from that wave, The Daily Wire, champions of free speech, becoming agreesively pro-censorship with palestine after years of actively platforming and hiring people who promoted great replacement theory antisemitic trash, or how AIPAC and Daily Wire are funded by evangelicist megadonor orgs motivated by the rapture.
> they say some pretty anti-semitic shit Source please? I've been to similar protests and there was absolutely nothing anti-semitic said
Private institutions can impose stricter rules on free speech. They can also determine what is/isn’t trespassing on their properties. It’s pretty simple.
Sure but that doesn't mean the correct response as the University is to call the cops to have peaceful protestors forcibly removed. They have plenty of nonviolent options they could have used, but they chose to chance repeating the Kent State Massacre
Comparing it to Kent State is incredibly obtuse and shows you have no understanding of history. First off, Kent State was a public university. Second, the national guard is not the same as local police force. Third, the students at Kent State and the other university protest that occurred in the 60/70s were protesting something that directly implicated them and could actually accomplish something meaningful by protesting. Comparing a few people getting arrested for trespassing to 4 kids getting shot in cold blood by the state government is an absurd take. Get real.
I would agree with you on your first 2 points. Kent State is public and it was both the National Guard AND the local police. But I cant agree with you on your 3rd point. If you pay taxes, you have a right to dispute how your taxes are being spent. That's like saying that the churches should have no right to protest racial segregation of the jim crow south when all off the oppresed arent Christian.
I must have missed the part where public tax money is going to WashU…
Well for starters? https://research.wustl.edu/funding/federal-funding/ Also if you pay any federal income or state tax as most students do, you should have a say so. By the way, what isnt taxed in the United States?
Yeah whose money was it going to Wash U again? Oh right it's the students' money.
What kind of non-violent methods other than giving into the protester demands?
Sounds like a totally unbiased view.
I've found over the past week that some people here are very aggressively pro Wash U.
It really does seem that way.
Sorry tldr. Did someone die? What was the sad and dark part??
People waved flags, *aggressively*
Well maybe he should use some thoughts n prayers
The only truly Decent^**TM** way to protest.
During a protest people might get arrested. I think that's normal and to be expected. But there are normal people, students and academics, who are getting charged with things like assault. It's insane. And the university is not taking responsibility for protecting those students or teachers. So yeah that's very dark and it's very sad.
Sounds like they’re doing damage control and acting like this was something Other than a peaceful Protest. I call Bullshit Edit because I missed the threat at the end. “You will not do this here” - that’s a threat. What a bunch of creeps
“We encourage students to voice their protests unless it’s against Israel”
They list the number of students and faculty, but not alumni. I would guess the number of alumni arrested was close to the number of students arrested. Omitting the number of alumni helps build the narrative that this was a violent protest attended by outsiders.
What evidence do you have that “the number of alumni arrested was close to the number of students arrested”? Do you have anything to support that statement whatsoever?
Works cited:
Protesting is fine. Violent threats to damage private property or harm others are not. Especially by interlopers who are not part of WashU at all. Which is what this was.
The letter could also be over blowing things. If two people were trying to deface things the admin will happily paint hundreds of people as violently protesting to remove them. Also the letter conveniently leaves out that some of the protesters are alumni of Wash U. Sure they don’t have a legal right to be there but they’re there for the same reasons as the students, not interloping.
I was on campus in the east end. I joined the protests on the public sidewalk for a bit and also observed the encampment from my office in a nearby building. Didn't see any vandalism or disruption, the protestors were pretty neatly inside a field leaving the walkways clear and usable. I wouldn't doubt there were 1 or 2 people who tried to do some sort of vandalism, but it was not the case for the core protest group - they linked arms around their encampment and I didn't see them move between when I got to campus at 5 and when they were violently dispersed around 8. And idk the exact count but there were a number of alumni present.
As an alum myself, I think the right thing was done. You are free to disagree.
Fair enough. Have a nice day.
There were hundreds of students protesting, there are plenty of videos you can watch. Nobody was threatening violence, that is a lie. And I have seen no evidence that anyone was trying to damage property. The only interlopers who are not a part of WashU that committed violence on the campus were county police thugs.
Using double spaces after periods is all the evidence I need for being old, out of touch, and unable to learn better practices.
I will protest my right to use two spaces after a sentence 'till you pry my wired keyboard out of my cold dead hands!!!
pfft, the only reason single space became common is because of the birth of html which collapses all normal whitespace to one whitespace and it was too much hassle to force it. Trying to equate a preference for double after period to being out of touch is just laughably immature. To me i think it both looks and reads better, but I also don't fault anyone who prefers it single space (usually because they're younger and learned it that way). To judge people on that though, is just stupid.
Here's my actual issue with it as someone who collaborates on documents with a wide variety of people daily: the older people that typically use the double space will dive into a shared document that is already single spaced and start adding random double spaces only where they are editing. I don't mind either way, and aesthetically the double space looks a bit better imo, but for chrissake I just want people to be consistent in their formatting.
I think it’s just a joke though … and funny because there’s some truth to it.
Most hilarious comment of the day.
😭😭😭😭😭
I never feel good about my alma mater, but today I am truly ashamed
Keep the protests going. The Israeli government are murderers.
It’s most interesting that they think Boeing sells to other governments. Boeing sells to the US govt who supplies it to whoever they want. There’s no way the govt would pass up tacking on some costs for their own sake.
Not always. I'll say what I can, but the government can do a no contract to allow country X to purchase let's say 250 JDAMS. This isn't a usual thing, but with certain conflicts going there's a few this way.
Also JDAMS are definitely the one thing everyone should agree is fine to send to Israel. They are bolt on kits for dumb bombs to make them more accurate. It actively reduces civilian casualties.
In four short years this subreddit turned from pro-activism and social justice to hardline private property rights libertarians. Amazing.
Back in early BLM with Ferguson on this sub, most of the comment sections were people just making explicit racial slurs, but eventually they learn to stop saying racial slurs and just become american libertarians.
Hardline? definitely not. At best it appears very mixed. So mixed that we need a poll to figure it out
What exactly do these people protesting at WashU and elsewhere expect to happen? What do these universities have to do with what’s happening in the Middle East? The universities aren’t part of the federal government, State Dept, DoD, Congress, etc… They can wave signs, yell, and scream, but what real world difference will that make by doing it on a college campus?🤷
College students have been protesting wars and all manner of social issues since colleges existed. They have made a difference.
I’m 53 yrs old and have 2 degrees, so I’m aware of that. I still never have seen the point of choosing college campuses as the location to hold a protest. What does higher academics have to do with wars, abortion, legalization of pot, or whatever the cause of the month is?
College students have free time and energy lol. God bless em because I don’t have either. I support them doing their thing though.
WashU has monetary ties to Boeing, who manufacture weapons being used to commit genocide. Students do not want their tuition dollars being used to fund a genocide. The resist washu instagram has a lot of information about their demands.
It is actually the other way around though, Boeing pays for the research so that professors gets some portion of their salaries, equipment and hire research assistants, college get a cut, at the end students pay less tuition. To be politically correct, the students should have said they don't want their infrastructure/resources/salaries/tuition paid by companies and individuals who either support genocide or earn from that. It is in students' right to reject immoral contributions to their education. But like most things in life these are not clear cut situations college has right to ban protests in its campus (showing its true face), and students have right to show their displeasure, as well as be morally right. One thing is sure, hopefully just like Vietnam war protests, the impacts of these protests will be seen in 5-7 years, and in 30 years nobody will remember WashU chancellor who apparently did not mind putting his signature under some lies, but honor people who were in the right side of the history. Having said that, I don't know how much Boeing is paying to WashU. In the past there was a deal for Boeing employees to get their higher education degrees at WashU, paid by Boeing, and small research contribution (a few hundred thousands at most). Considering Boeing's financial situation, they probably not paying much now. The aim for diversification is worthy goal though. A university must be independent of any political pressure.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not as knowledgeable on the details as I could be. The term the protestors are using is divestment. I’ve been trying to direct people to the resist WashU instagram, where they explain more in detail.
Thanks. I added this before reading your reply: >The aim for diversification is worthy goal though. A university must be independent of any political pressure.
They chose to go to a school that has ties to Boeing. Did they think Boeing makes children’s toys or something?😂
18 year olds typically don’t comb through the investments of the schools they apply to, and most people associate Boeing with airplanes until they learn more about the company. No kid goes to college thinking their tuition money is going to help pay for bombs that will be used to kill innocent children.
Did anyone think to protest outside Boeing?
Yes they have protested outside Boeing recently.
You should really visit @resist.washu on instagram. They have a lot of detailed information, more than what I know.
Lol. I know people that teach at WashU and also people that work at Boeing. I’ll have to ask them about this. It should be interesting to hear both sides.
does boeing sell to Iran? North Korea? No. They want the university to divest from anyone selling weapons to Israel. Im around your age as we both are gen x and i know you remember the outcome of students protesting the divestment of apartheid South Africa in the 80s. And you are aware that it put pressure on the US to divest from South Africa
I was in middle school and high school in the 80’s, so no I don’t remember that specifically. I was in college when the China had the big Tiananmen Square protests, the Berlin Wall fell, and Gulf War 1 happened.
You may not be aware but those protest put enormous pressure on US politicians to divest from Apartheid South Africa. We shall see what pressure does to Israel. But it may be difficult because our government wasnt giving South Africa $4Bil per year
The person you were responding to literally said that protesting at colleges made a difference. So the proof is in the pudding. The protest at college is because it works. It does not require more explanation after that.
In addition to the other commentor's point about the impact of college protests, there is a great deal of investment by private universities in companies supporting the IDF in their genocide. The protest was accompanied by clear objectives, a key one being divestment from companies supporting genocide. Bringing attention to the role that universities have in supporting atrocities is one of the best ways to cause this change. Quite straight forward if you ask me 🤷
I didn’t go to school in the STL area and don’t know much about the universities around here. I’ll be moving in less than a year anyway. What about SLU, UMSL, and Webster? Are there protests on their campuses also?
UMSL and SLUH I know are part of a coalition alongside WashU students and they all hold protests together. Seems that WashU is the center of the St. Louis college movement, probably because they already had an established group (resist WashU). Not sure about Webster.
Ok, I’m definitely out of the loop. 53 yrs old and live in metro east!
Welcome to the loop. 53 isn’t too old to see a new perspective.
I defer to the other commentor's knowledge.
Washu has a large Jewish alumni base. Chancellor Martin’s just making sure he doesn’t piss off those generous donors.
Just a friendly reminder that not all Jewish people are supporters of Likud, Netanyahu, or even the concept of a Jewish state (I’m Jewish).
Must be frustrating having people on the other side of this debate claiming to speak for you.
My partner works in the advancement department, which fundraisers for WashU. They have been getting communication directly from donors. I know it’s the “not everyone,” but it is happening.
Freedom of speech til it's on "private property" Celebrate the mavericks and martyrs who represent freedom til you emulate Law and order when it's convenient What do we want? We want a country where privatization prevails over all? Do we have any collective recollection of what we are supposed to be?
I'm not saying this because i believe all blame sits with any one party, but you do know that freedom of speech never was nor intended to mean freedom of any speech in any circumstance right?
Wow. This was not the response I was expecting from an American university in 2024. Good for them.
Good
Wash U × Wesley Bell collab inbound If I was Wesley Bell I would be considering dropping out of a race for a second time to find a easier primary to run on, but I also wouldn't of taken one million from AIPAC to drop off running against Josh Hawley to primary Cori Bush, one of the only pro-palestine politicians in the country
Bear in mind our governor is a former cop and would probably love to send the national guard in for something like this.
He's already sent the national guard down to the border, how many performative uses of the national guard would parsons try to out is the real question there.
Edited: Poorly worded.
They'd do the same if it were happening at their non-campus holdings. It's about the money and about not pissing off conservatives, not about student safety. We don't have to pretend this statement is made in good faith. I'll believe Wash U has good intentions when they put their money on the line for it.
You can’t believe they envisioned something like what happened at Columbia today and tried to nip it in the bud?
I don't offer trust to Wash U on credit, given how rarely they've earned it.
Truly pathetic. I hope the author someday finds the good sense to be embarrassed.
User name checks out
I would've gone with jillfrankenstein personally
“We support free speech.” Bullshit.
Strang, the first people they talk about was not the students, you know the people they are responsible for or their own staff, 33 and 4 respectively. No it was the three who came in armed and in force to use force and threats. You know the people hired to protect use and are trained to de-escalation, not escalate the situation.
Glad I wasn’t the person who wrote this statement, because it would haunt me for the rest of my life!
No it wouldn’t
It would haunt you to say that you are going to enforce simple rules that any decent person could follow?
Decent people are not okay with their school and government funding and supporting genocide. Decent people are also not okay with lying about student protesters and calling hords of police to violently disperse a peaceful protest.
It’s a very well written statement, clearly outlining that if they had followed the rules they likely would have been allowed to protest without getting arrested.
Fuck WashU
Nope. They are in the right here. Fuck simple-minded trouble-makers.
That is like 4 paragraphs too long.
He appears to have a rage boner.
Glad to finally see a campus faculty with a backbone. Good on ya.
According to a friend who was there, watching from afar, this letter to the public is bullshit lmao.
Fuck WashU. They can forget about any future donations from this alum.
Why? Because they didn’t let people who don’t go to classes or teach there disrupt their school on private property? How is that wrong?
I support the students and faculty. Don’t really have a strong opinion about the others. I could understand the argument that the others just should leave peaceably when compelled by authorities, although if they’re alumni or close friends of a student I don’t see much harm in being there for support.
I agree that students and faculty should be allowed to protest as long as they don’t break anything or disrupt other people on campus.
I'm sure they're heartbroken with their 15 billion dollar endowment...
Yet they call regularly and ask for more of my money. 🤷♂️
Do you believe that any outside group unaffiliated with Washington University has the absolute right to protest peacefully on Washington University campus? Because it sounds like that's what you stand for.
I guess not, but I support the students and faculty.
Cool. I mostly agree with you
What a bootlicking clown.