Protests
Dear University President, You Could Run Out the Clock
“It’s been shocking how impoverished, craven, and imprudent the leadership of the Anglophone’s wealthiest and flagship universities have been this past year.”
The following is a guest post by Eric Schliesser (University of Amsterdam) on how university administrators have been reacting to protests on their campuses.
(A version of it first appeared at his blog, Digressions & Impressions.)
Dear University President, You Could Run Out the Clock; a Plea for Repressive Tolerance—and Renewal
by Eric Schliesser
Once upon a time, university presidents knew that by mid-May campus would be emptied of most students, including the student activists and the student reporters of the campus daily zine, all of whom had impressive internships lined up with NGOs in DC or foreign countries. Some seniors would even be willing to forego the cause in order to party one last time with classmates in graduation week. That is to say, they knew they could manage the clock as they pleased while they organized some sanitary facilities for the ‘encampment’ and exhibit curiosity about the underlying issue by proudly attending the teach in. After all, the world’s experts on the topic are often on payroll. (A good thing that interdisciplinary program was not cut.)
One of the oddities of our age is that the professional managers that have taken over the running of universities show themselves so unimaginative and so insecure with their authority. They echo each other’s slogans, and they role-play leadership from behind a large desk. Even as risk and reputation managers they are a flop. This is not just an American thing (although the armed snipers on rooftops are). The first time I noticed this state of affairs was a few years ago when peaceful student campers/campaigners got kicked off my Amsterdam campus with non-trivial police brutality because a dean didn’t want them present near graduation. I forget the activists’ cause, but not the triviality that moved the campus hierarchy into action.
When universities resort to force long before that’s necessary—and the present generation of student activists have been a most harmless bunch, so far (has anyone been physically hurt by any of them?)—they educate their students to distrust argument, they teach their students cynicism about persuasion, and they teach them contempt for the gift of civilization, which is all about the art of managing fierce disagreements with words. They teach our students that education is not about patience and the slow mastery of skill, but that it is all about who has the ear of the police commissioner. They deny their students the possibility to discover and thereby learn from their mistakes, but teach them that obedience pays.
I am no friend of the aesthetic frisson that some of my leftwing colleagues feel when they see a mass of mostly young human bodies gathered in protest facing off with men (well mostly men) in uniform; the breathless reports from the ‘streets,’ the talk of demos and democracy, the instinctive trust of the crowd by the lords of a dinner-party. I detest the unwillingness to make distinctions because solidarity demands it. I find it comic when full professors insist that social hierarchy must be abolished. But, at least, their passion pays respect to something other than force.
It’s been shocking how impoverished, craven, and imprudent the leadership of the Anglophone’s wealthiest and flagship universities have been this past year. Yes, they face organized hostility from many sides. But that is, alas, the human condition.
A bit over a year ago I tried to organize my thoughts on these matters and wrote a piece for my campus newspaper, although it was originally written in Dutch. I circulated a draft among some of my department colleagues. They all urged me to remove an inchoate idea that I expressed with the clumsy and archaic phrase, ‘spiritual authority.’ And I did. I should have asked for better suggestions.
I regret dropping the phrase ‘spiritual authority.’
Yes, repressive tolerance for its own sake is potentially a higher form of cynicism. But true authority is born from a self-confidence that doesn’t originate in a job-title or praise; it is rather nourished because one is secure in one’s identity in serving the university’s mission to elevate us, to discover new truths, and to expand our intellectual horizons, to organize curiosity. All discovery is a journey into the unknown, a voyage without a clear destination, and without knowing what will ‘work.’ And this is grounded in a kind of faith that I have called ‘spiritual.’
A certain self-described ‘realist’ thinks that an institution’s true nature is revealed when water-cannons, batons, and shields (or worse) are deployed against their own students. It’s true now. Some of our very best will walk away from us in disgust.
But universities haven’t lasted for centuries without turmoil, and bouts of renewal. Perhaps, on some campus (originating in the Latin for ‘field’), or encampment of tents, some of the more thoughtful young will have seen through the façade of the administrative building, and sketched a vision for a virtual (not in the new sense of ‘online’ but in the supposedly obsolete sense of ‘full of excellence’) university.
The post Dear University President, You Could Run Out the Clock first appeared on Daily Nous.
Columbia Philosophy Grad Students Condemn Campus Arrests
“We call for the reversal of student suspensions and for departments to refuse to comply with university investigations or sanctions of students and employees participating in non-violent political action.”
[Philosophy Hall, Columbia University]
Current graduate students in the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University, as well as alumni of its graduate program, some of whom are professors elsewhere, have released a statement about the protests that have been taking place at the university this month.
Students at Columbia have been protesting Israel’s response to Hamas’s October 7th attack. A few days into the protest, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik suspended students taking part in them and authorized the New York Police Department to arrest protestors. Over 100 people were arrested.
In the statement the Columbia philosophy students “unequivocally condemn President Minouche Shafik’s decision” and demand “the reversal of student suspensions and for departments to refuse to comply with university investigations or sanctions of students and employees participating in non-violent political action.” They also “call on the Columbia administration to commit to never again call police onto campus to suppress student speech.”
Here’s the full text and signatories:
Statement on Recent Events from Graduate Students and Alumni of the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University
We, current and former graduate students of the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University, are appalled at the decision taken on April 18th by the University President to violate principles of academic freedom and free speech by authorizing the forcible removal and arrest of 108 of our students and colleagues.
On April 18th, the President of Columbia University, in the name of “safety,” brought armed police into our campus to use physical force against students who had established a non-violent encampment in support of Palestine on Columbia’s South Lawn. The encampment did not disrupt classes. It did not block access to campus or buildings. Nevertheless, the police were called in after only a day. The President took this action against the recommendation of the University Senate, violating principles of shared governance established in the wake of the 1968 protests. As a result of these arrests and suspensions, students have sustained injuries, lost access to Columbia health services, and been evicted from student housing with less than 15 minutes to gather their belongings.
This followed months of tensions at Columbia since the horrifying events of October 7th and the devastating aftermath. These events have been the topic of difficult and traumatizing discussion. Columbia’s administration could have responded by promoting dialogue and mutual understanding. Instead, the administration heavily restricted speech on campus and disproportionately acted to silence one voice in particular – the voice of those protesting against the ongoing oppression and killing of Palestinians. It was in this environment of institutional repression that the student protesters decided to take action.
The University’s decision to arrest student protesters was thus the culmination of months of restriction against the public expression of support for Palestinians. The past few years have seen an alarming trend of bad faith political actors attempting to silence political speech they disagree with by policing academic institutions, thereby undermining elementary principles of academic autonomy. Columbia’s Board of Trustees has demonstrated more interest in appeasing these external forces than responding to the needs of their students, as have the administrations of other universities. We have witnessed the actions of police at other college campuses where professors are thrown to the ground and department chairs are dragged away in zip ties. Regardless of where we stand on the issue of Israel and Palestine, we should all agree that such attempts to suppress discourse are utterly unacceptable in any decent society committed to liberal principles.
As educators, we believe that it is our special responsibility to speak out when the University denies students the right to freely pursue their education. And as philosophers, we have a duty to uphold the values of free thought and open discourse, just as Sidney Morgenbesser and other members of our department did in 1968.
We therefore unequivocally condemn President Minouche Shafik’s decision. We call for the reversal of student suspensions and for departments to refuse to comply with university investigations or sanctions of students and employees participating in non-violent political action. We oppose further efforts from the administration to forcibly remove the new encampment, and call on the Columbia administration to commit to never again call police onto campus to suppress student speech. The best path forward, in our view, is for the administration to continue to negotiate with the representatives of Columbia University Apartheid Divest in good faith and without further threats.
Signed,
Current graduate students and alumni of the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University
Updated List of Signatures:
-
- Ola Aksnes (Graduate Student)
- Avery Archer (Alum)
- Elizabeth Benn (Alum)
- Noah Betz-Richman (Graduate Student)
- Michael Brent (Alum)
- Simon Brown (Alum)
- Ellen Nora Burns (Graduate Student)
- Samara Burns (Graduate Student)
- César Cabezas (Alum)
- Qian Cao (Graduate Student)
- Bard Cash (Graduate Student)
- May Chen (Alum)
- Lisa Clark (Graduate Student)
- Conor Cullen (Lecturer, Alum)
- Rivka Chuyun Dai (Graduate Student)
- Amelle Djemel (Visiting Scholar)
- Beibei Du (Graduate Student)
- Jeremy Forster (Alum)
- Anthony Garuzzo (Graduate Student)
- Nemira Gasiunas-Kopp (Alum)
- Justin Xingzhi Guo (Graduate Student)
- Joe Hamilton (Graduate Student)
- Thimo Heisenberg (Alum)
- Yarran Hominh (Alum)
- Yitu Hu (Graduate Student)
- Ethan Jacobs (Graduate Student)
- Ye-Eun Jeong (Graduate Student)
- Alex Jensen (Graduate Student)
- Jared Jones (Graduate Student)
- Bennett Knox (Alum)
- Brittany Koffer (Lecturer, Alum)
- Dabin Kwon (Alum)
- Anya Leinberger (Graduate Student)
- Yifan Li (Graduate Student)
- Lisa Liu (Graduate Student)
- Helen Han Wei Luo (Graduate Student)
- Eleonora Maccarone (Alum)
- Laura Martin (Alum)
- Cornelia Mayer (Graduate Student)
- William McCarthy (Alum)
- Katharine McIntyre (Alum)
- Devin Morse (Graduate Student)
- Usha Nathan (Alum)
- Fred Neuhouser (Alum)
- Andreja Novakovic (Alum)
- Ignacio Ojea (Alum)
- Shivani Radhakrishnan (Alum)
- Danielle Alma Ravitzki (Graduate Student)
- Andrew Richmond (Alum)
- Melissa Rees (Alum)
- Amogh Sahu (Graduate Student)
- Weiming Sheng (Graduate Student)
- Xinyi Song (Graduate Student)
- Mariam Sousou (Graduate Student)
- Paul Spohr (Alum)
- Sapphire Qiaochu Tang (Graduate Student)
- Nandi Theunissen (Alum)
- Chuyu Tian (Graduate Student)
- Naser Tizhoosh (Graduate Student)
- Aaron Xiaolong Wang (Graduate Student)
- Connie Wang (Graduate Student)
- Sara Wexler (Graduate Student)
- Philip Yaure (Alum)
- Chi Zhang (Graduate Student)
The post Columbia Philosophy Grad Students Condemn Campus Arrests first appeared on Daily Nous.
University of California Faculty Statement on Protests
“We believe that the ability to protest nonviolently is essential to our democracy and a basic human right that must be respected and protected.”
[from a protest at UCLA, via The Los Angeles Times]
Faculty across the University of California system have signed onto the statement, “Support Students’ Right to Nonviolently Protest at the University of California.”
The statement continues to be open to signatures from UC faculty.
It says:
Nonviolent student protests at the University of California change the world. Entire academic departments owe their existence to nonviolent student protests at the University of California. The nationwide student movement to end the Vietnam War can trace its beginnings to nonviolent student protests at the University of California.
As faculty and staff at the University of California, we believe that the ability to protest nonviolently is essential to our democracy and a basic human right that must be respected and protected. We bear the responsibility of ensuring the safety, welfare, and basic human rights of our students. After more than 108 students engaged in a peaceful protest were arrested, suspended from their courses, and evicted from university housing on April 18, 2024 at Columbia University, with NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell stating that “the students that were arrested were peaceful, offered no resistance whatsoever, and were saying what they wanted to say in a peaceful manner,” we believe that this basic human right requires our active protection.
Arresting or punishing students who protest peacefully and nonviolently on our campuses is antithetical to our university’s highest ideals of learning and scholarship and violates our university’s fundamental values of decency and respect. Especially during difficult moments of intense political contestation, it is essential that all members of our university community respect each other and not engage in authoritarian power plays. Our university has witnessed acts of police violence against students protesting peacefully (Davis in 2011), suspensions, evictions, and mass firings without due process (Santa Cruz in 2015 and again in 2020), and the use of university facilities as a field jail (Los Angeles in 2020). These infamous and disgraceful actions damage our confidence in each other and must not be repeated. In every action we take, we express our values as members of our treasured community.
As our students stand up and use their voices, we will always do our best to support them and their basic human rights, and thereby support our university and our democracy.
You can see the list of signatories here.
(via Andy Lamey)
Related: the Los Angeles Times on university protests in California.
The post University of California Faculty Statement on Protests first appeared on Daily Nous.
Cartoon: Sensible responses
As always: if you find value in this work I do, please consider helping me keep it sustainable by joining my weekly newsletter, Sparky’s List! You can get it in your inbox or read it on Patreon, the content is the same. And don’t forget to visit the Tom Tomorrow Merchandise Mall!
From Sylhet to Spitalfields: Bengali Squatters in 1970s East London – review
In From Sylhet to Spitalfields, Shabna Begum examines the Bengali community’s struggle for housing and belonging in the face of systemic racism in 1970s East London. According to Md Naibur Rahman and Ruhun Wasata, Begum’s rich combination of ethnographic work and historical analysis reveals how, through squatting, activism and community organising, Bangladeshi migrants successfully demanded their right to housing.
Someone with a rumbling stomach taking a stroll around Tower Hamlets in London, famous for its Bangladeshi community and cuisine, might be focused on finding a place to eat. Once satiated, attention can be focused on questions of how this diasporic community who were once colonised made it to the land of the coloniser and eventually called it home. In From Sylhet to Spitalfields, Shabna Begum undertakes an academic journey to examine the experiences of the Bangladeshi community as they faced systemic and targeted racism in their struggle to find literal and figurative homes in East London.
The book examines the Bangladeshi Squatter movement in the 1970s [. . .] to ensure the minimum basic rights of finding tenancy agreements in places that could keep them safe from targeted and street racism.
The book examines the Bangladeshi Squatter movement in the 1970s, a united effort against institutionalised racism of the Greater London Council (GLC) and Tower Hamlets Council (TLC) to ensure the minimum basic rights of finding tenancy agreements in places that could keep them safe from targeted and street racism. Begam’s robust ethnographic research both documents the suffering and struggles of the Bangladeshi community in London and records their resilience and resistance in the face of adversity.
The book begins with a historical account of the migration pattern of people from Sylhet, the North Eastern region of Bangladesh, to East London. Dating back to the boat building and sailing traditions of Sylheti people found in Ibn Battuta’s record in 1346 and Robert Lindsay’s observation in 1777, Sylheti men were initially employed as ship workers by the East India Company under British rule. Lindsay, the revenue collector deployed in Sylhet, extracted all trading opportunities for limestone, elephant trading (at least 6000), tea plantation and ship building. This typical practice of colonial-era property acquisition and exploitation of natural resources led him to purchase Balcarres House in Fife, Scotland from his older brother, Earl Alexander. This is a glaring example of how Sylhet and Sylheti seafarers contributed to the growth of the economic and political power of British colonisers in the 18th century.
The book observes this migratory pattern as part of the legacy of imperialism, epitomised in Sivanandan’s phrase, ‘We are here because you were there’.
The exploitation continued with an administrative strategy of annexing Sylhet to Assam, the neighbouring district, whose tea plantations became a cash cow. This layout and arrangement made Sylheti people owners of their land, unlike in other districts, which were governed by a few elite landlords and the majority of tenants. With the growing population, Sylheti people gravitated towards the merchant shipping industry to ease the pressure on the land-based economy. As part of an invitation to new commonwealth citizens in the post-war period Sylheti people started migrating from Bangladesh to East London in the 1960s and 1970s in search of opportunity, finding work in the garment, catering and hospitality sectors. The book observes this migratory pattern as part of the legacy of imperialism, epitomised in Sivanandan’s phrase, “We are here because you were there.”
The book stands out for highlighting the significance of the role of women in the squatter movement. In the mid-1970s, Sylheti men were concerned that, due to the racialist restriction on Commonwealth migration, they wouldn’t be able to bring their wives and children to the UK in the future as family reunification migrants, who would then morph into economic migrants. Their families were eventually allowed to join them, and their temporary, unstructured and compromised accommodation setups were no longer adequate. The lack of suitable accommodation led to Sylhetis wrangling with the GLC and THC powered with residency qualification and fifty-two weeks continuous residency policy for endorsing their discriminatory allocation. Eventually, the only option left was squatting. In these squats, women became the frontline defenders against discriminatory attacks since men were largely away at work outside the home. From protecting the home to protesting on the streets, Sylheti women played a key role in the movement, requiring resilience and defiance.
With no facilities for private bathing, broken windows and doors and interrupted utility supplies, the squatters adjusted to squalid living conditions.
Through the heart-wrenching lived experiences of its interviewees, the book evidences the poor conditions of the squats: dilapidated, leftover houses where no one else would agree to live. With no facilities for private bathing, broken windows and doors and interrupted utility supplies, the squatters adjusted to squalid living conditions. Beyond the this, squatters experienced smashed doors and windows, targeted racist harassment and elected politicians’ committing to expel the Bengali people from the area. In one rare instance where a Bengali family was allocated a council tenancy, the targeted violence they were subject to from the local community meant prevented them from moving in.
The formation of the Bengali Housing Action Group (BHAG) in the spring of 1976 paved a new way to coordinate the efforts and demands of squatters that were conveyed to the councils. The book highlights how this organisation not only established a game-changing platform but also emerged as a united force to resist violence. The formalised voice and force of the organisation proved crucial in gaining support, respect and acceptance from different groups.
The book presents a thorough account of BHAG activities which led to broader amnesty for squatters, enabling them to register and receive GLC tenancy in June 1978. From desperate attempts of squatting to 3000-strong demonstrations of Bangladeshis to finally being able to meet with GLC Councillors, the BHAG representation gave momentum and organisational force to the movements. In 1977, it was agreed by the GLC that their request to be housed in the E1 area would be honoured. BHAG activists made it clear that white or mixed-race people were also welcome as long as the majority of Bangladeshi people are housed in the same area.
The friendship, love and sacrifice of non-Bangladeshi BHAG activists like Terry Fitzpatrick, Mala Sen and Farrukh Dhondy demonstrated the power of multiculturalism and solidarity that London enables.
The Squatter movement and formulation of BHAG fomented lifelong friendships and connections that went beyond shared trauma and suffering. The friendship, love and sacrifice of non-Bangladeshi BHAG activists like Terry Fitzpatrick, Mala Sen and Farrukh Dhondy demonstrated the power of multiculturalism and solidarity that London enables. While some tried to protect Bangladeshis through their vigilante patrolling in Ford Zafire every night for a year, others voiced their frustrations, sufferings and demands on behalf of the Bangladeshi women. In addition, the support from the Socialist Worker Party, the Anti-Nazi League, and Race Today brought more attention and visibility. This movement worked as a foundation stone for many subsequent achievements in the housing cooperation, direct representations in councils and recognition of Bangladeshi culture. From forming housing cooperatives such as Shahjalal and Mitali Housing Co-Op to having representation with a Labour Councillor in 1985, the community established their presence in East London and beyond. British Bangladeshis’ continued political awareness and engagement led to the election of their first Member of Parliament (MP) in 2010, followed by three others in 2010, 2015 and 2019, respectively. The overall emergence of Bangladeshi community in almost every sector has often been credited to their commitment to education, which resonated through many interviewees’ responses – “because we put a graduate in every family”.
The book takes the reader on both an academic and an emotional journey, balancing robust historical research with human stories of resilience in the face of adversity.
Begum’s book does a commendable job of weaving the impacts of political events in Bangladesh with the nature of protests in East London. Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971, the famine of 1974, and the assassination of the Founding Fathers of the Nation sedimented the resilience, resistance and courage, demonstrated by Bangladeshis who stood for their rights in Spitalfields, East London. Although many Sylheti people moved to Britain with the full intention of returning to Bangladesh, the struggles and achievements in East London gave them a sense of double belonging. The book effectively employs an oral ethnographic approach, making it a significant historical record of the Bangladeshi community in East London. The book takes the reader on both an academic and an emotional journey, balancing robust historical research with human stories of resilience in the face of adversity. From historians and geographers to anthropologists, sociologists to gender studies specialists, this book will appeal to many as a means to better understand the experiences of immigrants in Britain.
Note: This review gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Image credit: Olivier Guiberteau on Shutterstock.
Campus Protests about Israel and the Palestinians (several updates)
This post is for discussion of the ongoing campus protests against Israel’s response to the October 7th, 2023 attack on it by Hamas, and in support of the Palestinians.
More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in its attack on Gaza, with two-thirds of the dead being women and children, according to the local health ministry, reports the Associated Press.
[original photo by Jay Janner/USA Today Network, via Reuters]
A round-up of recent news about protests at various college campuses can be found here.
Of particular interest are questions about how universities should (or should not) respond to these kinds of protests, and the principles, ideals, and practical considerations that underpin answers to those questions.
Details about what’s happening at your campus are welcome, as are links to news and commentary elsewhere, including links to particularly valuable social media feeds.
By way of background on the matter of free speech and campus protests, I recommend this piece by Jacob Levy (McGill). Some excerpts:
[U]niversities offer very robust protection for political and protest speech, but as an incidental byproduct, not in the same deliberate way that a liberal democratic society does. A university’s core commitment is to the discovery, transmission and preservation of knowledge – paradigmatically, what is done in research, in teaching, and in publication and library collection. The principle that defends that commitment is not freedom of speech as such, but rather academic freedom.
Academic freedom has a few moving parts:
First, the freedom to follow arguments and evidence where they lead, according to scholarly methods…
Second, the freedom to teach, within the confines of the scholarly mission of the class, and limited by the freedom of students to be secure that they will be assessed fairly…
And finally, freedom from evaluation on non-academic grounds, of which the traditionally most important are political and religious grounds. Members of the academic community are only to be academically evaluated, for purposes ranging from student grades to professors’ tenure, on the grounds of the success of their academic work. They may not lose academic standing (student enrolment, faculty employment and so on) for their views and speech on other questions. In the early 20th-century cases that helped shape this rule, universities came to the understanding that, say, an economist couldn’t be fired for being an atheist, a mathematician for being a socialist; what they had to say on those political and religious questions was irrelevant to their work. The technical phrase here is freedom of extramural speech – outside the walls of the laboratory, the classroom and the library. Protections of extramural speech are very strong, not primarily in order to protect that speech, but in order to protect the academic integrity of what goes on inside the laboratory, classroom and library.
A rule that has traditionally accompanied and strengthened academic freedom is institutional neutrality. If academic freedom is the ability of scholars and scholarly communities or disciplines to work without having an orthodoxy imposed on them, institutional neutrality is the commitment not to declare an orthodoxy in the first place. Just like a professor at the front of a classroom shouldn’t use it as a pulpit to announce their own political and religious views, so too should the university as a whole not adopt substantive political or religious opinions that would chill the freedom of its members to pursue their own ideas and arguments. A great deal of important political inquiry and debate happens at a university, but it’s undertaken by students and professors with differing views pursuing differing arguments, not by the institution as a whole declaring official conclusions…
These principles generate some surprising and strange outcomes. For example, the odd thing about the centrality of student protests to important moments in university life is that they are so irrelevant to the university’s mission. There is very strong protection for the freedom of protest, not because protest is important to a university the way it is to a democratic society, but because it’s academically irrelevant. It’s wrong to question a student’s (or professor’s) standing in the academic community because of what they say at a protest – or on social media, or in any other non-academic setting. The only appropriate limits are not about the content of what’s said, but about the conduct of the protest action; the university has to protect not only the safety of its other members but also the security of its academic functions. It can’t rule against the language on a sign, but it must intervene to prevent violence between students, or occupations and blockades that would prevent a class from meeting, or an invited speaker from speaking.
This is easier said than done…
I recommend reading the whole piece.
One thing to note is that the institutional neutrality Levy discusses is especially tricky, particularly in this context: one declared aim of some of the student groups is to get their universities to stop investing in companies involved in or profiting from Israel’s military efforts in Gaza. Should such investments themselves be considered a deviation from institutional neutrality, such that the student calls for divestment could be seen as a call for institutional neutrality? Or are such investments in principle relevantly different from what we might think of as paradigmatic departures from institutional neutrality, such as an official statement supporting a side in a political dispute? The details probably matter here, both on the extent to which investment in certain companies is intentional, and the extent to which such companies are “involved” with Israel’s war efforts.
And that’s just one issue.
OK, let’s see how this goes. (Comments are moderated. Please remind yourselves of the comments policy. Thanks.)
UPDATE 1 (4/25/24): The Department of Philosophy at Columbia University has issued the following statement:
The Philosophy Department is concerned for the safety, academic progress, and rights of our students. We condemn all forms of hate speech, harassment, and incitements to violence. We also regard it as quite implausible that erecting a tent on a lawn constitutes a clear and present danger, and we urge the lifting of suspensions of students whose charges stem from that act. Thus we support the joint statement by the Columbia and Barnard Chapters of the American Association of University Professors and the letter from the Columbia College Student Council. We want President Shafik to succeed, and for mutual trust between all parties on campus to be regained. Such success and trust requires visible engagement by the President and Trustees with the procedures of faculty governance.
UPDATE 2 (4/25/24): Noelle McAfee, professor and chair of philosophy at Emory University, was among those arrested for protesting at Emory.
WATCH: Among those arrested today were Noelle McAfee, Chair of the Philosophy Department at Emory University.
I’ve asked for a comment from Emory on this arrest, no word yet.
This video provided to us by an #Emory PHD student. You can hear him in this video. @ATLNewsFirst pic.twitter.com/86aJgb7NUX
— Patrick Quinn (@PatrickQuinnTV) April 25, 2024
Thanks to several readers for bringing this to my attention. Original Tweet here.
UPDATE 3 (4/26/24): Sukaina Hirji, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, gave a speech to protestors there. Watch it here.
UPDATE 4 (4/26/24): Caroline Fohlin, professor of economics at Emory University, asks three law enforcement officers who appear to be on top of a student protestor on the ground, “what are you doing?” A fourth officer grabs her, pulls her away, twists her arm behind her back, and pushes her to the ground. A second officer joins in pushing her down, heedless of the fact her head is being pushed into the sidewalk.
FULL VIDEO OF ELDERLY AMERICAN ECONOMICS PROFESSOR CAROLINE FOHLIN BEING ASSAULTED BY POLICE
She is an over 65 year old American woman.
Americans attacked for Israel.
What if this was your mother/grandmother? pic.twitter.com/ne7uDsPGIX
— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) April 26, 2024
According to news reports, she was charged with disorderly conduct and battery of a police officer. This guy:
The post Campus Protests about Israel and the Palestinians (several updates) first appeared on Daily Nous.
US unis even arresting TEACHERS as Israel lobby group demands anti-Palestine crackdown
Students and teachers targeted by police as ADL demands government breaks student anti-genocide protest movement
At least one US university has called in police to arrest faculty members as well as students, as the so-called ‘Anti-defamation League’ (ADL) demanded a crackdown on the spreading anti-genocide protest movement among US students.
NYPD officers took NYU teachers as well as students away from a demo against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, as demonstrations spread to universities around the country. Columbia University, also in New York, has seen further student arrests as a sit-in demo by students against Israel’s slaughter of innocents continues undeterred.
In a tactic reminiscent of the recent rigged stunt in the UK by the Israel-linked, so-called ‘Campaign against Antisemitism’ (CAA), the ADL has claimed Jewish students are unsafe and demanded the immediate suspension of anyone who dares protest against mass murder:
Innocent women and children in Gaza are being slaughtered by the tens of thousands by Israel – and Palestinian students have been attacked, leaving at least one paralysed, by morons whipped up by the Islamophobic speech of politicians and pro-Israel lobbyists – but it seems we are meant to treat the feelings of the friends of genocide and apartheid as more important, on both sides of the Atlantic.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Ogle v Unite: ‘no decision today’ on whether to subpoena Sharon Graham to appear in Dublin
Legal team reserving issue pending analysis of transcripts so far – general secretary could face prosecution for failing to comply if summonsed
Leading Irish union figure Brendan Ogle’s legal team will not make a decision today on whether to subpoena Unite general secretary Sharon Graham to appear at the next phase of Ogle’s discrimination case against the union in Dublin, which is expected to take place in early April.
Yesterday saw a heated argument in the Workplace Relations Commission hearing room about whether Graham will be required to testify in the case. Ogle’s lawyers insisted that she must be legally summonsed to attend if Unite’s legal team does not call her as a witness. Unite’s barrister Mark Harty insisted furiously, and it must be said rather bizarrely, that Graham is not relevant to the case and may not be ‘amenable’ to subpoena, as if such a legal summons is a matter of whether one feels like being summoned. Graham and her alleged words about getting rid of Ogle – who supported her rival Howard Beckett during the 2021 general secretary election – have featured prominently in the case so far.
If a subpoena is eventually requested and issued, the summons is enforceable and failure to appear and give evidence under a subpoena is a prosecutable criminal offence under Ireland’s ‘Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2018‘.
Sharon Graham has previously cancelled appearances in the Republic, avoiding members’ anger and scrutiny over the union’s ‘disgraceful’ treatment of Brendan Ogle. The situation caused such outrage in Ireland that union members picketed Graham’s long-delayed visit to Dublin, Unite’s Community section condemned it as ‘disgusting’ and a whole sector branch threatened to disaffiliate.
After Unite’s legal team said they will not be calling Graham to testify, Workplace Relations Commission Adjudicator Elizabeth Spelman told both legal teams that before a subpoena can be requested, Ogle’s lawyers should write to Graham and ask her to appear, then apply for a subpoena if/when she refuses.
Skwawkbox is in Dublin to cover the case directly. If you would like to help cover the costs of the trip and can do so without hardship, please select from the options below.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
‘Sharon Graham told him to tell me there was no place for me in the future of Unite’
Irish union legend who supported rival in general secretary election tells tribunal he was sidelined on return from cancer battle and never had a positive day at work since he returned – and that he was told that union’s general secretary ‘recognises loyalty’ from those who supported her in election
Irish union legend Brendan Ogle, his wife Mandy la Combre (in beret) and supporters leaving the Workplace Relations Committee today
Today saw an explosive – and often fiery – day in Irish union legend Brendan Ogle’s case against Unite at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) in Dublin.
Ogle, who supported Graham’s rival Howard Beckett for general secretary, and is claiming that the union discriminated against him by sidelining him from his role as senior officer after his return from a battle against life-threatening neck cancer, told the WRC adjudicator that he was ‘reeling’ when he returned and found that his job – which he had been promised would be held for him to return to if he beat the disease – had disappeared and that Unite was trying to move him into a makeweight job that required only three days work a month.
And in the day’s most explosive testimony, he told the court that he had been called to a meeting with Tom Fitzgerald, another senior Irish Unite figure, only to be told that there was no place for him in the union’s future and that:
he’d been told by Sharon Graham to draw up a strategic plan for the Republic of Ireland and I was not to be in it.
Ogle added that the union’s then-assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail had told him that Graham is:
very loyal to [Irish] regional officers who had supported her but many hadn’t… Sharon operates on the basis of loyalty.
This comment raised the obvious question of what Ms Graham does with those who did not support her and how this bears on the treatment Ogle said he was subjected to by the union management.
Unite’s barrister Mark Harty – whose wife Karyn is part of the team from Dentons, one of the world’s most expensive law firms, hired by Graham to represent Unite in this tribunal and in Ogle’s defamation lawsuit against her, Unite and her ally Tony Woodhouse – insisted that Fitzgerald, who still works for the union, would testify he had not said what Ogle reported. However, the authenticity of Ogle’s submission of a photo of a whiteboard layout said to have been sketched by Fitzgerald to show how the union would organise after his departure does not appear to be contested by Unite.
Ogle spoke harrowingly of his fight against cancer and its effects on him and went on to say that after his return – expecting to come back to a job held open for him on the promise of Graham’s predecessor Len McCluskey – that he had not had a single positive day at work. He also described how he applied for a regional secretary job as a means of resolving the issue, only to find on his arrival for interview in London that the interview panel was being chaired by Woodhouse, one of the figures who he says defamed him during a talk at Unite’s biennial Irish conference.
Barrister Harty’s aggressive approach and frequent interruptions of Ogle’s attempts to answer led to numerous confrontations with Ogle’s legal team and a fiery sidebar meeting in a separate room marked by shouting and a walk-out by Ogle’s lawyer saying she would not be talked to in that way. Harty had tried to question Ogle about claims that do not form part of the current case and, when challenged about relevance, had insisted that these questions were ‘central’ to Unite’s case. The dispute led to the sidebar meeting – and on the return of the lawyers and adjudicator, he told Ogle,
Mr Ogle, we’re just going to move on
before asking questions on another topic.
Harty also at one point – appearing to think this was some kind of trump card – demanded to know why Ogle had not told his wife Mandy la Combre to remove social media posts criticising Unite’s treatment of him. The exchange prompted one observer later to observe,
He was basically asking him, ‘Why didn’t you control your wife?’
Harty also appeared to imply that Unite was doing Ogle a favour by moving him to a less senior role in Dundalk after an occupational health report said Ogle was fit to return to his ‘senior officer’ role, because Ogle’s doctor had warned stress might be bad for his health. Ogle responded that the occupational health report was specific to him working in Dublin. Ogle lives in Dublin, but travelling to work in Dundalk involves a daily 100-mile round-trip.
Ogle also told the court that Unite Ireland’s lawyer had told him that the Dundalk role of ‘education and legal’ involved only a day or two’s work – and added that the education part of the role needed only a day’s work because union education in Ireland is not funded by employers in the way it is in the UK, leaving him effectively sent fifty miles away for just three days’ work a month. Unite’s barrister tried to have this evidence ruled out as hearsay.
Ogle told the tribunal that he had consistently refused to sign any agreement sidelining him to Dundalk, but that the union ‘had acted as if I had signed it’.
The day also featured a heated argument about whether Graham will be subpoena’d to testify in the case, with Ogle’s lawyers insisting that she must be legally required to attend if Unite’s legal team does not call her as a witness. Harty insisted furiously and bizarrely that she is not relevant to the case and may not be ‘amenable’ to subpoena, as if such a legal summons is a matter of whether one feels like being summoned.
Sharon Graham has been heavily criticised among union members and activists in the union – and by more than one Irish politician – for Unite’s treatment of Ogle, one of and perhaps the highest-profile and effective union figures in Ireland. The situation caused such outrage that union members picketed Graham’s long-delayed visit to Dublin, Unite’s Community section condemned it as ‘disgusting’ and a whole sector branch threatened to disaffiliate.
Ogle’s testimony and cross-examination continue tomorrow.
Skwawkbox is in Dublin to cover Ogle vs Unite. If you would like to help cover the costs of the coverage, see options below.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
McCluskey: looking after Ogle after cancer was ‘Unite culture when I was general sec’
Former Unite head says he felt uncomfortable testifying against his old union and didn’t want to be critical of successor Sharon Graham – but testimony to employment tribunal in discrimination case was still explosive
Len McCluskey did not want to be photographed as he left the WRC in Dublin
Long-time former Unite general secretary Len McCluskey testified to the Irish Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) in Dublin today in union legend Brendan Ogle’s discrimination case against the union now run by Sharon Graham. Despite McCluskey’s obvious discomfort having to testify against his old union and his expressed determination not to speak critically of his successor, his testimony was infused with explosive criticism nonetheless. McCluskey was not thrown off course by hostile questioning from the union’s expensive legal team from Dentons, the world’s largest law firm, which has been engaged by Graham and Unite for both the tribunal and Ogle’s separate defamation claim. The adjudicator in the case is former war-crimes prosecutor Elizabeth Spelman.
Unite’s lawyers tried to portray McCluskey’s insistence – that Unite was always going to keep Ogle on full pay if he was able to return to work from treatment for life-threatening cancer, regardless of the duties he was able to carry out – as somehow outlandish. In a bristly cross-examination, McCluskey told the tribunal he was astonished that anyone would contend that it was bizarre not to want someone to be penalised for being ill and that such a matter of basic decency was part of the ‘union’s culture when I was general secretary’.
Sharon Graham has been heavily criticised among union members and activists in the union – and by more than one Irish politician – for Unite’s treatment of Brendan Ogle, one of and perhaps the highest-profile and effective union figures in Ireland. Ogle, who backed Howard Beckett rather than Graham during the last Unite general secretary election, returned from successful cancer treatment expecting to take up his old duties, but was ‘sidelined’ to a lesser position in Dundalk, over fifty miles from his Dublin base. The situation caused such outrage that union members picketed Graham’s long-delayed visit to Dublin, Unite’s Community section condemned it as ‘disgusting’ and a whole sector branch threatened to disaffiliate.
Unite’s lawyers claimed the union’s policy was to ‘red-ring’ the salaries of ill employees for two years only, but McCluskey said that this had not been Unite’s practice when he was in charge. The union’s legal team also tried to claim that Ogle’s position had been created specifically for him, presumably implying that this was some kind of ‘grace and favour’ position, but McCluskey angrily rejected this, pointing to the union’s changes in Ireland during its disaffiliation from the Irish Labour party over the party’s support for austerity, the organisational changes this necessitated, and the extensive approval of Unite’s executive for the need for such a position and for Ogle’s appointment as the most suitable candidate by a distance.
McCluskey told Skwawkbox that he felt very uneasy testifying against the union he and his team had built, but had been forced to do so because Unite had included claims about him in its submissions to the tribunal in the case.
Ogle’s testimony began this afternoon but is expected to continue into tomorrow.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.