481
submitted 2 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

Maryam Alwan figured the worst was over after New York City police in riot gear arrested her and other protesters on the Columbia University campus, loaded them onto buses and held them in custody for hours.

But the next evening, the college junior received an email from the university. Alwan and other students were being suspended after their arrests at the “ Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” a tactic colleges across the country have deployed to calm growing campus protests against the Israel-Hamas war.

The students’ plight has become a central part of protests, with students and a growing number of faculty demanding their amnesty. At issue is whether universities and law enforcement will clear the charges and withhold other consequences, or whether the suspensions and legal records will follow students into their adult lives.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 143 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

If they’re unable to get a sealed record at trial, they will be required to disclose all charges leading to conviction on any employment or housing application they complete. It’s horribly prejudicial of our system to allow the assumption that those with convictions are unworthy of employment or housing.

[-] Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world 101 points 2 months ago

System working as intended. All of this was intended to keep minorities (most black ppl) in a perpetual state of incarceration. Only now the groups deemed undesirable have expanded. We could've fixed it decades ago but the majority of this country (white ppl) were fine with it because it didn't affect them.

The epitome of its not my problem until it is

[-] jkrtn@lemmy.ml 18 points 2 months ago

Step 1: keep slavery as punishment for crime.

Step 2: criminalize everything, overpolice black people.

Land of the free.

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] iAmTheTot@kbin.social 31 points 2 months ago

Bernie Sanders was arrested at protests in his youth, iirc. If there is any glimmer of hope in this shit storm, maybe in forty years a few of these students will be leading s political movement together as senators and representatives.

[-] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 25 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

It’s restrictive to working in the private sector and renting an apartment. There is no disqualification for criminal background for a member of government. Trump can be elected if he’s convicted of any or all of the charges he’s facing. He’d just be barred from voting in the election.

load more comments (8 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[-] RenegadeTwister@lemmy.dbzer0.com 128 points 2 months ago

Do we not have the right to protest? I fail to understand on what grounds they're being arrested.

[-] TechNerdWizard42@lemmy.world 73 points 2 months ago

That's correct, you do not. Like ALL "rights" in the USA, there is another law waiting in the shadows that completely contradicts it or makes it so that it's not possible without it being illegal.

You can protest. But only with permits on public and private land, without trespassing, obeying all police orders even if those are themselves illegal, blah blah blah.

The sooner Americans realize all their freedoms do not exist in reality the sooner something can be done to fix it.

[-] archomrade@midwest.social 28 points 2 months ago

A protest with a permit is just a parade

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[-] Wrench@lemmy.world 36 points 2 months ago

Trespassing. You have the right to assembly, but that doesn't extend to anywhere, any time.

These protestors could protest on the sidewalk, or get a permit and do a planned protest in a public park, or even work with the city to close roads for a planned march. As long as they kept it peaceful, police would have very little justification to arrest anyone.

Instead, they are doing it on college campuses, or public roads without permission. And when they are told to leave, they refuse. At that point, you are trespassing, and the police are justified in arresting you.

Civil disobedience grabs far more attention than protesting legally. We're here talking about their cause because it made headlines due to civil disobedience. But activism has its costs.

[-] Cethin@lemmy.zip 32 points 2 months ago

Most of these protests are being done in zones designated by the university for protest. They are supposed to be allowed to protest there, as long as it doesn't disrupt people getting to class and such.

[-] RenegadeTwister@lemmy.dbzer0.com 27 points 2 months ago

Is it tresspassing, though? Not trying to argue with you, to be clear. They're students paying tuition and housing fees. I guess I could see that arguement if they weren't students. Though I agree, civil disobedience and disrupting the status quo is the only way to get people to take notice and do anything.

load more comments (9 replies)
[-] numanair@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 months ago

Justified is the wrong word.

[-] Wrench@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

No, it is not. It is the accurate term describing the legal justification that the police need to legally remove the protestors from the premises.

So many of the replies around this topic live in the clouds. There's a reason protestors are being forcibly removed. People should understand the nuances of free speech and freedom of assembly. Choosing to disobey is taking on risk to your well-being.

These are facts. This is not commentary on whether the protestors are "right" or "wrong". But we should all know the risks they are taking for doing so, and understand when the universities and police are actually overstepping their authority.

[-] Jtotheb@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

You’re replying to people who can’t believe the injustice of these laws by explaining that the laws are legal. No consensus will be reached; these are two completely different perspectives. Personally, I think laws, being a made up construct, should generally promote positive behavior like stopping genocide, so I easily side with the protesters and commenters here expressing indignation alongside them.

The legality argument also ignores the police tradition of breaking the law while shutting down protests just because they can get away with it.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (8 replies)
[-] jkrtn@lemmy.ml 28 points 2 months ago

There are so many felonies in this country you basically commit a few every day by accident.

[-] Quexotic@infosec.pub 8 points 2 months ago

Not for doubt, but because I can't think of any, can you give examples? Were you just hyperbolizing?

load more comments (4 replies)
[-] NickwithaC@lemmy.world 14 points 2 months ago
[-] goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 2 months ago

Pointing out that we're finding atrocities

load more comments (7 replies)
[-] jkrtn@lemmy.ml 87 points 2 months ago

Holy shit the faculty against this need to strike immediately in solidarity. What the fuck sort of dystopia are we in that students are arrested and suspended for protesting? For protesting genocide? What the actual fuck.

[-] tiefling@lemmy.blahaj.zone 49 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Google called the police on and fired anyone remotely involved with the quiet sit-in in protest of Project Nimbus. No investigation, no finesse, nothing. Just straight up intimidation.

[-] roguetrick@lemmy.world 43 points 2 months ago

So listen, I'm not pro Hamas. Killing non settlers at a music festival is just terroristic murder and even killing random settlers is both counterproductive and terroristic even though most of them are very bad people. That said, this framing is ridiculous:

Some demonstrations have included hate speech, antisemitic threats or support for Hamas, the group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, sparking a war in Gaza that has left more than 34,000 dead.

Blaming Hamas for Israel's slaughter is exactly the same as justifying Hamas's actions. That's very much a pro-genocide statement.

[-] klisklas@feddit.de 14 points 2 months ago

Spot on! Fuck Hamas and all the terroristic acts against Jews and innocent lives. But one should also be able to recognise the ongoing crimes and genocide of the right wing Israeli government. Do they really think this war will lead to the destruction of Hamas or antisemitism in the region? I bet we will se double the amount of antisemites/terrorists in the future and nothing will have changed. The west is losing its face and the region was never further away from peace. Hamas trapped the Israeli government into a war and the Israeli extremists were more than happy to use the opportunity for this genocide. Seems like nobody is honestly interested in peace and the victims will be the Palistinian people and some festival goers.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 42 points 2 months ago

So if the snipers don't kill them today, they won't be able to get a job in 20 years.

(I know exactly where that sniper at IU is standing and exactly where the protesters are and it is direct line-of-sight.)

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] damnthefilibuster@lemmy.world 42 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

a tactic colleges across the country have deployed to quash growing campus protests against the genocide in Gaza.

FTFY

[-] hitmyspot@aussie.zone 37 points 2 months ago

Wow, talk about trying to scare people into not protesting. However, it could have the opposite effect. Take away from the protestors and they have less to lose. They may start to shine a light on injustices at home, too.

[-] Madison420@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

I imagine they're going to get sued in civil for refund of tuition.

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] sudo42@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago

Based solely on the over-reactions of the authorities, I’m guessing these protests are threatening a lot of money.

[-] crystalmerchant@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago

Wow this is fuckkkkkked up

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago

Lmao they thought suspending students for exercising their first amendment rights was going to calm things down? We have truly forgotten how to deal with protests in this country without resorting to authoritarianism.

[-] xkforce@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

To forget something you have to have known in the first place. The US has a very very long history of trying to smash protests with the law. All the way back to the whiskey rebellion and before.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] M0oP0o@mander.xyz 11 points 2 months ago

The first amendment? Never heard of it.

Innocent until proven guilty? Pfffff, Arrest records are used to punish on the daily.

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2024
481 points (99.0% liked)

News

21721 readers
3235 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS