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Baby Boomer Professors Join Student Protests, Risking Arrest and Violence. Faculty take to the front lines at universities, often in support of students’ right to protest
Wall Street Journal ^ | May 4, 2024 | Douglas Belkin and Melissa Korn

Posted on 05/05/2024 6:01:03 AM PDT by karpov

More university professors are joining the demonstrations roiling college campuses, both to voice support for Gazans and to defend their students’ right to protest.

Faculty, many of whom are in their 60s and 70s and came of age during the era of Vietnam War protests, are pushing back against university presidents, accusing the leaders of heavy-handed and inconsistent crackdowns on free speech, and warning against a wave of authoritarianism some say has been creeping onto campuses for years. Professors in leadership positions are guiding calls for votes of no-confidence, spearheading classroom walkouts and visiting encampments alongside students. Many are facing punishment from police and their employers.

In recent days, police have arrested professors during demonstrations at schools including Washington University in St. Louis, Emory University and the University of California, Los Angeles.

At Indiana University, more than 3,000 faculty, graduate workers, students, staff and alumni have called for the resignation of President Pamela Whitten, saying she escalated confrontations between demonstrators and police last week by changing the rules of engagement for protesters at an encampment without adequately informing the campus.

In a statement, Whitten emphasized the school’s commitment to free speech and defended her actions, saying, “Antisemitic episodes have been linked to this national encampment campaign” and have “become magnets for those making threats of violence.”

At the University of Texas at Austin, more than 700 faculty signed a letter pushing for the school’s president, Jay Hartzell, to resign. The letter says he needlessly put students, staff and faculty in danger by calling in law enforcement to campus.

Pauline Turner Strong, a professor of anthropology and women’s and gender studies at UT Austin, said the show of force by police at a recent demonstration she attended was greater than other times since she started teaching there in 1993

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: academia; antisemitism; college; domesticenemies; education
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To: ComputerGuy

Sorry, in my post #14, it’s BLM, not BML.

(As usual, I blame the typo on Chinese hackers.)


21 posted on 05/05/2024 6:25:37 AM PDT by Leaning Right (The steal is real.)
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To: Leaning Right

I figured that’s what you meant :)


22 posted on 05/05/2024 6:30:31 AM PDT by ComputerGuy (Heavily-medicated for your protection)
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To: ComputerGuy

👍👍👍👍👍👍👍😡


23 posted on 05/05/2024 6:33:49 AM PDT by easternsky
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To: karpov
Faculty, many of whom are in their 60s and 70s..

..in a lame attempt to recapture their youth.

24 posted on 05/05/2024 6:46:14 AM PDT by chief lee runamok ( Le Flâneur @Large)
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To: karpov

These boomers are the dirty hippie trash RReagan talked about. No difference between them and the commie trash who support the rapists in the ranks of Hamas.


25 posted on 05/05/2024 7:08:19 AM PDT by bobbo666 (Baizuo, )
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To: karpov

Lock them up too.


26 posted on 05/05/2024 7:27:11 AM PDT by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.)
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To: karpov
Pauline Turner Strong, a professor of anthropology and women’s and gender studies at UT Austin….

It makes no difference to me how a person makes a living (from Vito Corleone), but that is one bogus sham academic and indicative of all that’s wrong with higher education.

27 posted on 05/05/2024 7:30:14 AM PDT by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.)
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To: karpov
More university professors are joining the demonstrations roiling college campuses, both to voice support for Gazans and to defend their students’ right to protest.

Unless you’re protesting against leftism/communism. Then they work overtime to get you silenced, expelled, or physically intimidated/assaulted.

28 posted on 05/05/2024 7:34:56 AM PDT by Sicon ("All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - G. Orwell>)
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To: karpov

These “professors” need several walnut shampoos...and to be fired.


29 posted on 05/05/2024 7:35:09 AM PDT by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp??)
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To: karpov

Whatever worthwhile can happen at a university is cancelled by administrators allowing this lawlessness and anarchy.

Universities in America have become an imminent threat to the national security of the USA.

Shut them down if they embrace and condone terrorism.


30 posted on 05/05/2024 7:38:04 AM PDT by Gnome1949
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To: karpov

these pathetic fools are trying to relive their glory days of 1970’s protests because they haven’t done anything worth mentioning since then with their hollow, useless lives ...


31 posted on 05/05/2024 7:54:40 AM PDT by catnipman (A Vote For The Lesser Of Two Evils Still Counts As A Vote For Evil)
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To: karpov

Which of these universities have prevented Conservative speakers in the past? Free speech my arse.


32 posted on 05/05/2024 7:57:24 AM PDT by goodnesswins (The Tree of Liberty is getting thirsty...)
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To: karpov

Did the WSJ give the number of boomer professors joining the riots? Of course not. I’d bet they can be counted on one hand.

This story is another example of communist morons in the media pretending their latest idiotic movement has more support than it does in fact. It follows Alinsky Rule No. 1:

“Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.”

Professors are not going to threaten their plush six-figure retirement checks by goosestepping around the campus with 50 IQ children.


33 posted on 05/05/2024 8:14:55 AM PDT by sergeantdave (AI training involves stealing content from creators and not paying them a penny)
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To: karpov

It’s amusing and sad that these people equate these protests to the anti war protests of the late sixties.

I am not old, but I recall my older sister participating in those protests throughout her high school and college days. Even in our small western MA colleges, those protests shut down schools. When they marched in the downtown of the city, they shut it down.

I remember watching the DC “moratorium” protests in 1969. It filled the Mall.

The protests today involved a couple hundred people at these locations. And a very small proportion of overall students. If they marched on DC, there might be several thousand. But nothing like the Viet Nam protests.

And…when the anarchists in the Viet Nam days took a stand, they burned stuff down. I am not suggesting anyone should be burning buildings and planting bombs. I am merely saying the protestors today seem to be out at a picnic; there doesn’t seem to be “the commitment to the cause.” These are tick toc protests.

And…the media is playing them up like they are disrupting the world. But if you get a block away from them, the birds are chirping and live is being lived.

We need to be careful about giving these fools too much “oxygen.”


34 posted on 05/05/2024 8:25:40 AM PDT by Vermont Lt (Don’t vote for anyone over 70 years old. Get rid of the geriatric politicians.)
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To: karpov
Pauline Turner Strong, a professor of anthropology and women’s and gender studies

Why not? They CERTAINLY don't have anything worthwhile to teach. And since they're not spring chickens there's a high probability they're tenured and reliving their youths without repercussions.

35 posted on 05/05/2024 8:28:52 AM PDT by Gaffer
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To: piytar
Sometimes they actually make decent points.

Watch it, you are not allowed to praise our political adversaries here or you will be called a troll or a leftist.

36 posted on 05/05/2024 8:28:54 AM PDT by nwrep
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To: karpov

Boomers have raised crappy kids and indoctrinated too many youth. Some Gen X were involved too. If you didn’t, good on you. But you’re in the minority.


37 posted on 05/05/2024 10:19:01 AM PDT by vpintheak (Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug. )
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To: nwrep
Watch it, you are not allowed to praise our political adversaries here or you will be called a troll or a leftist.

Nah. Respectful points with varying opinions are tolerated here. Only true trolls spewing disinformation and other garbage get ZOTTED here.

38 posted on 05/05/2024 10:41:37 AM PDT by piytar
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To: nwrep

For example, I think some of RFK Jr.’s opinions make sense. Not all but some.

And I won’t get ZOTTED for saying that.

PS I am a TRUMPER. Proud of it.


39 posted on 05/05/2024 10:43:54 AM PDT by piytar
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