In 1957, in response to Brown v. Board of Education, Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas attempted desegregation. Nine Black students, chosen for their academic excellence, were chosen to be the first Black students to attend the previously segregated school. Riots ensued. The first day the students attempted to enter the school, one student, Elizabeth Eckford, got separated from the other eight. Only the intervention of an elderly white woman, who escorted Eckford to a city bus, saved Eckford from the mob that had surrounded her.
Inside the school, law enforcement fretted over what they were going to do about the angry protesters outside. According to one of the eight students who made it inside, Melba Patillo, one officer said, “If we just give them one, we can probably get the other seven out.” By “give them one” the officer meant let the mob lynch one student. Luckily another officer came up with a better plan and all eight students escaped.
In the end, when resistance to desegregation became thoroughly intransigent and the Arkansas officials, led by Governor Orval Faubus, provided no safety for the Black students, President Dwight Eisenhower called in the 101st Airborne to enforce federal law, allowing students to exercise their civil right to an education.
Much the same was replayed in 1962 when James Merideth attempted to desegregate the University of Mississippi, aka, Ole Miss. Merideth was opposed by Governor Ross Barnett, who whipped up a mob at an Ole Miss football game, encouraging them to fight for “our heritage.” The Kennedy administration sent in federal marshals and organized the Mississippi National Guard to force the university to admit Merideth in accordance with several federal rulings in Merideth’s favor. Riots ensued with two people shot dead. The university capitulated and Merideth entered Ole Miss. His civil right to an education was vindicated by federal power.
Much the same is now happening on various American college campuses, most notably Columbia in New York. Anti-Israel/Pro-Hamas protesters are staging raucous demonstrations. They shout vile epithets. There is the now familiar eliminationist rhetoric of “From the river to the sea.” The vile Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, is celebrated as a great achievement. Protesters promise more October 7ths to come. Jewish students are told to “go back to Poland.” “We are Hamas” and “We don’t want no Zionists here” are the rallying cry of the mob. One young Jewish New York girl (not a Columbia student) went to the demonstration to try to reason with activists. She was ridiculed as a “worm” by protesters and driven away with threats against her safety. The agitators regularly wave Hamas flags and dress in Hamas garb, including covering their faces so as to hide their identity.
This is just a small sample of the vile events taking place at American campuses as threats against Jewish students and faculty accelerate. The Biden White House has done little. It released a statement denouncing antisemitism but President Biden himself has made no formal statement. When prodded by a reporter, the best he could muster up was “I have set up programs about [antisemitism]” but continued in his next breath to say, “I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians and how they’re being…” At this point he trailed off into a mumble, saved by the reporter asking him if the Columbia president should resign.
Biden’s reaction sounds eerily like the “there were fine people on both sides” statement by Donald Trump in response to White supremacists marching in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. In fact, it is worse. When you read Trump’s entire statement, he said some people with a more legitimate claim, they didn’t want a statue of Robert E. Lee taken down, got mixed up with Neo-Nazis, not knowing that is who was sponsoring the protest. Thus “very fine people” got mixed up with awful people. For now, I am not interested in the accuracy or validity of that account. But at least Trump did not suggest the worst elements, the not-so-fine people, has a just cause nor did he excuse their racist chants, coincidently aimed in part at Jews (“you will not replace us”). Biden, by contrast, hasn’t even really condemned the antisemitic protesters at Columbia and elsewhere. He merely stated he has “programs” to fight anti-Jewish hatred with no specific denunciation. He then seems to make a justification for the racist protesters, suggesting that not understanding “what’s going on with the Palestinians” is worthy of as much condemnation as threatening Jewish students with violence and chanting eliminationist slogans.
Things are so awful at Columbia that the university is going to online classes because safety of students cannot be guaranteed. One rabbi affiliated with Columbia has told Jewish students to go home as it has become apparent, in his view, that Columbia will not protect Jewish students from harassment and violence.
In the 1950s and 1960s, when the civil right to education was opposed by racist mobs, the federal government stepped in, using the resources at its disposal to guarantee the safety and education of minorities under attack. Today, the federal government stands impotent, indeed playing footsie with the agitators who are vilifying and threatening students and faculty based on their race, religion, and national origin, all protected categories in federal law. Twitter/X’s David Burge (X handle @Iowahawkblog), known for his wry wit, put it this way, “Honestly this whole thing is a redux of the University of Mississippi in 1962, and these screamy shitheads are the rednecks in pickup trucks with baseball bats trying to keep James Meredith off campus.” Perhaps a bit vulgar, but basically accurate.
These events are discouraging. After years of hearing people scream about Nazis and Fascists taking over America, here are people shouting antisemitic slogans, promoting terrorist groups dedicated to annihilation of Jews and the Jewish state, and intimidating Jewish students and faculty in violation of their civil rights. And it is these proto-Nazis who get support from much of the American elite such as Ivy League professors and journalists. The American president asks us to “understand” their point of view.
I don’t know if calling in federal troops is the right move. It may just give protesters what they want: an escalation and a reason to claim oppression. Still, there is precedent that when American citizens are denied their right to an education through violence and intimidation and local authorities seem unwilling or unable to enforce this right, the federal government has the authority to enforce federal civil rights law. One thing is certain, if we do not get leadership from our highest officials, we are likely to see more threats and violence in the future. Now is the time for statesmanship. I am sorry to say there is little in the offing.
Writing just days after the 10/7 attack, the Israeli activist Sahar Vardi spoke about “that moment when you talk to a friend who doesn’t know whether their relatives are dead or kidnapped and what they should even hope for, and to see the helplessness, the fear, the deep pain. And a moment later, it’s talking to a friend from Gaza who can only say that every night is now the scariest night of his life; that he calculates his chances, and those of his daughters, of waking up alive the next morning.” About the requirement that we “hold this moment between the heartbreak and pain and shock over the total destruction of Nir Oz and to think about all the people there, and at the same time, to feel the horror over the impending total destruction of Shuja’iyya and to think about all the people there … it’s hard. It’s so hard to have humanity here. It’s exhausting, and it feels like time after time the world is just asking you to let go. It’s so much easier to ‘choose a side’ ….”
The loudest, most obnoxious, most morally blinkered of the protesting students have chosen their side. In the US, it’s been the rule until very recently that mainstream politicians and their followers have thought only about the rights and vulnerabilities of the other side.
I’ve been heartened to see President Biden–however lacking in eloquence his expressions may be–acknowledging the pain, vulnerability, and therefore claim on our sensibilities and concern due to both sides in this conflict. It’s the moral thing to do, the practical and wise thing to do in the long run, and the Christian thing to do.
The student protesters at Columbia (if there are any) don’t seem to be interested in their education. If the protesters are outsiders, then it is probably necessary to have the NYPD throw them off campus. Perhaps the governor of New York should activate the National Guard and clear the campus. Somewhere in there is the right to assembly, protest and speech.