Campus Anti-Israel Protests Declined From Last Spring to This Fall
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Campus Anti-Israel Protests Declined From Last Spring to This Fall

Campus Anti-Israel Protests Declined From Last Spring to This Fall

“The decline can certainly be attributed in part to a natural loss of momentum following the fever pitch the movement reached in the spring.”

It looks like the only people still doing this are the radical true believers. Others have moved on to different things.

Inside Higher Ed reports:

Massive Decline in Protests From Spring to Fall 2024

After an unprecedented spring of pro-Palestinian protests on campuses across the United States, the fall semester has been comparatively quiet. The total number of protest actions declined by more than 64 percent, from 3,220 to 1,151, according to data from the Crowd Counting Consortium, a project by Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and the University of Connecticut that collects data on protests.

The number of students arrested for protesting dropped even more precipitously. Last spring, 3,572 students were arrested in connection with their involvement in protests as pro-Palestinian encampments proliferated on campus quads, starting with the one launched at Columbia University on April 17. But in the fall, only 88 student protesters were arrested. (For the purposes of this article, numbers for the spring were calculated using data from Jan. 1 to July 1 and from July 1 to Dec. 17 for the fall.)

The decline can certainly be attributed in part to a natural loss of momentum following the fever pitch the movement reached in the spring. But some free speech advocates believe that the restrictive expressive-activity policies some institutions introduced over the summer and early fall may have discouraged students from protesting.

The policies ranged from banning the erection of tents on campus grounds to limiting the times and places where students are allowed to hold demonstrations.

While free speech experts agree that some time, place and manner restrictions are acceptable, they have branded some policy changes unconstitutional. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression singled out New York University’s highly controversial new conduct code, which states that attacks against “Zionists” can be considered discrimination or harassment, as the term can be construed as an attack on individuals for their Jewish or Israeli identity.

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Comments

Unhumans don’t slow ‘naturally’. They don’t burn out, they don’t quit, and they don’t become productive members of a society they seemingly live to burn to the ground. Force applied, and a consistent and unwavering threat thereof (aka “backbone”), are the only antidotes.

But some free speech advocates believe that the restrictive expressive-activity policies some institutions introduced over the summer and early fall may have discouraged students from protesting.

Let us hope so.

I wonder if some of the decline in protests can be attributed to Hamas/Hezbollah/Iran no longer being perceived as the strong horse. Israel’s killing of the heads of Hezbollah and Hamas, along with many subordinates, doesn’t send the message that Hezbollah and Hamas are the wave of the future.