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College Insurrection Tag

While it is not new, there is an intensifying push in progressive circles, particularly among leftist Jews, to blame everything wrong in the Israeli-Arab conflict on the "occupation" of Judea and Samaria (aka the West Bank) by Israel. If only Israel would withdraw, then all would be good, it is claimed. Never mind that there is no evidence the result would be anything other than another launching pad to attack as happened when Israel left Gaza in 2005; or that Muslims will accept any Jewish national entity, regardless of shape, to occupy any portion of what now is Israel. Such facts don't get in the way of the narrative, which assesses terrorism as a result of the "occupation" and plays fast and loose with concepts of international law. (See, The Legal Case for Israel  and The Legal Case for Israel’s ‘Settlements’, as to why the "occupation" is not illegal, nor are the settlements.) This inverted assessment of terrorism is on full display in an Op-Ed in The Providence Journal by Nina Tannenwald, Director of the International Relations Program, and Senior Lecturer in Political Science, at The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University .

A war has been declared on Israel on campus by faculty and students supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. The rallying cry is to blacklist those acting on behalf of Israeli academic institutions or participating in "normalization" events, such as musical and cultural events. On the faculty academic front, we have seen groups such as the American Studies Association and some smaller groups blacklist Israeli academics representing their institutions, as part of a formal academic boycott. That boycott has been declared by the American Association of University Professors to be a violation of academic freedom. There also are many reports from Israeli academics of a silent boycott, in which individual U.S. professors refuse to interact with individual Israeli scholars and students, resulting in denied access to journals for publication and peer reviews. The claim by many pro-BDS faculty members that BDS does not target individuals is an outright lie.

Over the last year, colleges across the country have bent over backwards to accommodate student protests but they're now finding out there are consequences for that. Many alumni donors are making their disapproval known by withholding donations and that should be setting off alarm bells in the office of every college administrator. The New York Times reports:
College Students Protest, Alumni’s Fondness Fades and Checks Shrink Scott MacConnell cherishes the memory of his years at Amherst College, where he discovered his future métier as a theatrical designer. But protests on campus over cultural and racial sensitivities last year soured his feelings.

For years we have been documenting the efforts by anti-Israel activists to stoke racial hatred of Israel through the concept of "intersectionality" - the notion that all revolutionary struggles, particularly against racism, are connected. The almost exclusive focus, however, is Israel.  Hence, Israel is falsely blamed for local police shootings of blacks in the U.S. based upon false and misleading claims I debunked in my post, Exposed: Years-long effort to blame Israel for U.S. police shootings of blacks. The movement to connect Ferguson-to-Palestine launched after the Michael Brown shooting, and has been a singular focus of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activists ever since. Ferguson Palestine contingent

Prager University has published a new video which is an instant classic. Haverford College student Olivia Legaspi compares her experiences as a college student to her job at McDonald's which gave her the opportunity to attend college and explains why her job was more educational. Legaspi suggests that when she was working at McDonald's, there were no trigger warnings before irate customers complained to her and no safe spaces to which she could retreat.

As of today, Texas' Campus Carry law is effective. Texas' law is not a blanket invite for any and all gun owners to bring firearms on college campuses. Only Concealed Carry permit-holders are allowed to pack heat on campus (minimum age to do obtain a CHL in 21), and even then, certain buildings are off limits. Open carry is not permitted. Private universities were allowed to opt-out of the law, and most did, including Baylor, Texas Christian University, Rice University and Southern Methodist University.

A new documentary first crossed our radar yesterday at College Insurrection. It's a short film about the state of free speech on college campuses which focuses on Brown University, where the filmmaker went to school. Despite the focus on Brown, the issues examined in the film are universal because this is a phenomenon happening all over the country. The social justice warrior left has figured out that they can advance their agenda much easier if they can get everyone else to shut up, so that's just what they're doing.

Due to a tremendous need for security at the Republican convention this week, policemen from all over the country came to Cleveland to work the event. An arrangement was made to house many of these police at Case Western University, but students complained that they wouldn't feel safe with all those cops on campus. So the school cancelled all activity for the week. Campus Reform reported last week:
Cleveland students protest 'mere presence' of cops on campus for RNC Students at a Cleveland, Ohio college are petitioning to halt the billeting of riot police officers on campus during the Republican National Convention (RNC) next week.

A cafeteria worker at Yale's Calhoun College named Corey Menafee "resigned" from his job last month after using a broom handle to smash a window. The stained glass image in the window depicted slaves working in a cotton field. Menafee, who is black said the image angered him and that "we shouldn't have to see that." The New Haven Independent reported:
An African-American dishwasher lost his job after losing his cool and breaking a stained-glass panel in Yale’s Calhoun residential college dining hall that depicted slaves carrying bales of cotton. The dishwasher, Corey Menafee, said he used a broomstick to knock the panel to the floor. He said he was tired of looking at the “racist, very degrading” image. Yale University Police arrested Menafee, who now faces a felony charge. The university, meanwhile, has cut ties with him....