Hundreds of helmeted police swarmed the site of a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of California at Los Angeles early on Thursday, firing flash bangs, arresting defiant demonstrators and dismantling their encampment.
The pre-dawn police crackdown at UCLA marked the latest flashpoint in mounting tensions on U.S. college campuses, where protests over Israel’s war in Gaza have led to student clashes with each other and with law enforcement.
“I’m a student here. I’m an English major,” one student said to television cameras, as police dragged him away. “Please don’t fail us. Don’t fail us.”
Live TV footage showed officers taking down tents, tearing apart barricades and removing the encampment, while arrested protesters sat with their hands restrained behind their backs with zip-ties.
UCLA is a public university. They have a right to protest there!
Not against the militaries interests they don’t, welcome to America
There are still time, place and manner restrictions on protests at a public university.
I didn’t realize there was a time, place and manner for us to freely express ourselves in protest. I thought it was an American thing to protest. Not anymore I guess.
Even first amendment rights are not unlimited. Regardless of how you feel, it’s just a simple constitutional matter. This is like middle school civics stuff.
Public universities are public property and publicly funded. There is a right to protest there.
With reasonable restrictions on time, place and matter decided by the university.
If they are paying to go to the university and I’m paying taxes for them to go to the university, why does the university get to decide that they aren’t allowed to exercise their first amendment rights?
They are allowed to express their first amendment rights, but first amendment rights are not unlimited. See Ward v Rock Against Racism (1989) where the Supreme Court developed a test for time-place-manner restrictions.
You can disagree with the law and very well established Supreme Court precedent, but you can’t generally argue that the universities are violating the law by creating time, place and manner restrictions for free speech (unless they are failing the time-place-manner test).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_v._Rock_Against_Racism
What on earth does that have to do with protesting on college campuses?
They don’t. All UC Campuses are private property of the UC Regents. Just because something is owned by the state, that doesn’t mean there are no rules. A courtroom is a good example. These students have no legal right to camp there without permission.
A better question is, does this eviction diffuse the issue? I would say “no”. The campers will be back anyway. But I also think the camping is distracting from the actual point of the protest. Why don’t these students just sleep in their beds and show up everyday to protest? Why do they need to be there at night when nobody sees them?
Their strategy is very clearly making the university uncomfortable and getting the entire nation discussing it, so I’d say it’s working pretty well so far.
Their strategy is being performative, whiny shits for tiktok videos. They have no clue what they’re talking about, or the context for the current situation. Just more terminally online lefties that would rather camp out than go to class.
The nation was already discussing Israel-Palestine, these people are just being self-indulgent and making it about themselves. They don’t give a shit about Palestinians unless it’s trending.
ok boomer
curious as to what your strategy was in relation to having made this dumb comment
That doesn’t sound right. The University of California system is public, the regents are appointed by the governor. UC property is owned by the state of California.
I’m not sure what to tell you other than you’re straight up wrong, mate. I agree that they should be public property 100% but that’s not what the law says, unjust or otherwise.
UC property is owned by a public trust, which is a private entity, therefore the land is private property.
Again I’m not saying I like it but unless the law changes, the state may enforce it with their monopoly on violence.
The question is, what can oppressed people do against a tyrannical government when peaceful protest is met with violence?
The answer is not allowed.
A public trust is not a private entity, that’s why it’s called a public trust. What you’re claiming about the UC system doesn’t make sense. The power the regents wield flows from the governor and that’s it, the UC system is not privately owned.
By that logic the public owns all the police cars too, but you’re going to have a bad day if you decide to take one.
Yes. The police have not been privatized yet, all the police cars are in fact owned by the public.
You missed my main point, where even though the public could be considered the owner of police cars, you can’t just take one and do whatever you want with it.
There’s a giant difference between a court room and a glorified park. There is not a security concern at the university’s green space.