Campus Crackdowns Have Exposed Authoritarian Rot at the Heart of Universities
Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt and Asheesh Kapur Siddique | 30 May 2024 | Truthout
The May 20, 2024, cover of The New Yorker by cartoonist Barry Blitt depicts a zip-tied graduate receiving her diploma on stage while accompanied by police. The image reflects a truth that has been laid bare in recent weeks: University students who dare to disrupt the day-to-day operations of their universities to voice opposition to the U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza will be punished. In demanding that their universities divest from the Israeli occupation and U.S. weapons manufacturers, these brave students have been branded as collaborators with “terrorists,” and treated as enemies of the state.
The characterization of pro-Palestine student protesters as “antisemitic,” “self-hating Jews,” or worse as “terrorist sympathizers,” comes with a return of McCarthyism and the all too familiar post-9/11 surveillance landscape — in short, we are experiencing the triumph of the national security state. The criminalization of student protesters and police in riot gear violently arresting students and faculty is no longer a rare scene, but has become the new face of U.S. universities.