President Trump said that pro-Palestine protestors were given a free run in the country, while protests by patriots are ‘systematically shut down.’
Senators Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) asked President Joe Biden to deploy the National Guard to Columbia University in New York City to protect Jewish students amid vehement pro-Palestine and anti-Israel demonstrations on campus.
Protests at Columbia
began on April 17, with leftist student groups opposing Israel’s actions in Gaza, retaliation for Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack that killed thousands. On April 18, over 100 people from the campus were arrested. Some protestors resumed demonstrations the next day. The incident triggered concerns about growing anti-Semitism on campus. In social media posts on Monday, the start of the Jewish holiday of Passover, Sens. Cotton and Hawley called for the National Guard to be deployed to bring the situation under control.
“The nascent pogroms at Columbia have to stop TODAY, before our Jewish brethren sit for Passover Seder tonight. If Eric Adams won’t send the NYPD and Kathy Hochul won’t send the National Guard, Joe Biden has a duty to take charge and break up these mobs,” Sen. Cotton wrote in an April 22
post on social media platform X.
An American president can use the Insurrection
Act to deploy military forces, including the National Guard, inside the United States in order to
protect civil rights or federal law.
“For nine years, many liberals have fantasized that Trump is Hitler and their brave ‘Resistance’ proves how they would’ve acted in Germany in the 1930s. In reality, nascent pogroms have broken out across America’s campuses and these very same liberals sit silently or even defend the mobs. Which actually tells you how they would’ve acted in Germany in the 1930s,” Sen. Cotton wrote.
Sen. Hawley
pointed out that “Eisenhower sent the 101st to Little Rock. It’s time for Biden to call out the National Guard at our universities to protect Jewish Americans.”
Former President Donald Trump also weighed in on pro-Palestine demonstrations in an April 22 Truth Social
post, saying that while such protestors were given a free run in the country, peaceful protests by others were “systematically shut down.”
“Why are Palestinian protesters, and even rioters, allowed to roam the Cities, scream, shout, sit, block traffic, enter buildings, not get permits, and basically do whatever they want including threatening Supreme Court Justices right in front of their homes, and yet people who truly LOVE our Country, and want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, are not allowed to ‘Peacefully Protest,’ and are rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights,” he wrote.
“America-Loving Protesters should be allowed to protest at the front steps of Courthouses, all over the Country, just like it is allowed for those who are destroying our Country on the Radical Left, a two-tiered system of justice. Free Speech and Assembly has been ‘CHILLED’ for USA SUPPORTERS.”
Canceling Classes
Beginning Monday, Columbia University canceled in-person classes for the remaining spring semester, according to multiple reports.In an April 22
statement, university president Minouche Shafik said that “all classes will be held virtually on Monday,” asking faculty and staff members to work remotely. “Our preference is that students who do not live on campus will not come to campus,” she said.
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.)
slammed Ms. Shafik’s comments, noting that Columbia University’s shift to virtual learning out of safety concerns for students and faculty members “only further proves that President Shafik is unable to stop the antisemitic activity on her campus and keep her students safe.”
“The gross antisemitism being displayed against Jewish students at Columbia University is horrific, unacceptable, and the reason I introduced legislation to strip federal funding from colleges that blatantly allow antisemitism and fail to hold those responsible accountable,” she said.
“Universities have a responsibility to protect their students from discrimination, harassment, and violence. President Shafik has failed to do this and should immediately resign.”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis
criticized the Biden administration’s justice and education departments for being “asleep at the wheel regarding antisemitism on college campuses.”
He asked the agencies to hold such institutions accountable and demanded canceling “the visa of any foreign student who is championing Hamas.”
On April 11, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which
aims to “stop the defamation of the Jewish people,” issued its first Campus Antisemitism
Report Card, ranking universities from grades A through F based on how effectively these institutions combat anti-Semitism and protect Jewish students.
Columbia University
received a D grade, signifying a “Deficient Approach.” Jewish students
make up 23 percent of the university’s undergraduate population and 16 percent of the graduate student body.
Following the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre of Israelis, more than 100 faculty members signed a letter defending the attack as “just one salvo in an ongoing war between an occupying state and the people it occupies, or as an occupied people exercising a right to resist,” ADL noted.
“Every campus should get an A—that’s not grade inflation, that’s the minimum that every group on every campus expects. Like all students, Jewish students deserve to feel safe and supported on campus. They deserve a learning environment free from antisemitism and hate,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said.
“But that hasn’t been the experience with antisemitism running rampant on campus since even before October 7. At a time when antisemitic incidents on campus are at historic levels, administrators need to adopt new policies to address this scourge and have the willingness to enforce existing codes of conduct to ensure all students are safe.”
