Colleges have seen a marked decrease in protests, including pro-Palestinian protests, this semester after a wave of demonstrations occurred in the spring of 2024.
Educational institutions have tightened rules surrounding protests and offered stricter discipline for protesters.
Universities have seen fewer than 950 protest events this semester so far, compared to 3,000 last semester, according to the Nonviolent Action Lab at Harvard University’s Ash Center. The number of arrests has vastly decreased as well, with about 50 compared to over 3,000 last semester.
The new enforcement tactics come via a variety of methods: higher police and security turnout at protests, bans for students who protest in prohibited spaces, or using police to move protesters who haven’t reserved specific spaces.
Some students haven’t liked the new tactics, many of which were implemented before the school year began.
“They say it’s to keep us safe, but I think it’s more to keep us under control,” Tasneem Abdulazeez, a student at Montclair State University, told the New York Times.
Other people have praised the response and say they hope universities can maintain less antisemitism on college campuses.
“I appreciate the response of administrators to ensure that there is as little antisemitic action and rhetoric as possible,” Naomi Lamb, the director of Hillel at the Ohio State University, told the outlet.
At schools such as Columbia University earlier this year, protests persisted for weeks as the school’s administration was criticized for a slow and lackluster response.
Harsher rules at Columbia quieted the protests, though so did harsher rhetoric from groups such as Columbia University Apartheid Divest. The group withdrew an apology after one of its members said the school was “lucky he wasn’t out killing Zionists.”
The group has also supported armed resistance.
“The Palestinian resistance is moving their struggle to a new phase of escalation and it is our duty to meet them there,” the group wrote on Oct. 7 on Telegram. “It is our duty to fight for our freedom!”
With groups inching closer to extremism, students have criticized them for a lack of nuance. “I think this whole situation and the way that it’s been handled on my campus has absolutely no eye for nuance,” Bellajeet Sahota, a senior at Barnard College, told the outlet in October.
“I also think my fellow students, as much as I love them, also have no eye for nuance,” she said.
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Some have speculated that President-elect Donald Trump’s victory will encourage colleges to further crack down on anti-Israel speech and actions, while others believe it’s already a directive set in motion.
“Are they going to continue with their crackdown on anti-Israel speech? I think they will,” Abed A. Ayoub, the executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said. “That’s not because Trump is in office. They started this. It’s been happening.”
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
