A good gag would be that you consistently think we're talking about Columbia to the country throughout this. Because that wouldn't even be funny the first time and it would get less funny as the episode goes on. What if the bit is that you're a very racist throughout this, but towards Columbians? I was trying to think of a pun with like Zionism. I can't wait to see how close to the anti-Semitic gray area you land with this one.
Wait, wait, I have one having to do do do do do do do. Michael? Peter? What do you know about the protests at Columbia University? All I know is that none of the chance and none of the signs at any of the protests have made me as uncomfortable as recommending a song by Mack Lamor. I guess we have to frame this a bit up top because as we are recording we're in the midst of a surge of student protests at universities across the country.
The protests are about the Israeli attacks on Gaza and more specifically they are a call on universities to divest from companies and organizations that profit from Israeli war crimes. It's largely been my opinion and experience that the media coverage of this has been awful. I trust you. And in recent days we've gotten a heavy dose of police propaganda with a bunch of cameos from my boy Eric Adams who I've decided will be a recurring character on our podcast.
Dude, this podcast is undefeated with like predicting moral panics in advance. Remember we did retail crime and then the actual retailers like retracted their number. Target actually sent me a gift card as an apology for that one. And then now it's like we're talking about all this like deranged propaganda and how these fucking police departments have like more PR people than entire newsrooms. And we get a huge wave of propaganda immediately after these crackdowns.
If Eric Adams gets arrested in the next couple of months, I do think that we did it. Even though we have never talked about his various actual crimes on this podcast. This podcast has goals. I wanted to limit this discussion to Columbia University for the most part because I think the fact that these protests have spread out across the country and have all sorts of sort of different valences and different areas. It's made the coverage more confusing and I want to sort of do a case study.
So to contextualize this student protests, obviously, have been ongoing since October 7th when Hamas first attacked and things recently escalated in April when the president of Columbia University, Manusha Fick appeared before the Republican controlled House Committee on education in the end of the workforce in hearing ostensibly about anti-Semitism on Columbia's campus.
This is the same committee that Harvard president Claudine Gay and Penn president Liz McGill appeared before last December where they were like peppered with bad faith questions and ultimately both of them had to resign. Why do people keep showing up in front of these like obviously bad faith committees? This is by far the most baffling thing to me. Yeah, it feels like for university presidents, this is some sort of mandatory psychosexual humiliation ritual.
It's like everyone who agrees to an interview with Isaac Chotner where they like look everybody else just got becloned, but it might work for us. So yeah, Shafik, I think she thought she was being crafty, right? She's like, I can learn from their mistakes and do the perfect testimony.
So she like gets up there and she's actually very conciliatory toward the committee members. She did her best to like align her positions with theirs. She points out how many students Columbia has suspended over the past several months. Hell yeah, she was asked about professors who expressed what the committee members felt was support for Hamas's attack. One of them she says, you know, he was fired and he will never teach at Columbia again.
Another who had tenure, she committed on the spot when asked by Elise Daphonic to stripping him of a chairmanship in like a faculty group. I thought you were going to say committed Sepakoo on the spot, which also which I think is what they wanted. I too am watching Shogun. Now I do want to send one quick clip just to give you a sense of how much clonery was going on at this hearing.
Are we watching it one X? Yes, we're watching it one like a fucking pilgrim. Okay, fine. You don't want to hear these people faster. Okay. Double check. Okay, kind of sound. Are you familiar with Genesis 12, 3? Oh no, probably not as well as you are a congressman. Well, it's pretty clear it was a covenant that God made with Abraham and that covenant was real clear. If you bless Israel, I will bless you. If you curse Israel, I will curse you.
And then in the New Testament, it was confirmed that all nations would be blessed through you. So you do not know about that. I have heard that now that you've explained it. When you've definitely heard of it, you consider that a serious issue. What? I mean, do you want Columbia University to be cursed by God? What? Of the Bible? Definitely not. Okay. Oh, it's so sad. She's like trying to be nice. But like this guy, this guy sounds like a psycho.
Now that you mentioned it, yeah, no, being cursed by God. Yeah, no, I've heard of that. No, I really, I prefer not. Yeah. Also, he's doing the voice that if your friend did it like while doing an impression of a Republican senator, you'd be like, hey, dial it back. That's really offensive. Like don't do the cartoon redneck voice. When you're pretending to be a Republican senator. That's why you can't, that's why you can't speed that up to 1.5 or something because you really lose the effect.
The thing is I was just about to do it, but I was like, no, I people will yell at me if I do it right now. It's like it's too offensive to do the voice. I want to hear it, Mike. Look, you can't be racist against like Southern senators or whatever. It's not a thing. God, her like, her like sad smile. I'm not as familiar with that. I don't want the campus to be cursed. We live in hell, Peter.
So when this hearing wraps up at first, it feels a little bit like a PR when she is sort of complemented by one member of the committee that says she beat Harvard and pen on this issue. So maybe she's feeling good at this point. But while she was testifying pro-Palestinian protesters set up an encampment on a campus quad. Hundreds of students pitched about 50 tents and they state that they will be occupying the space until Columbia divests from Israel.
So is this related to the congressional hearing or is this just a total coincidence? I don't think it's a coincidence. I think they knew that administration was going to be focused on the testimony and that that would present them with an opportunity.
And this is a high profile moment to put pressure on Columbia. Her performance in the congressional hearing also illustrates the fundamental problem here that even if you do go in front of Congress and like own the Republican senators and do really well, that's not a news story. Right. So the best case scenario for going in front of these ding-dongs is just no news at all.
There is a political instinct missing in the brains of university administrators. That's what I've learned from this whole thing. Yeah. She gets back to Columbia and she's faced with this dilemma, right? Because you have these students protesting. You basically just promised Congress that you were going to rule with an iron fist over these protests. You don't want to be cursed. So she responds by writing a public letter to NYPD.
She says, I write with regard to the encampment on Columbia University's campus that began before dawn on the morning of Wednesday, April 17, 2024. As discussed, more than 100 individuals are currently occupying the South Lawn of Columbia University's Morningside Heights campus. This group has been informed numerous times and in writing that they are not permitted to occupy this space are in violation of the university's rules and policies and must disperse.
I have determined that the encampment and related disruptions pose a clear and present danger to the substantial functioning of the university. Oh my God. Great regret. We request the NYPD's help to remove these individuals. We trust that you will take care and caution when removing any individual from our campus. I also read that letter and she mentioned that this has the potential to ruin John Cage's 433. So it's interesting to read that excerpt.
I think we need to focus on the real victims. So Columbia is a private university on private property. They have an agreement with NYPD that NYPD won't intervene on campus unless asked to. So this letter is the president saying, hey NYPD, come on in. This is something that has not happened since 1968 when they were student protests and NYPD intervened.
And it was largely considered to be a big cluster. So legally they are within their rights here. They can basically tell anyone students included, hey we want you off this lawn. And if the students refuse, they are trespassing and can be removed. It is very funny that this whole thing is literally kids get off my lawn. That's kind of perfect. It's always telling when the charge that protesters get hit with is trespassing. That's when you know that nothing has happened.
That there is any arrested because they were irritating people. I also want to talk about some weird language in this statement. She says that students present a quote clear and present danger to the substantial functioning of the university. This is very crafty phrasing because at a glance it seems like she's saying they're dangerous in the general sense of the word. But she's saying they are dangerous to the substantial functioning of the university. Which doesn't seem like it's actual danger.
It's this combination of high stakes and low stakes. Because you could say that about anything. You could say that you working from home poses a clear and present danger to my ability to watch the legend of Kora all day. It doesn't mean anything. Also as a lawyer I kind of perked up when I saw a clear and present danger because that's like an antiquated legal standard from the World War I era that has been overruled.
Now the first amendment test is inciting imminent lawless action and the clear and present danger thing that hasn't been the first amendment law since the 60s. But there was that Harrison Ford movie in the 90s and so everybody thinks everybody thinks it's real. I was sort of like why is she using this language and apparently it's in Columbia's policies.
I went digging through their policies and apparently they use this clear and present danger standard presumably because it's like broader and vaguer which is why it was overturned to begin with. But it like sort of still sounds like it's legal ease right. I also will flag that Columbia policy says that in order to bring in NYPD the president has to consult with quote a majority of a panel established by the university Senate's executive committee.
The executive committee said that they were not consulted. The Columbia spectator the student paper which by the way has done the best reporting on this by such a wide margin that it's remarkable. They asked the school about this and the school responds that she feat quote consulted with the Senate chair comply with the consultation requirement. But the requirement is that she consult with a majority of a panel established by the committee.
It seems pretty clear that she just ignored the policy to bust up this protest as quickly as possible. It's also funny because like breaking the procedure of like how to tell the protesters to disperse is like kind of silly right. It's this sort of technical procedural thing which like nobody really cares about right. But the whole thing is that the entire argument for breaking this up is a little tiny procedural thing too. It's like they're trespassing on campus.
It's even less than that Columbia's real justification like what they're putting forward is that these students were basically violating the protest rules. So the president also sends a letter to Columbia written large and says we updated our protest policy to allow demonstrations on very short notice and in prime locations in the middle of campus while still allowing students to get to class and labs and libraries to operate.
The current encampment violates all of the new policies severely disrupt campus life and creates a harassing and intimidating environment for many of our students. But then if like if we're such fucking sticklers for policies, you're also not following your own policies and the procedure for doing this. So it's like are we sticklers or are we not. I don't think people really care about this procedural stuff, but it's very clear that there's like a huge double standard.
I'm not a pause before we continue because as this story goes on, it gets messier. I want to be clear that at this point, there have been no credible allegations of like anti-Semitism or offensive statements or violence from any of these protesters, right. When Columbia brought in the NYPD to clear the encampment, they claimed that the protesters were creating a harassing and intimidating environment, but they didn't provide any examples.
And I think to this day, there is really no evidence that anyone within this actual encampment did anything of the sort. So it really seems like what happened here is that Shafiq was coming off of her testimony to Congress and then confronted with this dilemma, do I back up my tough talk or do I sort of let them stay? She calls in the cops, right. So you get this initial round of media coverage that's relatively mild, but you start to see some sort of weird tendencies.
So the New York Times says, and they're talking about the clearing of the encampment, they say, many in the crowd watched with a sense of disbelief or anger. Some students though, those who had felt harassed by the chance and actions of the pro-Palestinian students said they were glad that the university had finally agreed to follow its rules.
Again, they're not specifying what the harassing, chance, or actions were. It's just sort of stated, which is not necessarily to say that it's fictional as much as this is just bad reporting. This is not how you should be reporting on this sort of shit. You can't tell from this whether the complaint here is that they don't like pro-Palestinian chance or that they are actually being directly targeted for harassment by protesters. And that's a pretty important distinction.
Right. Basically, is it a normal ass protest or is it genuinely something like rowdy and harassing and something that the university should really do something about? That's the entire point. Is this okay or is this not? So to map this out chronologically, Shafiq testified on Wednesday, April 17th, the encampment was set up that same morning, NYPD cleared it the next day. What happens next is that these students set up another encampment on the lawn right next to the first one. Hell yeah.
And this time the energy is way higher because people are upset by the administration calling in NYPD. Yeah. Faculty, many of whom say that they are not actually aligned with the students on the substantive issue staged a walkout in protests of the administration. And this is also where you see other encampments and similar protests start to pop up on campuses across the country. Right. This is the thing they could have just ignored this in the first place.
Yeah. There have been encampments on campuses around the country and hasn't really been a big deal. And also, isn't the semester ending in like two weeks? And they could have just like, what this happened? And like, I don't know, the whole thing is just such a fucking own goal by the university presidents. I mean, I do get it, but I don't get it.
When the argument being put forward is basically these protesters are potentially harassing, loud, disruptive, the scope of the failure is like laid bare, right? Because this was one protest on Columbia's campus. It is now like a nationwide movement. There have been hundreds of arrests. There have been incidents of like protesters clashing. And you can make a pretty coherent argument that like Menus Chafique is responsible for all of that. To try to look good in front of Republican senators.
No, not even senators. Who was that fucking guy? House members, which is even more, come on. Oh, come on. Even more degrading. Is humiliating. Barely politicians, right? Barely adults. So over that following weekend, there are reports on social media of several instances of anti-Semitic or otherwise offensive conduct in and around Columbia. One person shouted, go back to Poland at pro-Israel demonstrators.
One person held up a sign with an arrow pointed toward pro-Israel demonstrators that said, Al-Qasam's next targets, that's Hamas's military wing. One guy is recorded shouting that there would be 10,000 October 7th. I know about all those because I read about the Montberry Wises' sub-stack. That's the thing is you've probably heard all of these because the media coverage of each of them has been extensive.
Yeah, there's also that poor woman who lost an eye in one of the protests is my understanding. All right, I think she passed. Yeah. Okay. That should be survived. It just sounds like we're being very insensitive to someone who's not from the past. Yeah. That's a story. You had pro-Israel demonstrators shouting, go back to Gaza at student protesters calling them terrorists. There are some minor scuffles, nothing serious, people grabbing flags from one another, things like that.
Almost all of these incidents occurred off campus. And from the reporting I've seen, none of them have been traced to actual Columbia students. Yeah. It's pretty clear that most of this, if not all of this, is from non-students. God, in any large protest, someone is going to yell something fucking stupid. Like, one out of every 500 signs is going to be, is going to have something problematic on it. Like, do you remember the anti-war protests in 2003?
Yeah. There was some like, hella dumb shit being said there and some dumb chance and some dumb signs. And they were still right. This whole time, I've just been like, why are we fucking talking about this? Well, the question is, when you see one asshole, do you want to say to yourself, that guy's an asshole, or do you want to say to yourself, this is emblematic of a broader trend within the pro-Palestinian movement.
That's the choice you're being confronted with and the media chooses the second one every single time. It's also so fucked up because it's very clearly a distraction from something that is like, the actual fucking bonding of Gaza is so indefensible. Tens of thousands of people dead. There's like literally children starving. It's like, it could not be clearer what the right thing to do is. And like, who the fucking heroes in villains are.
And yet, we're still talking about like, oh, was this chant bad or not? The vague implications of your, of the metaphor in your rhyming chant are a little bit disturbing to me. I mean, fuck. So social media posts of these like, anti-Semitic incidents and sort of like, violence endorsing incidents if they're not anti-Semitic, go viral. Of course. And very quickly, the tenor of the media coverage changes dramatically.
The New York Times writes a piece, headlined, some Jewish students are targeted as protests continue at Columbia, citing some of these incidents. The piece also does include quotes from Jewish students who are protesting for Palestine and say they feel perfectly safe, which some media outlets have just completely ignored. But they do make one omission.
And I've seen this almost universally, which is that they don't cover any of the racist rhetoric coming from pro-Israel protesters, which is also pretty thoroughly documented on social media that weekend. And that omission creates this impression of a one-sided problem. The implication of stories like this is that any amount of anti-Semitism or one anti-Semitic person in a crowd of thousands of people protesting is disqualifying.
And yet, Islamophobia is also rife among people who are pro-Israel. And yet, that's never disqualifying. Yeah, I think you're sort of like imagining what a good faith discussion might look like. But what's really happening here is that reactionaries are just sort of sensing an opportunity to smear the left and also shift the conversation away from what's happening in Gaza and toward what's happening on American campuses. Yeah, that's been so palpable.
First, I want to talk about the right-wing news cycle that emanates from this. Fox News runs countless stories about what it calls agitators at Columbia. Love it. The New York Post has run non-stop stories about this. I would like for you to guess the number of stories in the New York Post between April 18th and the end of the month, referencing the Columbia encampment.
I'm thinking of, remember, we did every single story in the New York Times about Hillary Clinton's emails in one month and I think it was something like 43. So like, I'm going to say somewhere in the 40s. Yeah, the answer is over 150. Dude, so I followed the New York Post on Twitter and they had a story this morning that was just the headline was, Teddy Roosevelt's great grandson supports Columbia protests. Tell him. It's like Steve Roosevelt or something, just some random kid.
That's news, baby. I don't know what I've never heard of who is related to a politician has an opinion. I almost wish that the New York Post had a functional website rather than one that will destroy your computer and destroy it for long enough because it is deeply fascinating to just witness the media diet of your average stat and island resident. It's like no wonder they're like this.
I think that you are moving to New Jersey. I feel like means you should be careful making fun of people from stat and island. I am moving very purposefully to a town full of wealthy stick up their ass liberal pooses. People have like black lives matter signs in their yard just as perform, like just to be performative assholes. You know what I mean? Yeah, you're moving to the name of the county is in this house. Commonly dirty.
So the post coverage and most right wing coverage is really expressly calling the protesters anti-Semitic genocidal. On April 28th, they ran an op-ed by the editorial board titled, Pro Palestine protests really are seeking a final solution. Oh my God. They wrote that quote, The Wall Street Journal editorial board says that like would get somebody kicked out of like a neighborhood barbecue. You'd be like, I'm sorry, man, we just can't have you around anymore if you're in a station like this.
Yeah, you have to leave. I am going to share with you a couple of my favorite New York post pieces on this subject. I'm sending you a headline. The Columbia Protester Diet. Anti-Israel students munch on pret sandwiches, pricey nuts and siped Duncan. Oh, because they're like decadent elites. The protesters are simultaneously professional terrorists. And also the privileged children of wealthy elites. Also, these kids are the coddled children of wealthy elites. They're still correct.
I think it's cool that some rich kids can step outside their bubble and recognize some injustice. Even if they are probably going to give this up and go work at JPM. That Roosevelt kid is going to be cool for the next two years. And then immediately go to McKinsey. I am going to send you an excerpt from this. From this. Harrowing piece in the New York Post.
It says the anti-Israel Columbia University students hunkering down on the Ivy League's West lawn received a hefty food delivery Wednesday as they show no signs of abandoning their makeshift tent city. Fruits, nuts, granola bars and overpriced sandwiches were being handed out like candy. To the protesters who were given a 48 hour extension to camp out on the grounds before the administration warned it would clear them out. Thank you for catching that stellar bit of writing. Yeah, amazing.
They're handing out fruit like candy. Yeah, your professional writer. It's so evocative. I have a mental image now. The anti-Israel protesters, more than 100 of whom were cuffed by the NYPD last week, had their choice of an array of nuts, including a $17 jar of good and gathers, sea salt roasted mixed nuts. It is true that nuts, like nut pricing has gotten out of control. But good and gather is targets in house brand. I was a relate to that.
So a $17 jar is probably just a large jar of nuts, which actually sounds like a pretty cost effective solution for a group of people. Yeah. Okay. Cheaper options like blue diamond almonds and planters cashews were also laid out for the students, comma, who are used to shelling out $86,097 in tuition each year. Sanwiches at the UK brand convenience bakery, pret A manger, were neatly lined up along the table.
A simple veggie sandwich would cost only $8, but those with any meat between the bread slices cost anywhere between $10 and $14 or even $16 for Sam an option. My God, this is so boring. Is this so fucking boring and stupid? No, they can get so much in. You don't have a real job if you're writing this professionally. This is not a real job. You are a fake person with a fake life. Also, these are normal sandwich prices in New York. Sorry.
This entire piece should be about the injustice of Biden's economy, Biden's inflation that we're experiencing due to his choices. I told you that they wrote like 150 articles about this encampment and the protest. So like, this is the kind of shit you need to write to hit those numbers. Yeah, yeah, just like people had food. Someone's going to their editor being like, I looked up the price of those nuts for you, sir. Yes. And they're $17 and he's like, run it.
Yeah. I'm going to send you another headline. This one's a little more serious in the sense that it has sort of spread around the right wing ecosystem. I love this one. George Soros is paying student radicals who are fueling nationwide explosion of Israel hating protests.