Christa Dutton
Chronicle of Higher Education
Excerpt: Pro-Palestinian protests at three colleges in the past several days led to more than 100 arrests for trespassing or destruction of property. Several students were also suspended for violating their college’s policies and protest restrictions.
The mass arrests at Columbia University, Swarthmore College, and the University of Washington may signal a shift in how college leaders are responding to protests, experts say. Since last spring’s widespread protests over the war in Gaza, college leaders have drawn fierce criticism for being too slow to dismantle disruptive encampments or call in police to arrest those violating the law. Now, they’re eager to show federal authorities that they’re serious about stopping antisemitism and unruly protests.
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Violating the First Amendment will cost you. Universities and other public institutions are learning this lesson the hard way as the dust settles on a series of lawsuits brought by university faculty and staff who were punished for their comments about Charlie Kirk’s murder last September.
If Johns Hopkins University wanted to signal its seriousness about creating an alternative to the left-leaning orthodoxy that permeates higher education, it couldn’t have done better than the recent hire of economist Peter Arcidiacono.
House Republicans have now formally backed President Donald Trump in fulfilling his campaign promise to dismantle the Department of Education, voting Wednesday to advance 10 bills that would codify the White House’s efforts to disperse numerous education programs and offices to other federal agencies.