Professors Evacuated, Put on Leave in Hectic Pro-Palestine Protest

February 27, 2024 1 min read

Ryan Quinn
Inside Higher Ed.

Excerpt: An incident last week at San José State University laid bare just how contentious the Israel-Palestine conflict continues to be on American college campuses—and how elusive agreement can be over the meaning of concepts such as genocide, terrorism and free speech.

The drama at the California State University campus unfolded in two scenes at the same protest. In the first, a guest speech by Jeffrey Blutinger, the Jewish studies director at another CSU campus, on “how to achieve peace between Israel and Palestine,” was cut short after police evacuated him from a classroom and navigated him through an intense pro-Palestinian protest in the hallway. During the same protest, according to a video provided to Inside Higher Ed, an older man appeared to try to photograph or record protesters with his phone, and he briefly grabbed the hand of someone blocking the camera and pulled their arm down.

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