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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   26782 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024

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That seems a near-universal recipe to surrender any and every public to whatever jackass is willing to occupy it first, and then insist that they feel unsafe because The Wrong Person walked close to them or took pictures of their public protest. Dissolving 'starting a confrontation' at all makes the fundamental flaws of this framework, if anything, more apparent.

Not at all, we can ask reasonable questions like:

  • does the protest movement actually represent a serious concern among a significant number of students? (Concerns like: segregation, corruption, genocide, or etc?) (Yes)

  • does the protest movement occupy a small space, and are there a sufficient number of protesters to occupy that space? (Yes)

  • is the space unnecessary for reasonable facility at the university? (Yes)

If you don’t want this textbook example of protesting, you are saying you only want protests when they get permission by the party in power (state and/or administrators or an institution). You would be denying, for instance, the implicit right of Jewish students to protest if (hypothetically) a university would ban their synagogues. You would be denying the utility and morality of all the protests that occurred to end segregation. Genocide is as serious as any of these concerns, and apparently a number of students — with negative financial interest and negligible social interest at play, students at our top university — want to protest about it. There are a lot of ramifications to that belief and it involves a superstitious belief in the omnibenevolence of those in power.

That’s a moderate argument in favor of unsanctioned protest, if somewhat marred by one of its (first!) prongs turning into whether people like the protest goals or not.

But I don’t need an argument in favor of unsanctioned protest: my metrics there are far simpler. My problem here is not the presence of a protest, but your advocacy of a norm where whatever protest group that takes a public forum first gets to exclude people who disagree with their message.

There might be some edge cases where that’s an unfortunate compromise we have to take, but under vague concerns about ‘confrontation’ are little more than carte blanche

norm where whatever protest group that takes a public forum first gets to exclude people who disagree with their message

This is already the norm for legally-sanctioned protests, though, right? As I mentioned in other replies, it is common for police to prevent counter protestors from intruding on the space of protestors and vice versa.

a public forum

The video looks like it is taken at a courtyard, one of a dozen around the University. They aren’t holding captive the main amphitheater at Columbia or something, where yeah there would be a concern regarding the reasonable use of university amenities. Ironically, you could even argue that the courtyard is seeing greater facility during this protest, given the population density from the looks of it. But I’m not familiar with the layout of the university and where the video is taken.

This is already the norm for legally-sanctioned protests, though, right? As I mentioned in other replies, it is common for police to prevent counter protestors from intruding on the space of protestors and vice versa.

That's actually a fun question! The rules for how police can separate protestors and counterprotestors are complex. And this clearly flops many important prongs of that test.

The video looks like it is taken at a courtyard, one of a dozen around the University. They aren’t holding captive the main amphitheater at Columbia or something, where yeah there would be a concern regarding the reasonable use of university amenities.

This thread is south of this video, which was from Yale, about access to a building. And I buy people being blocked from just a few public fora about as much as I buy someone being a 'little bit pregnant'.

Ironically, you could even argue that the courtyard is seeing greater facility during this protest, given the population density from the looks of it.

It was great, for the one side able to use it, isn't the most compelling argument for neutral access to public fora.

I had asked the OP for evidence regarding Columbia but yeah, the video in the Twitter thread is from a Yale courtyard. There is no evidence he is being blocked from entering a building (at 9pm).

about access to a building

No, it is clearly a courtyard. We would need a longer video to prove anything more than that.

It was great, for the one side able to use it, isn't the most compelling argument for neutral access to public fora.

You would have to argue that regarding the obvious and clear special concerns of a student-led protest movement

court case

Well, Meinecke did not engage with any counter-protesters and had his own location where he was protesting.

You would have to argue that regarding the obvious and clear special concerns of a student-led protest movement

Are you going to spell them out, or just make vague motions about the horror or someone taking video of a public protest, or of someone in a stupid hat smirking at them?

Well, Meinecke did not engage with any counter-protesters and had his own location where he was protesting.

You want to try that, again?

Protestors surrounded Meinecke after about an hour. One protestor seized Meinecke’s Bible. Meinecke retrieved another Bible from his bag and continued reading aloud. Another protestor grabbed hold of—and ripped pages from—the new Bible. The altercation soon escalated. As protestors, some of whom Seattle police characterized in their written reports as Antifa, encroached, Meinecke took hold of an orange-and-white traffic sawhorse. Five protestors, some clad in all black and wearing body armor, picked up Meinecke and the sawhorse, moved him across the street, and dropped him on the pavement. One law enforcement officer who observed this interaction reported that “‘Antifa’ members . . . began to fight/assault” Meinecke.

Undeterred, Meinecke walked back to his original location by the federal building and resumed reading and held up a sign. While people gathered on the street, however, some approached Meinecke, knocked him down, and took one of his shoes.

If you had read your own link, you would have found that Meinecke settled in a protesting location and subsequently counter protestors came to his location to disrupt him. We can turn on our thinking caps and realize that in our example at Yale, the Palestinian protesters are the original protesters.

Protestors surrounded Meinecke after about an hour.

and

Eventually, PrideFest attendees noticed Meinecke's presence.

If you continued reading your link, you would have found that one of the Court’s advised remedies was to make the counter-protestor step back from the original protestor.

there were several less speech-restrictive alternatives to achieve public safety. The officers could have required the protestors to take a step back from Meinecke. They could have called for more officers — as they did after Meinecke was arrested. They could have erected a free speech barricade.

These are the same actions taken by the original protesting unit to prevent confrontation with the Jewish student: he can counter protest mere steps away from the protest, just not where the original protestors are packed like sardines protesting. They self-barricaded themelves to prevent confrontation. It is commendable, but not exactly surprising, that these intelligent Yale student performed the exact actions that a Court had recommended to a police department, while using completely non-aggressive means (holding hands chained together). As to why there weren’t police officers doing this already, that’s a significant question that the admins should answer.

Do you really think that if the police were there to ensure the safety of student both protesting and counter-protesting, that they would have allowed both protestors and counter-protestors to stand side by side in a dimly lit courtyard? I just find this totally unreasonable, as there is no benefit at all to that, unless you are neurotically obsessed with the idea of punishing protestors who don’t get their little protest stamps confirmed for not following legal minutiae.

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