Making the Same Mistakes

These shameful pro-Hamas and antisemitic demonstrations occurring on college campuses across America are a repeat of the same student movement that occurred in 1968 and 1969. The issue back then was over the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, and race riots were going on in urban cities in the summer. The organizers of these events were socialists trying to bring down the U.S. government. There were two notorious ones, Students for a Democratic Society and the Black Panther Party. These were highly organized and well-funded. They had connections to the Communist Party in Cuba and Moscow. The subversives put naïve students on campus and young blacks in urban centers out front like human shields to mask themselves and their true motives along with some manufactured claim like in this instance, Free Palestine and Stop Genocide in Gaza and From the River to the Sea. Keep in mind that resorting to violence and threatening people unless they acquiesce to demands are tactics used by terror groups.

The tactics used by the 1960 subversive groups have not changed. They specialize in sloganeering, chants, berating and attacking police, campus and government officials. They utilize taking over buildings, blocking ingress and egress to area locations including streets and transportation hubs and setting up encampments. Remember Occupy Wall Street and the riots by Black Lives Matter? It’s the same street-fillers. Many are social misfits and outcasts looking for a sense of belonging. So how should these be dealt with by government (law enforcement) and school officials?

First of all, please stop referring to these as student protests. Words matter here. Properly labeling these events can go a long way in gaining public support for the police tactics they have to deploy. It is important to classify these illegal activities occurring on college campuses for what they are. These are not protected activities under the First Amendment. These are acts of lawlessness and disorder and should be ended immediately. Illegally blocking ingress and egress to buildings, noise that disrupts classes and residential areas around these schools is a public nuisance. Occupying a building or space on university property is an illegal activity. A college or university is not a sanctuary for lawlessness.

If police are called in, they must act immediately and assertively to restore order. I am seeing too much patty cake being played with these law breakers. Declare an unlawful assembly and then clear the area. That is job one. If people refuse then a proper, measured and controlled application of all the force that is necessary should be deployed to get them to leave. If people start to throw objects at police, a higher level of force should immediately be deployed to keep things from spiraling into a full-blown riot. This includes tear gas and other less lethal options. A riot can be prevented, and officers protected from injury by an early shock of force. To delay this is an abdication of police responsibility.

This originally occurred on a few campuses and spread quickly because of inaction by university officials. These events start with a few students but have a drawing effect by other troublemakers who are street filling non-students because of the irresistible impulse on the part of these petulant, spoiled brats who want to be part of something.

University Responsibility:

Leniency by school officials on students who are involved in the disorder and lawlessness can be held to civil liability suits from taxpayers, area residents and non-involved students. The legal rights of non-involved students whose education is adversely affected by this lawlessness and disorder perpetrated on college campuses must have their rights protected. Students who are only interested in getting an education should sue universities for failing their fiduciary responsibility by not doing enough to protect their interests. They have a right to a safe place in which to obtain an education. This includes civil rights violations.

Students who are not expelled could be the basis for a taxpayer lawsuit because failure to act constitutes a misuse of funds. At private colleges, donors should sue to get their money returned. Injunctions should be sought against any university not ensuring the personal safety of uninvolved students and faculty.

University officials should curtail the salary of professors for not fulfilling their teaching obligation because of their personal beliefs in support of dissident students or when they themselves are involved in the lawlessness and disorder. A faculty member who engages in or encourages illegal acts is in breach of their contract and should be fired.

Actively interfering with the rights of others should be prosecuted under the Federal Civil Rights Act. Any non-student involved who has been shipped in to participate or has traveled in as part of an organized effort is subject to federal criminal prosecution for prohibited travel in interstate commerce to promote disorder. This includes the funders of this organized chaos.

This is not difficult. Making the mistakes that law enforcement and university officials made in the past will make this difficult. There are papers written about how these were handled. Commissions were formed that looked into the unrest of the ‘60s. After-action reports have been filed. Memo to law enforcement and university officials: Go back and read them.

Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co, Wisconsin, President of America’s Sheriff LLC, President of Rise Up Wisconsin INC, Board member of the Crime Research Center, author of the book Cop Under Fire: Beyond Hashtags of Race Crime and Politics for a Better America. To learn more visit www.americassheriff.com