Students have a right to feel safe and protected from persecution

OPINION:

In normal years not that long ago, students would look forward to returning to college or entering as freshmen. After violent anti-Israel and antisemitic demonstrations on some campuses, many fear this semester might see a repeat of the ugliness.

This is how bad it has gotten. Police in Montgomery County, Maryland, are investigating after antisemitic and pro-Palestinian graffiti was discovered Sunday morning outside Bethesda Elementary School. An elementary school! Rather than condemning the incident, the pro-Hamas lobby group CAIR issued a statement that sounded like “what can you expect,” given Israel’s justifiable attempt to wipe out the terrorist group in the Gaza Strip.

Columbia University in New York, where some of the worst rioting occurred last semester, is reportedly considering granting arrest powers to campus police, hoping it will curb the demonstrations. That’s fine, but it’s not just about the arrests, most of which have resulted in quick releases. It’s about prosecuting lawbreakers. That has become nearly impossible to do in liberal New York thanks to District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who often releases and fails to prosecute even violent offenders.

Columbia is also employing a “lockdown” system to keep nonaffiliates with “bad intentions” off campus. Good luck with that. If current laws and regulations are being violated, why should anyone believe new laws and regulations will be obeyed, especially when some professors agree with and encourage the demonstrators?

DePaul University in Chicago is preparing to reopen its campus Quad before students return for fall classes. Demonstrations last semester did $180,000 in damage, resulting in closing the Quad for three months for repairs. What’s to prevent a repeat performance?

Columnist Jason Riley wrote in The Wall Street Journal: “The Philadelphia Inquirer reported this month that [the University of Pennsylvania] suspended several students who were part of an illegal anti-Israel encampment that ended in May with the arrest of 33 people. Yet Penn looks to be an outlier. … Harvard reversed an earlier decision to suspend students who participated in pro-Hamas demonstrations on its campus that violated school policy and local ordinances. The Harvard Crimson wrote that it was at least the second time administrators caved in to pressure from student activists and sympathetic faculty members.”

Jewish students wishing to return to certain colleges don’t seem optimistic they will receive better treatment than last semester.

While some university presidents resigned after being accused of aiding and abetting the protests and antisemitism, the problem will remain as long as administrators allow students (and others) to dictate to those who are in charge and supposed to be enforcing the rules.

Here’s what might work. If students wish to demonstrate, they should be assigned a secure area where their presence won’t impede other students from attending classes, visiting libraries or exercising other rights. If professors encourage the demonstrators and make antisemitic remarks making Jewish students feel unsafe, they should be placed on leave or fired.

By following through on law enforcement and prosecution, perhaps students will get the message that a criminal record will likely harm their prospects of employment and a successful career.

When police in Boston went on strike in 1919, unleashing looting and other criminal activity, Massachusetts Gov. Calvin Coolidge, who later became president, sent a telegram to American Federation of Labor President Samuel Gompers that said in part: “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.”

The same should be said of rioting students who impede the rights of other students to feel safe and attend classes without mobs confronting them, especially Jewish students. They have a right to feel safe and protected from persecution.

• Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Look for Cal Thomas’ latest book, “A Watchman in the Night: What I’ve Seen Over 50 Years Reporting on America” (HumanixBooks).