Maryam Alwan figured the worst was over after New York City police in riot gear arrested her and other protesters on the Columbia University campus, loaded them onto buses and held them in custody for hours.
But the next evening, the college junior received an email from the university. Alwan and other students were being suspended after their arrests at the “ Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” a tactic colleges across the country have deployed to calm growing campus protests against the Israel-Hamas war.
The students’ plight has become a central part of protests, with students and a growing number of faculty demanding their amnesty. At issue is whether universities and law enforcement will clear the charges and withhold other consequences, or whether the suspensions and legal records will follow students into their adult lives.
If the only legal way to protest is to do it alone in a field then the legality of the protest is a moot point. Protesting is about the public getting heard and the cost is to productivity. The cost shouldn’t be an arrest record and stigma. This isn’t because two or three assholes are disrupting a campus. Students are getting arrested in dozens. Professors are getting arrested too. What the colleges and universities are doing against their own students is unacceptable.