this post was submitted on 01 May 2024
509 points (96.4% liked)

News

23396 readers
3914 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Police and private security throng every entrance but one. Steel barriers line the streets. Students pack up belongings in their cars and leave for home - classes are cancelled, and exam plans are up in the air.

Everywhere there is gloom, and uncertainty about what happens next at Columbia University.

Students told the BBC that the university's decision to call in police to clear a Gaza protest late on Tuesday, leading to a raid on the occupied Hamilton Hall and hundreds of arrests, has left the college community shattered.

The university president, Nemat Shafik, said that it was with great regret that she ordered the police raid against students and others she said had infiltrated the protest. It would "take time to heal", she added in a message in the operation's aftermath.

For students of this prestigious school in Manhattan, New York, how long is unclear.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] FlyingSquid 57 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Imagine if the Columbia administration decided they could swim in regular water instead of a moneybin like Scrooge McDuck and divested the university from Israel. Maybe all of this could have been avoided.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Aren't there laws that prevent Universities from doing so?

[–] FlyingSquid 16 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Are there? I've not heard of such a thing.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Yes, anti-BDS laws. These were passed years ago (not reactionary to now). There are state and federal rules but in general, a university can't boycott or divest from Israeli (or many other nations) in political protest or it loses funding.

I think this is why we see most universities have their hands tied.

[–] FlyingSquid 5 points 6 months ago (2 children)

A private university? I would like to see that law.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I still believe the university benefits from government funding since NSF, NIST, DoD etc are all agencies funding university research. I don't think it's possible to un-fund yourself completely from the government given that it spurs research everywhere.

[–] FlyingSquid 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

But you can make an effort. Which they are not doing.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I can understand that people hold their college as some part of their soul and want their universities actions to reflect their political beliefs. But, I don't think universities (as an entity) should be involved politically or have political opinions.

[–] LotrOrc 4 points 6 months ago (2 children)

What is it but having a political belief right now? It's the same belief but on the opposite side. So if one is political, then by definition so is the other

[–] Dkarma 2 points 6 months ago

No shit. These guys aren't great at realizing their own inherent bias

[–] Narauko 2 points 6 months ago

You seem to be confusing taking no action with taking positive action when compared to a negative action, conflating both to be the same thing under an "if you aren't explicitly with me then you're against me" view point. If the University we're going out of its way to dump more money into new Israeli investments, then that would be the same belief but opposite. Not changing anything is by definition the only neutral action, and any change in any direction would be political. Not saying anything about what is ultimately "right", just that there "is" an apolitical option and that is to do whatever would be done if this whole thing wasn't happening.

[–] firadin 1 points 6 months ago

Anti-BDS laws exist (you can look them up on Wikipedia). Are they constitutional? Certainly not. Is our legal system going to fight them? Doubt it.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Columbia's dean was on NPR and said that political investments and divestments are illegal.

What the protestors aren't saying is that by divestment they are asking the school to divest from the S&P 500. If Columbia agrees, they need a non politically motivated reason to do so.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

S&P 500? That's an interesting ask considering teachers pension/tenure funds and administrative 401ks are all probably in there.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

Yeah, in my mind it makes more sense to take the protest to wall street.

In the case of Columbia students, they are already in New York. Catching a bus shouldn't be too hard .