I’ll preface my commentary with the obvious: All of the “mostly peaceful” protests by our “college educated” on campuses nationwide that are clearly pro-Hamas and aimed at Jewish students are wrong, illegal, and all involved should either go back to the classes their parents and taxpayers are funding or be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

But why the sudden sanctimonious outrage from the media and pundit class, billionaire donors, business leaders, and politicians? Why are the harassment and threats against Jewish students a red line that’s been crossed and now found to be totally unacceptable? It’s only because the current violence hits too close to home.

Several major donors have called a hard stop to their past donations:

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, a Columbia graduate, said he was stopping donations immediately and charged the college with failing to keep its Jewish students safe. Billionaire investor Leon Cooperman, a business school graduate, said he would stick with a stop on donations which began shortly after the October 7 Hamas massacres. Cooperman, industrialist Len Blavatnik and Kraft have donated nearly $100 million in total to Columbia, according to some estimates — money that has created multiple buildings on campus, scholarships for engineers, and a center for Jewish students.
— New York Post, 4/22/24

These opportunistic hand-wringers are hardly consistent.

After Eric Garner’s death in 2014 death and Freddie Gray’s in 2015, college students eagerly joined the burgeoning #BlackLivesMatter #DefundThePolice movements. Permitless street protests started becoming a new norm where traffic was strategically snarled, and thousands of commuters were held hostage to those who believed they could demand to be heard at the inconvenience of others.

Many of those protests resulted in millions of dollars of public and private property damage, looting of businesses, and burning of buildings and homes in predominantly black neighborhoods. Still, we were all told to deal with it because protesters were exercising their right to free speech.

Arrests and prosecutions were minimal, and the few charged were dismissed.

Those protests also resulted in compliant progressive local legislatures beginning to actually defund their law enforcement agencies, resulting in unsafe streets for citizens and the assassination of police officers nationwide. The negative ramifications to public safety felt since have been profound.

After President Donald Trump’s 2016 election, students from high school through college were encouraged to leave campuses and take to the streets, again without permits, and to disrupt traffic, again resulting in the expected public and private property damage. The outrage from those with influence was minimal because the protesters were exercising their right to free speech.

Arrests and prosecutions were minimal, and the few charged were dismissed.

After George Floyd’s death in 2020 (and too many still don’t know that the actual cause was self-inflicted), tens of thousands of protesters, including college students, took to highways and streets for the summer, causing intentional disruptions for thousands of commuters, damaging and/or destroying hundreds of public and private buildings, attacking law enforcement, burning and looting businesses and homes, primarily in black neighborhoods. Once again, the American people were told to suck it up because the protesters were exercising their right to free speech.

Arrests and prosecutions were minimal and the few charges were dismissed.

Many politicians embraced, encouraged and rewarded the tumult.

Conservatives have been met with threats and eventual violence after being invited to speak on college campuses for many years, but the outrage was minimal and we were told to suck it up because the protesters were exercising their right to free speech.

Arrests and prosecutions were minimal and the few charges were dismissed.

Female activists have been met with threats and eventual violence after being invited to speak on college campuses against the unfair and dangerous incursion of transgender athletes into their sports. The outrage was minimal and the women were told to suck it up because the protesters were exercising their right to free speech.

Arrests and prosecutions were minimal and the few charges were dismissed.

It could be argued if those now expressing their outrage had stepped in and efficiently cracked down on the illegal street takeovers and protests back in 2014, the red line between common decency and anarchy would not have been crossed. In almost every case, college students contributed to the ranks of unruly protesters, participated in the mayhem, destruction and afterward returned to the safety and warmth of their dorms or homes.

Almost all of the pundits on the left and the news networks gave aid and comfort to the violent protesters by labeling them as #MostlyPeaceful despite the clear optics to the contrary.

Almost all of those who donate hefty sums to colleges and universities and are quite vocal today forced their businesses to fully embrace the #BlackLivesMatter grift, despite the internal rifts that would be caused.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for Robert Kraft and others to admit their error in judgment and apologize to the many Americans who’ve been casualties of crime because the police couldn’t come when needed.

There was no legislation introduced on Capitol Hill offered to outlaw the activities of #Antifa and other anarchists whose sole mission was to exploit grievances as an excuse to commit acts of destruction; maybe because some of the protesters are relatives of those same legislators.

All of the protests, excused and/or applauded by the left, resulted in hundreds of injuries and death. Those lives didn’t matter and have been forgotten by all those now belatedly expressing horror and outrage.

And who are Ivy League college presidents and administrators now calling to quell unruly antisemitic students and outside agitators? Ah yes, the very police they had no problem smearing, defunding and/or removing from their campus safe spaces, acquiescing to activists and radicals. Funny how irony inconveniences the small college-educated mind.

The threats and violence against Jewish students on college campuses and street/highway takeovers by the pro-Hamas-indoctrinated are the direct result of not shutting down misguided and illegal student-fueled protests ten years ago. It’s shameful that it took a decade of this societal breakdown and violence before wealthy Jewish donors finally woke up to the fact that it was always going to end with attacks on the Jews.

The toothpaste is out of the tube.

Simple. Most of us have common sense.

We grew up during a time when we had a parent or parents who drummed into our heads that NOTHING good came from being on the street at night. Most of us remember being told and adhering to being on our way home when the street lights came on. We were home and thereby, didn’t get into any trouble.

But in the event we did encounter the police, rules were passed down by our elders that made sense.

Do not run away from the police. That obviously implies some kind of guilt.

Politely cooperate and under no circumstances mouth off to an officer.

Those two simple rules almost always guaranteed a safe return home that evening, with possibly just a warning from the officer, if that.

Do not try to physically assault and/or injure a police officer.

Do not try to take a police officer’s gun, taser, etc. away from him or her.

Mouthing off to a police officer is bad enough. Assaulting a police officer and actually attempting to go for his or her taser or gun…? Not saying you’d deserve to die for doing that, but it’s an invitation for that cause-and-effect discussion at the least.

How many of those now in the headlines, embraced by #BlackLivesMatter and those who support their cause, have achieved martyr status unnecessarily? Had they observed common sense and not escalated a situation, chances are good they’d still be with us today.

But when we have parents who allow their children to be out late at night (doing God knows what) and they invite a negative police interaction, it’s “systemic racism”.

Many black people continue to live long lives, having little (if any) contact with the police. We consider them the welcome thin blue line protecting us from thugs of all colors. We’ve lived this long because we respect society, other people, and the police.

Common sense.

Elite law students want their finals postponed because of grand jury decisions. Not everyone is sympathetic.

Their opening remarks are weak, to say the least.

We have been traumatized over and again by the devaluation of Black and Brown lives. We are falling apart.

Recent events have unsettled our lives as students. We have struggled to compartmentalize our trauma as we sit and make fruitless attempts to focus on exam preparation.

Our trauma will be present with us on exam day, our trauma is inhibiting us from sleeping at night, and our trauma is ever-present among the words in our textbooks. Moreover, the violence that the law has done to Mike Brown and now Eric Garner is a legal violence that affects and implicates us all. We are now asked to use the same legal maneuvers and language on our exams this Monday that was used to deny justice to so many Black and Brown bodies. In being asked to prepare for and take our exams in this moment, we are being asked to perform incredible acts of disassociation that have led us to question our place in this school community and the legal community at large.

We need time to process and breathe. We need your support. We need it now.

We expect the following:

1. 1. 1. That faculty and administration recognize our trauma as legitimate and worthy of a response
      2. That students who have been deeply affected by recent events be allowed to postpone exams
      3. That an emergency event occur on Monday, December 8, 2015 for the administration, faculty, and students to discuss the concerns of students of color in the wake of recent events

Signed,

The Columbia Law School Coalition of Concerned Students of Color

What a bunch of “people of color”, self-centered, privileged, victim wannabes.

Using the Brown and Garner tragedies to get out of taking finals is lame and as the sentiments of resentment flood in, this latest attempt of victimization will further inhibit “people of color” from gaining employment in many of our nation’s law firms; not because they are “people of color” but because of their potential of wanting special treatment based on sympathy and exhibited weakness.

The law is all about precedent and being able to have total recall of precedent.

When the final verdict of the UVA rape incident end in a result female students don’t like, will they be too “traumatized” to take their finals? We could be talking discrimination…? When a gay incident happens, will they be too “traumatized” to take a final? Precedent will have been set.

Let’s be real; most of us wanted a reason to not take a final. We just didn’t think exploiting a national tragedy was the best way to do it. We just studied up and took the fucking exam. These “students of color” are lazy, wanted an excuse to get out of something all other students had to do, and #blacklivesmatter was convenient.

No one will want this crop of lawyers to represent them, and their future whining will not fall on deaf ears.

They’ll be taken as a joke and deservedly so.

The protest leaders followed Officer Wells and inquired why the motorist wasn’t arrested. When another protester loudly interjected himself into the conversation, a brief argument ensued and the protest leaders later objected to having any video that made “black people look bad” be documented for broadcast.