As the occupation of university campuses by left-wing students escalates, non-political students, who have invested thousands of dollars on higher education, are struggling to save their year from the freshmen terrorist actions of intimidation, blockades, and harassment for not standing with Palestine …. or Israel.
In a sign of solidarity with sanity, GWU! has spoken with three brave students from the Columbia, UT Austin, and McGill university warzones who are pushing back on their protesting peers. Read about how they are fighting back against the co-curricular intifada in our GWU! (Student) Guide to Avoiding Gaza Protests!
From the River to the Sea, You Can’t Pin Down Me
A student who has the misfortune of attending Columbia University in New York, one of the most extreme examples of the protests that have spread across America, advises not getting involved with either side in the conflict.
“Don’t engage, don’t pick a side. Whether it’s the white girls in Keffiyehs or the Zionists kvetching after their Intro to Business class ” says the third year economics major. “But if you really must, lie and tell whoever you’re accosted by that you 100% agree with them. Don’t linger. Give them a quick thumbs up or communist fist bump and hustle your way to class.”
She goes on to explain that the majority of the students barricading themselves in university buildings and camping out in the Quad aren’t worth worrying about at the end of the day.
“You’re not even going to see these students next year,” she tells GWU! over Microsoft Teams. “Half of them have spent so much time and energy on this historic foreign conflict, which happens every seven years, that they’re flunking all their classes. The other half will eventually come to their senses and graduate with just enough common sense to get a job with one of the corporations they’re protesting.”
The Best Little Warhouse in Texas
There has been markedly less southern hospitality to student protests at the University of Texas at Austin where law enforcement dispersed an encampment at the hipster campus with flashbangs and pepper spray, while making 79 arrests.
“The majority of protestors don’t really care about the plight of the Palestinians or the Israelis,” said one student who also spoke with GWU! via Teams.
“It’s a very small, but very vocal group of radicals in masks who just want their moment of TikTok rebellion. Ironically, these masked tards were nowhere to be seen when the state imposed unscientific COVID mandates. In fact, they’re easy to spot because they’re surprisingly still wearing masks, despite the overwhelming evidence against the preformative measure.”
The first year running back for the school football team (Go Longhorns!) adds: “My team does agree with them about something, though: People power. That’s why the entire offensive line geared up and removed tents (containing Soyboys gaming on laptops), which had sprung up on the field of the Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium. I guess it’s not so easy to occupy someone’s home turf after all!”
The cowboy, who identifies as an Urban Planning Major, explains that the physical environment can affect how people behave and steer their actions in a particular space. “After they barricaded themselves in the learning commons, the librarian gave us permission to blast the space with country music. You ain’t never seen so many skinny pale kids with homemade peel and stick tattoos run so fast.”
Moving forward, our pigskin philosopher adds: “Don’t give these disruptors the chance to cause trouble,” he says, advising students to be proactive.
“The whole thing has actually unified the student body. As we speak, the jocks are working on setting up wifi blockers that the nerds built. Without the Internet these Wokestas won’t be able to order Keffiyehs on Amazon or Starbucks on UberEats. The nerds at UT Austin are actually pretty revolutionary,” he laughs.
“Our goal is to block, prevent and corral them like the dogs they are. Just for the record, I’m not calling Palestinians dogs. I’m talking about all the Palestinian pretenders who were Ukrainian a year ago.”
A Mont Royal Désordre
As the anti-Israel protest encampment continues to grip Montreal’s McGill University in Quebec, Canada, law abiding students have been unsuccessful in using the courts to have the protesters removed.
Justice Chantal Masse has ruled that a student requested injunction to turf the balaclava wearing Birkenstock wearers (oh, the irony—ed) would not be granted. Masse said that while some of the slogans and statements attributed to the protesters are “troubling,” there’s no indication that they are an actual threat to student safety.
Undaunted by the failure of the justice system to protect them, students seeking a return to normalcy say they will continue to attempt to use logic and reason to end the occupation.
“The unrealistic demand for McGill to divest from ‘Zionist companies’ will go nowhere,” explains a junior Law student.
“McGill, like all major universities, has an outside financial management firm handling investments.” She says that thinking the university can or even should divest from anything to do with Israel is unrealistic and childish. “But what do you expect from Liberal Arts students?”
In fact, she tells GWU! outside a café on Sainte-Catherine Street, the wacky idea that their tuition is being used to fund the Israeli beachfront property genocide is ridiculous. “Everybody knows that tuition goes to operational costs of running a campus.”
Our legal beaver says that ultimately the protestors will damn up their own future as they ‘divest themselves from their marks’ and leave a ‘virtual social media cookie trail’ of their lawlessness for potential hiring managers to see.
“It’s ironic that they are occupying university land in tents,” she smiles wryly. “It prepares them for their housing future.”
