A university president makes a case against cowardice

If you're a guest, act like a guest. Anti-Israel protests are by extension a protest against the US foreign policy, so yeah... You protest your host in a violent and disruptive manner, you probably shouldn't have been allowed in to begin with.

Not in my America.

I welcome any and all persons from anywhere in the world if they want to come and protest the American war machine

Our forefathers would be absolutely ashamed at what you just said. Protesting a totalitarian government that lacks proper representation is the most American thing you can possibly do, and that makes these immigrants more American than you will ever be, as long as you hold such views.

Edit: It seems you have edited your post in order to remove the extremely distasteful language you originally expressed. I assume you still hold such views or you'd not have expressed them to begin with, and as such my comment still stands.

Fuck that!

We have this thing called the First Amendment. It applies to all people under the jurisdiction of the United States. There’s no exception for “guests.” Criticizing the government is a time-honored American tradition. Throwing people out for it is absolutely vile.

Americans can criticize their government all they want. Foreigners shouldn’t have no input in the american political system. The first amendment is the exception to the democratic rule, not the other way around.

>the First Amendment . . . applies to all people under the jurisdiction of the United States.

Not according to the Supreme Court it doesn't.

Foreigners aren't allowed to vote or donate. They should be allowed to voice their opinions on the government, though. In my opinion, anyone who says foreigners in the country shouldn't criticize the government is less American than said foreigners.

> Our forefathers would be absolutely ashamed...

Well, like half of our forefathers. Maybe 30%.

America has always been this weird combined project of Hopeless Idealists and The Worst People In The World. Our forefathers sought independence for freedom and self-determination and all sorts of other noble things, but also because many of them owned a bunch of slaves and were worried that was going to be outlawed in the near future. And then sought independence again a century later out of the same fear.

Making America subservient to Israel's interests is anti-American. The fascist zionists play at being "America first" but this couldn't be further from the truth.

That's a good point, I often use "forefathers" loosely when I really mean just the good forefathers, such as Franklin, Paine, etc. I need to figure out a way to be more precise about this without being too verbose.

A protest is disruptive by definition.

I do not accept this view. Anti-Israel protests are by extension a protest against Jewish billionaires, who out of religiosity believe Israel must prosper even if America burns or the ammendments are ammended. Israel's formation and genocide is alien to the morals of the United States and the values the founding fathers held dear. America's foreign policy is shaped by lobbying. You are absolutely wrong my dude, but you are a testament that the ROI on propaganda for billionaires does have a high return indeed. Your view is anti-American, for it puts Zionist and Israeli interests above our morals, values and chiefly in this case American interests (students contribute to our economy through spending and innovative technologies, not Palestin'es or Israel's).

We were talking about the Tufts PhD student who did not engage in any violence or disruption, but wrote an op-ed advocating for a boycott of another country.

It's hard for me not to be extremely cynical about the anti-Israel protests that happened. For one thing, a lot of people who favor them gloss over the illegal things done at them like break-ins, vandalism, trespassing, and illegal occupations.

But in general I think the case made by the pro-Palestinian side was that somehow universities bore responsibility for what Israel did because of vague investments in their endowments. I didn't think owning an ETF that held a weapons manufacturer or some Israeli company on the stock market was explicitly Zionist but this was the premise for protests. Why not protest the US or Israel directly? It doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

It felt like they were asking universities to explicitly be pro-Palestine which is a strange thing to ask for in America.

The good forefathers? What is the basis for deciding? Like back in 2017 there was the Unite the Right rally on the UVA campus. I am guessing you would not support that kind of anti-Semitic speech and "protest against totalitarian government" although there's not really much difference in speech said at that rally versus the anti-Israel ones at Columbia except by who was saying it. Maybe I am wrong and you are a free speech absolutist but if not I would be interested in hearing how to decide which hate speech should be cracked down upon and which shouldn't.

source?

Rayiner says it in a comment upthread. Whereas most lawyers in the US work on cases filed in state court, Rayiner works on cases filed in Federal court, and if you were to sue the US government to try to assert the free-speech rights of the immigrants we are talking about, you'd do it in Federal court.

Sadly, his comment has been flagged.