During Vietnam War protests, the Nixon administration called them “outside agitators.” Now my university’s provost prefers “participants — many of whom do not appear to be affiliated with USC.” Beyond Andrew Guzman’s misdemeanor of wordiness, the playbook is the same: Blame outsiders, as part of the justification for police action against students exercising their rights to question a heinous U.S. foreign policy that is killing tens of thousands of men, women and children half a world away.
In his statement to the USC community Wednesday, Guzman claimed that almost entirely peaceful protesters in Alumni Park were “threatening the safety of our officers.” USC officials determined that its own police were unable to contain the chanting, singing, marching-in-a-circle demonstrators. Agenda items for yesterday’s student action, before it was broken up by police, included yoga, kite-making, Black/Palestinian solidarity, a Jewish Voice for Peace Kaddish reading and a sunset vigil.
In the face of these allegedly threatening protests, USC officials shut down the campus and called in the Los Angeles Police Department. I watched riot-ready officers posted at 36th and Vermont with more than three dozen police cruisers. As the Daily Trojan reported, LAPD “officers in riot gear marched into campus at around 5:30 p.m. armed with 40-millimeter less-lethal [projectile] launchers, sponge batons and zip ties.” Later, according to USC Annenberg Media, which posted a video, police fired a rubber bullet into a crowd gathered outside the school’s main gate.
As Guzman pointed fingers, USC President Carol Folt appeared to be walled off in her office, steps from Tommy Trojan. Finally she broke her silence — to gush about USC football. While protesters chanted “USC, shame on you, your hands are bloody too,” Folt took her stand — applauding the reinstatement of Reggie Bush’s Heisman Trophy. “I am so happy for Reggie and the entire Trojan Family,” our president declared.
Yesterday’s surreal disconnect follows 10 days of disingenuous statements from USC leadership, which in apparent deference to donors, and perhaps with a nervous gaze at right-wing congressional attacks on university presidents, has trampled on students’ free speech rights, citing — unoriginally — “security risks.”
On April 15, USC canceled valedictorian Asna Tabassum’s graduation speech. Her pro-Palestinian views roiled backers of Israel.
“As always, and particularly when tensions are running so high across the world, we must prioritize the safety of our community,” Guzman rationalized, although no threats were specified. On Wednesday, this concern for our safety had transmogrified into a call for riot police to clear the “camp-in” at the center of campus. USC students and faculty were ostensibly protected by arresting 93 protesters who offered little to no real resistance.
Now USC may raise the stakes. The university’s Department of Public Safety announced to protesters Wednesday that students who didn’t disperse could face suspension or expulsion. These same students presumably learned USC’s “Unifying Values”: to “stand up for what is right, regardless of status or power.” My university’s shameful doublespeak threatens to taint promising careers before they start. Professors arrested yesterday, including vulnerable untenured colleagues, may also face sanctions.
We should remember what the protests are about: According to Gaza officials, more than 34,000 Palestinians, some 14,000 of them children, have been killed by Israeli armed forces, with weapons supplied in part by U.S. taxpayers. Survivors driven from their homes face widespread famine. And as students at USC and other campuses realize, their Palestinian counterparts are victims of “scholasticide” — every university in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed.
Universities exist to advance knowledge, independent thinking and an open exchange of ideas. But USC is criminalizing protest and speech with the Orwellian charge of trespassing. This, for students assembling peacefully on their own university campus.
On Thursday, the PR-challenged USC leaders announced the cancellation of the university’s main commencement ceremony, the one at which Tabassum was to have spoken. Not to worry, though: University leadership promised to add “uniquely USC” celebrations, including performances by the Trojan Marching Band and the “releasing of the doves.” Uniquely USC, indeed.
Among protest organizers’ demands are calls for investment “transparency” and divestment from Israel. This will not come any time soon: USC is a private university and is unlikely to reveal its investments. But with the support of the USC community, another of the demands is feasible: full and unconditional amnesty for those who were arrested on Wednesday.
Student protesters and the faculty members who demonstrated along with them must not pay for the disastrous, unnecessary decisions of USC administrators to call in police to squelch legitimate protest and the free expression of ideas.
Sandy Tolan is a professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and the author of two books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, “ The Lemon Tree” and “Children of the Stone.”
