What's going on in the American Ivy League colleges?

[Primroseoil]

I can't understand what they are hoping to gain?

From what?

the most privileged people in the world looking for some kind of victimhood?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/columbia-university-campus-protests-hamilton-hall-palestine-b2537569.html

Here's the live feed happening now... But what do they expect to gain?

They're kids. Kids have strong views, can be misguided and do stupid things. I certainly did.

Do you mean you don't understand the colleges reaction to the protest?

An expensive education being squandered.
Protests are part of student life, but I'm not sure this expectation of "purity" from funding organisations is even possible.

No, I can't understand why the students are doing this. These ivy's are approx 60, 000 per year, take the brightest & best & the students are flushing that away... It's nuts.

Activists have renamed the building “Hind’s Hall” in honour of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed by Israeli tanks in Gaza as paramedics tried to rescue her.

^ Thats why. They are protesting against the slaughter of innocent children while their own government continues to give aid and military might to the slaughterers.

Yes. It’s not that difficult to understand, surely, even if you don’t agree?

they’re kids
with no children, mortgage, job etc.
Essentially too much time on their hands

Bloody delighted to see the protest tbf.

The NYPost are saying it's Soros funding it. It's an election year so the usual suspects will be causing chaos same as the last two election cycles.

https://nypost.com/2024/04/26/us-news/george-soros-maoist-fund-columbias-anti-israel-tent-city/

Yeah. Can’t understand it at all. Money’s far more important, surely, than protesting against wholesale slaughter and mass starvation?

Can’t quite believe you’re really wondering why. I’m half thinking you must have posted to generate all the good reasons in the world why the students are protesting. They have a strong moral compass, for one.

Are these the same protesters who demand the uni feeds them so they won't starve?

x.com/elicalebon/status/1785560131100618798?s=46&t=ZLfJpootWPLYFrIGHXlUJw

Am American and a millennial. There’s a lot of stuff at play here besides the war in Gaza imo.

Some of the cultural issues with expecting a university to be a substitute parent for you started as I was graduating. It started to become increasingly common for parents to interfere and demand to speak to me (I was a residence hall advisor) or professors on behalf of their 18/19/20 year old kids. So I’m not surprised these young adults who have vandalized property are shocked they’re being suspended or expelled. They’ve never had to deal with consequences and have a school that’s coddled them and acted in loco parentis for several years.

University is fundamentally different in the US than here. They do not treat undergrads as adults.

I'm am American and an academic, though I have lived in the UK a long time. This really isn't something new. When I was at Columbia 20 years ago, they used to take over the main hall on campus all the time. Look at the protests in the 60s and 70s at many universities in the US - Ivy and local state universities. It's nothing at all new and nothing specific to rich kids. My undergraduate university (a state school) had a main building on campus designed specifically by architects so that it couldn't be taken over in a protest as was circular and had too many entrances to hold off law enforcement busting their way in in a siege! I was there in the 90s and the building itself was built in the 70s, I think.

I think the protests aren’t new - I think the weird “I’m suspended but you should feed me” attitude is new.

Yes I say that last night. A very entitled student leader in Columbia was saying its their basic human right to be fed by the college & was appealing for "humanitarian aid" for the Columbia students protesting 🤣

Do you mind saying which university that is, with the circular building? I’m fascinated by campus architecture — the 1960s campus of UCD, where I once taught, is popularly supposed to have been designed to be ‘riot-proof’, though this has generally been debunked.

This is exactly what I'm talking about! Thanks for sharing!

Yes, seconding this. That sounds fascinating. Thanks.

I’d also like to say that protests happened when I was at Uni too but I think it was more of a march and camp out thing. I don’t remember any occupied buildings or vandalism. And certainly no requests for room service.

The Rest Is Politics new podcast about the US had a good discussion about this (also interesting about Trump) open.spotify.com/episode/5mSrShT3tjDSUWzfnSknAU?si=NHTAGnxFS7uPKZBmu90iFw

This is nothing new. Places like Columbia were at the forefront of protesting the Vietnam war too. It has a long history of protest and radicalism.

I agree OP. It’s depressing to see these students squandering their chances over these protests. I just hope no one in the UK is conjuring up plans to do the same here, it’s bad enough with the hideous marches on Saturdays without anything else being thrown into the mix.