RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/pro-palestinian-anarchists-and-communists-claim-responsibility-for-vandalism-at-university-of-california-presidents-office/

A pro-Palestinian group of “anti-colonial anarchists and communists” says it was behind a recent vandalism attack against the University of California Office of the President.

The group claimed to have released hundreds of cockroaches and defaced the building’s exterior in a Sunday morning assault.

“With the Aurora Borealis above us and the martyrs in our hearts, we attacked the UC Office of the President in solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance,” read a post by the “sacred black and red” on Indybay. “Using a fire extinguisher filled with red paint we covered the facade and smashed seven windows. Then, with access to the building, we released 500 cockroaches inside and emptied a second fire exintguisher [sic] onto the interior.”

However, while the president’s office confirmed to the San Francisco Standard there was damage done to its building, it did not confirm cockroaches had been released into the building. Police are investigating the incident as a “hate-related crime.”

The alleged vandals said they “finalized the act by leaving a water jug inscribed with ‘Bonk’ at the scene — an homage to the militants of Cal Poly Humboldt and the international student encampment movement.” The comment was an apparent reference to a pro-Palestinian protester at Humboldt’s California State Polytechnic University who hit a police officer with an empty water jug in April.

The vandals went on to post a screed about the UC system’s “entanglements” with Israel that calls for the abolition of the UC system.

“The University’s true fascist form has been put on full display, and hiding behind hollow progressive ideals is no longer an option for the dead-eyed desk killers,” the group wrote. “Abolish the UC showed us in 2020 that the University of California is nothing more than a settler colonial project, that their police are protecting the gates of colony, where knowledge is produced and captured by the State to only dig its claws deeper into the flesh of Indigenous lands here and abroad.”

“Let us not forget the UC became co-ed to breed settlers and populate the west coast,” it added. “Speaking only to the UC’s material connection to the Zionist entity obfuscates the extent of the political, theoretical, and cultural entanglements between the UC and the Israeli State. The University does not simply fund Israel, it creates Israel, and launches this white-colony into the post-modern Empire. What does divestment mean when the very essence and foundation of the institution is a fascist regime? Where does Zionism begin and end in the University of California? Is divestment an oxymoron? The UC must be abolished.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/california-university-president-placed-on-leave-after-approving-israel-boycott/

The president of Sonoma State University in California was placed on an indefinite leave of absence two days after he sent an email to the university community announcing that he had acceded to campus encampment organizers’ anti-Israel demands.

Ming-Tung “Mike” Lee issued a statement on Tuesday informing SSU students, faculty, and staff that, after standing for 19 days, the anti-Israel encampment on the university’s lawn had achieved at least one of its goals: an academic boycott of Israel.

“Over the past week, senior administrators met with students and faculty to listen to and discuss student demands. On Friday, May 10 and Tuesday, May 14, I joined the group to hear directly from them,” Lee wrote.

He went on to address the new academic boycott:

SSU will not pursue or engage in any study abroad programs, faculty exchanges, or other formal collaborations that are sponsored by, or represent, the Israeli state academic and research institutions. SSU also commits to immediately updating any SSU pamphlets and SSU-hosted websites that may still be circulating or searchable and to remove hosting or linking to any pamphlets, flyers, or brochures advertising the study abroad program where students are encouraged to study abroad in Israel. SSU will make it clear to any students that any such programs are terminated until further notice and not simply suspended.

Lee also indicated his desire to seek “divestment strategies” in accordance with the encampment organizers’ demands and wrote of his personal condemnation of what he called Israel’s “genocide.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/colleges-side-with-radicals/

The Left and their media allies want you to believe the protests roiling college campuses are spontaneous uprisings of morally fervent students worried about Gaza war victims. Don’t fall for that claim. It’s a scam. These protesters don’t represent most students or the American public.

Yet recently, Columbia University canceled graduation ceremonies, kowtowing to the radical fringe, with whom they largely agree. Students and their families be damned.

Here are the facts: A miniscule 2% of people ages 18 to 29 polled by Harvard’s Kennedy School named the Israel-Hamas conflict as their top political concern, compared with double digits who were concerned about the economy. Students couldn’t care less about this issue.

Claims that today’s campus riots are reminiscent of 1968, when students closed down campuses to protest the Vietnam War, are nonsense. Back then, Gallup found 46% of respondents in that age group considered the Vietnam War the nation’s biggest problem. Not 2%.

Ray Kelly, former New York Police commissioner, nailed it Sunday when he said the nationwide turmoil “looks like a conspiracy. … We need the federal government’s investigative capacity to look at this whole situation.”

Organized outside groups are behind much of the campus violence. Hours before the storming of Columbia’s Hamilton Hall, an outside organization called The People’s Forum — known for its anti-Israel activities and links to the Chinese Communist Party — started gearing up for its Hamilton Hall invasion. In a meeting, TPF’s leader spewed invectives against Columbia.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/unc-chapel-hill-trustees-dei-funding-campus-security-protests-israel-palestine-e5960b62?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

Universities have made big investments lately in diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, and it hasn’t bought them much except divisiveness. Now the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, is putting those funds to better use. On Monday its board of trustees voted unanimously to redirect $2.3 million from school DEI programs to public safety.

Rancorous anti-Israel protests and rising antisemitism have put campus safety top of mind. Shoring up university police forces looks especially wise after some municipal police departments have declined to come to the aid of colleges that called for it. As protests escalated in Chapel Hill, UNC requested support from both the town and the state highway patrol, under Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.

When state officers arrived, they acted as reinforcements while campus police struggled with an unruly crowd. The town refused to send police to help with the encampment, claiming protesters were engaged in peaceful dissent protected by the First Amendment. Yet watch the video of the angry mob that surrounded and blocked UNC Provost Chris Clemens’s car. School buildings were defaced and an American flag was torn down and replaced with a Palestinian one.

“It’s important to consider the needs of all 30,000 students, not just the 100 or so that may want to disrupt the university’s operations,” said UNC Trustee Marty Kotis. Bigger changes might also be in the offing next week, when the University of North Carolina Board of Governors, which oversees 17 institutions, will review its diversity policies.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/university-of-north-carolina-board-slashes-dei-funding-diverts-money-to-campus-police/

The Board of Trustees for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Monday slashed funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in next year’s budget, diverting the money to public safety and policing instead.

The measure, which the board unanimously approved, redirects $2.3 million of diversity funding to campus security, possibly precipitating the collapse of the office of diversity and inclusion. The vote, reported by the local Fox8 station, comes amid disruptive anti-Israel protests that have roiled UNC and other college campuses in recent weeks. The board passed the measure after it first cleared the budget committee.

Budget committee vice-chair Marty Kotis said law enforcement needs more investment to counteract the demonstrations disrupting the functioning and stability of the school.

“It’s important to consider the needs of all 30,000 students, not just the 100 or so that may want to disrupt the university’s operations,” Kotis said, according to Fox8.

UNC’s 24-member Board of Governors, which includes the Board of Trustees and is the school’s governing body, is expected to vote next week on changing the school’s diversity policy.

Before UNC voted to cut DEI funding, the University of Florida in March closed its diversity department, fired all of its DEI staff, and canceled DEI contracts with outside vendors to comply with a Florida Board of Governor’s regulation that prohibits funding of such programs. As a result of the policy, the college shut down the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer and eliminated DEI positions and administrative appointments.

Troubling gifts and grants from the ‘State of Palestine’ funded anti-Israel curriculums, professorships, and tuition at top U.S. universities. 

Even more troubling, the ‘State of Palestine,’ as a nation, doesn’t exist. 

Neither the U.S. State Department nor the United Nations recognize the ‘State of Palestine.’ 

Airing across FOX Business last night and this weekend, Maria Bartiromo hosted me for an interview on her program “Wall Street” to break down all the details.

Columbia, Harvard, Yale and other elite universities are turning out graduates who believe that open antisemitism and the championing of terrorism are forms of “social justice.”

Congress should convene hearings to preserve our top schools as unabashedly “American” institutions. 

https://www.jns.org/emerson-college-head-tries-to-appease-anti-israel-students/

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu on Tuesday defended the police against charges by student protesters at Emerson College that officers had engaged in extreme brutality while removing their anti-Israel tent encampment, which had commandeered a city street.

The mayor said a city review found no protesters had been hospitalized. They “wanted to get arrested,” she added.

She noted that the school had offered the protesters rooms to use 24 hours a day but the response of the student organizers was to “keep the tents up to get arrested.”

The mayor’s no-nonsense response contrasted sharply with that of Emerson College president Jay Bernhardt, who has assured the protesters he “could feel the pain.”

His approach has won him little love among the student population, judging from recent meetings.

Many students called on the president to resign at a town hall meeting held on April 29, which centered around events leading up to the April 25 arrest of 118 students by the Boston Police Department. Police acted after protesters at the “Popular University Encampment” at 2 Boylston Place Alley refused to vacate the public street.

Student calls for the president’s resignation echoed a Student Government Association general assembly meeting on April 26, when students unanimously voted no-confidence in Bernhardt, who is Jewish, demanding he resign.