Mediaboss Marketing

Trump in court yesterday (Jabin Botsford-Pool/Getty Images)

Whatever you think of Donald Trump and I for one think very little of him his conviction as a felon for what would ordinarily be a minor misdemeanour by a biased jury is a grim day for democracy in America. Yesterdays decision, the culmination of a vindictive prosecution, was less dramatic than the ransacking of the US Capitol by a pro-Trump mob after the 2020 election but the long-term ramifications are likely to be far more serious.

Trump, of course, is no angel. In 2020, he attempted to suborn vice-president Mike Pence into delaying the congressional ratification of the election results, and pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, into finding enough votes to change the electoral college outcome in his favour in Georgia. In seven other states, Trumps henchmen also plotted to use fake electors to swing the results. To their credit, Pence, Raffensperger and other senior Republicans stood up to Trumps bullying. The rule of law in the United States was put to the test by Donald Trump and it passed the test.

But now, anti-Trump Democrats have put the rule of law in America to the test again and this time it has been bent to the point of breaking. In February, a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of civil fraud in a case involving alleged overstatements of real estate values. And yesterday, following the prosecution of Democratic District Attorney Alvin Bragg, another Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of alleged violations in a case involving the reporting of hush money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels. It was the first time a sitting or former US president has been convicted of a crime. It was also the first time that the allies of a president of one party have successfully weaponised the American judicial system in an attempt to destroy the presidential candidate of another.

In both of these cases, the partisan motives of the Democratic prosecutors and judges were evident. Campaigning as a Democrat for the office of Attorney General in New York State in 2018, Letitia James promised that she would selectively prosecute Trump, and find some excuse, any excuse, to do so: I will never be afraid to challenge this illegitimate president, she said. I will be shining a bright light into every dark corner of his real estate dealings and every dealing. The civil fraud case brought against Trump by James was presided over by Judge Arthur Engoron, an elected judge and a Democrat who was elected to the First Judicial District of New York in 2015 without any Republican opponent, so rare are Republicans in New York.

The partisanship of the Democratic officials in the hush-money case has been just as blatant. Charges like those brought against Trump in the hush money case were rejected as too weak by Cyrus Vance, the previous Manhattan district Attorney, and they were also rejected as too flimsy by Vances successor, Manhattans current DA, Alvin Bragg. Bragg only changed his mind and brought charges against Trump after two things happened. The first was the publication of a book People vs. Donald Trump: An Inside Account by Mark Pomerantz, a member of Braggs team who resigned in protest in 2022, claiming that Bragg was not doing enough to prosecute Trump. The second was the fact that, by 2023, it was becoming clear that Trump would be the Republican nominee for the presidency.

The partisanship of the Democratic officials in the hush-money case has been just as blatant.

In the hush money case, Bragg turned what would ordinarily be a minor misdemeanour involving falsifying records into a felony, by claiming that it was somehow part of a nefarious scheme to interfere in the 2016 election. Yet even eminent legal experts find it hard to explain exactly why Trump was charged: last year, even the Left-wing website Vox described the cases legal theory as dubious.

In these two New York cases and a third case in January, in which Trump was fined an exorbitant $83 million for allegedly defaming E. Jean Carroll after another jury in Democratic Manhattan had found him guilty of sexual abuse, but not rape the legal theories may have been questionable, but the motivations of the prosecution were obvious. It is difficult not to believe that the purpose of the extraordinarily high fines in the civil fraud case and the defamation case has been to cripple Trumps presidential campaign against Biden. And the manifest purpose of the conversion of a minor misdemeanour into a felony seems just as clear to allow Biden and other Democrats to brand Trump as a convicted felon between now and the November election, and, if possible, to remove Trump from the campaign trail by jailing him.

Even more disturbing than these kangaroo court trials in one-party Democratic New York is the Espionage Act case against Trump, currently being prosecuted in Florida by Special Counsel Jack Smith. In 2016, all Democratic justices voted with the Republicans on the Supreme Court to overturn Smiths earlier prosecution of Republican governor Robert McDonnell in a corruption case involving gifts; the unanimous court warned of the broader legal implications of the Governments boundless interpretation of the federal bribery statute. In spite of or perhaps because of his overzealousness as a prosecutor, Smith was appointed by Bidens Attorney General Merrick Garland, who just happened to have been blocked from a seat on the Supreme Court by the Republican Senate majority in 2016 after then-president Obama nominated him. A minor dispute over the possession of classified documents between ex-president Trump and the bureaucrats of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) gave Garland a chance to exact personal revenge. In August 2022, Garland authorised an unprecedented raid by FBI agents who, in Trumps absence, ransacked the Florida home of the ex-president.

Like Trump, Joe Biden kept boxes of classified documents in his home following his term as Barack Obamas vice-president. And like Trump, Biden was investigated by a special counsel appointed by Merrick Garland, Robert Hur. But Hur refused to press charges under the Espionage Act against Biden on the grounds that he is an elderly man with a poor memory. In stark and disturbing contrast, Smith issued a 37-count indictment against Trump, with most of the charges being based on the Espionage Act of 1917.

From the very beginning, the Espionage Act a vague, sinister law passed by Congress in a fit of hysteria during the First World War has been abused by presidents against opposition politicians and journalists. President Woodrow Wilsons Democratic administration used it to give his Socialist presidential rival, Eugene Debs, a 10-year prison term in 1919. In the same year, Victor Berger, a Socialist member of the House of Representatives, was also convicted under the legislation. In spite of winning an election, Berger was denied his seat in Congress and disqualified from public office under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, an irrelevant clause designed to prevent ex-Confederate insurrectionists from regaining power after the Civil War. Ironically, this is the same archaic provision that was weaponised recently by Democratic officials in Colorado, Maine and Illinois, who sought to disqualify Trump from appearing on Republican primary ballots in those states, before a unanimous Supreme Court in 2024 ruled against such efforts.

Having run for President in 1920 from behind bars, Eugene Debs was pardoned by Republican president Warren G. Harding in 1921, while Bergers conviction was also overturned in the same year. In a similar vein, we can hope that enlightened state or federal courts will overturn the unjust convictions of Trump. But whether or not that happens, the damage to Americas democracy has largely been done.

In the short run, the corruption of the American legal system by Democrats out to get Trump has shattered the reputation of New York state as a safe place to live and do business. Yet far worse is the damage to Americas global reputation. Thanks to these Soviet-style show trials, the US can no longer plausibly claim to be a global example of the nonpartisan rule of law and constitutional government. That reputation was already damaged by Trumps clumsy attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Today, however, thanks to his enemies willingness to turn the courts into tools of election interference, that perception that the US is now the worlds largest banana republic has been cemented.

For in the future, by weaponising state law to try to destroy federal candidates and officeholders of the rival party, Democrats have opened a Pandoras box. It is probably only a matter of time before Republican attorney generals or former Democratic politicians on their own trumped-up charges. And why not? The use of lawfare against Trump has put a target on the back of Democratic politicians. Already some Republicans are calling for prosecutions of James and Bragg under an obscure federal statute against electoral interference. After all, such prosecutions, ruinous as they would be, are more plausible than the cases that those prosecutors have brought against Trump.

Read the original:
Trump's conviction is an assault on democracy - UnHerd

A Hong Kong court on Thursday found 14 pro-democracy activists guilty of conspiracy to subvert state power while acquitting two others, in a landmark national security case that legal experts say has eroded the credibility of the citys judicial system.

Dozens of Hong Kongs most prominent activists will now face lengthy prison sentences for their participation in an unofficial, nonviolent primary election in 2020. That vote was organized as a way to pick opposition candidates for a legislative election that was ultimately postponed. A total of 47 were charged, and most have been held in pretrial detention for more than three years.

Verdicts were handed down Thursday morning local time. Sentencing will come at a later date, according to lawyers. The remaining 31 defendants did not contest the charges. After the verdict, Hong Kongs Department of Justice told the judges it intended to appeal the two acquittals.

Fourteen Hong Kong pro-democracy activists were found guilty of conspiracy to subvert state power and two were acquitted on May 30 in a landmark subversion tria (Video: Reuters)

Beijing in 2020 imposed a new national security law on Hong Kong which was supposed to enjoy a level of autonomy under the one country, two systems framework after months-long pro-democracy protests across the city throughout 2019.

The trial, the largest national security case in the former British colony, has been closely watched as a barometer of how far the Beijing-imposed law would be used to punish opposition voices. Judges ruled that those found guilty were planning to undermine the authority of the Hong Kong government and that their defense was not valid.

Summarized stories to quickly stay informed

The ruling makes clear that the government will no longer tolerate any meaningful opposition, said Alvin Cheung, assistant professor at Queens University in Canada and a former barrister in Hong Kong. If the lawful use of legislative powers amounts to subversion, one has to wonder whether there remains any scope for dissent in the legislature.

Together, the defendants represented the full gamut of Hong Kongs once-thriving pro-democracy opposition from students to lawyers, veteran activists and relative newcomers, their views ranging from moderate to more radical. Their possible sentences range from three years to life in prison.

The trial has been overseen by three judges handpicked by the government to try national security cases, departing from the tradition under Hong Kongs common law system of trial by jury. The judges cited the involvement of foreign elements as grounds to waive a jury trial.

Among those who pleaded not guilty was Gwyneth Ho, a former journalist who rose to prominence during the 2019 protests, and Leung Kwok-hung, a 68-year-old veteran political and social activist better known as Long Hair. The defendants who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit subversion include 27-year-old activist Joshua Wong and legal scholar Benny Tai, as well as other politicians, former lawmakers and unionists.

The national security law, drafted by Beijing and passed without any consultation in Hong Kong, criminalizes broadly worded crimes such as secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. It has transformed Hong Kong and its institutions including schools, the media, the legislature and the courts and has chipped away at the territorys promised autonomy, which was meant to be preserved until 2047.

Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said after the verdicts that Beijing firmly supports the law enforcement and judicial authorities of Hong Kong to punish all kinds of acts that jeopardize national security.

The unofficial primary election in 2020 was planned and organized before the introduction of the national security law that year. Tai the legal scholar and activist who also helped launch protests in 2014 that spiraled into a 79-day occupation of city streets and the others decided to go ahead with the vote after the Beijing-imposed law was put in place. They hoped to secure a majority in the legislature for pro-democracy candidates.

More than 600,000 voters took part in the 2020 citywide primary, but the executive then decided to delay the legislative election, citing issues related to the coronavirus pandemic. Critics have argued that the prosecutions case is based largely on hypotheticals, as the defendants did not have a chance to run in the legislative election, let alone take office and then subvert the system, as alleged.

Some worry, too, that the ruling could have implications beyond those defendants. Small shops, for example, allowed their spaces to be used as venues for the unofficial primary and could find themselves implicated.

The authorities could use the case as jurisprudence to accuse people who [rented] their shops to become makeshift polling stations and volunteers who [ran] the stations as co-conspirators, said Michael Mo, a former district councilor in Hong Kong who now lives in exile in the United Kingdom. Amid the increasingly tight environment for dissent in Hong Kong, presumption of innocence is no longer there, Mo said.

In March, Hong Kongs legislature, scrubbed of opposition, unanimously passed a new package of domestically focused national security laws, known as Article 23, that further squeezed what little space remained for criticism and civil liberties.

Ahead of Thursdays verdict, one of the two acquitted defendants, Lee Yue-shun, wrote in a Facebook post that the ruling would do little to change the reality of life in Hong Kong.

Regardless of the outcome, the preservation of the legitimacy of the Hong Kong peoples way of life has already been faced with the most difficult challenges on a daily basis, he wrote.

Go here to see the original:
Hong Kong finds 14 pro-democracy activists guilty of subversion - The Washington Post

Tomashi Jacksons midcareer survey Across the Universe at the ICA Philadelphia probes the histories of culturally resonant people and places as they relate to sociopolitical issues surrounding matters of race and the state of democracy in the United States. Jacksons multilayered surfaces feature materials like quarry marble dust and Colorado sand,as well as screen prints from film stills and photographs, which highlight notable historical moments. Her workHere at the Western World (Professor Windhams Early 1970s Classroom & the 1972 Second Baptist Church Choir), 2023, pictured aboveis one such piece that will be on view in the exhibition through June 2.

You have a rigorous research-based art practice. How did that begin?

The earliest works in the show begin in 2014 when I was a student, with explorations into employing research-based methodology. Ive always been asking questions and trying to visualize language and relationships. At the time, I was experimenting with researching histories of American school desegregation. In particular, I was focused on the cases that led to the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision of 1954. As a student at Yale, I had access to the law library. I spent a lot of time trying to understand the many cases of this landmark legislation. Anyone who uses interstate travel, public education, or public broadcasting is a direct beneficiary of this legislative package.

I found myself with lots of questions about public-school transportation and a long legacy of devaluing the lives of children of color and public space, as well as defunding and depriving public schools of resources after the Supreme Court decision to desegregate schools. I had faith that if I focus on an area of research or a particular question that something is going to come of it. I didnt know what the work was going to look like. I didnt know what the solution was going to be. But I just started reading the cases.

How did you become interested in public spaces and resources?

Im from Southern California. Growing up in the 80s and 90s, I was very impacted by the prominence of murals and narratives painted in public spaces. Theres this part of me that I cant really shake: a desire to inquire about issues of public concern and embed them into a process by which new material is produced. The first works start there.

I was exploring the perception of color and its impact on the value of life in public space. As an adult, I was able to again study Josef Alberss Interaction of Color, which I had first learned in elementary school. This work gave me an opportunity to start exploring color relationships chromatically and societally. I realized that the impact of color perception and optical illusions initiated by interactions of particular colors which make us see things that arent really there. I saw an echo in the case law that I was reading.

Subsequent bodies of work follow this methodology, with site-specific research on such topics as the relationship between public transportation and voting referenda in Atlanta, for example, as well as a comparison between the contemporary use of third-party transfer programs seizing paid properties and the historic property dispossession of people of color in New York. Lets talk about some of your latest works, which were produced during an artist residency in Boulder, Colorado.

There are three new pieces in the show that use marble dust from the nearby Yule Mountain Quarry, which produced the marble for the Lincoln Memorial and mostif not allof the great monuments in Washington D.C.

Not unlike your earlier works, you employ a rigorous material process that alludes to the history of abolition and democracy in America. How do you create these multi-layered surfaces?

Before I know what the image is going to be, Im building a surface with material that is symbolic to me of a place in some way. The material used for Here at the Western World, for instance, is made of a quilting liner. I spent a lot of time in southern Colorado, outside Denver in the San Luis Valley, and I made friends with people who gave me such textiles. I attached the quilt liner to a piece of raw canvas. I used paper bags, which I separate from the handles. Over many days, I soaked the paper and unfolded it carefully, before laminating it into the surfaces of the work. The pieces become kind of like animal hides that are stretched onto the wall and cured in anticipation of stretching them onto awning style frames. The surface of the piece was then encrusted with sand from southern Colorado and marble dust from the Yule quarry.

There are additional layers and images constructed on top of that surface as well.

The halftone line image thats projected on the surface in yellow hues is an image of a particular classroom from This Is Not Who We Are (2002), a documentary film about Black communal experiences in Boulder from the 1800s to more recent years. The catalyst of the film, which questions Boulders standing as what some have called the happiest place to live in the U.S., is a controversy over excessive police force used against a Black student at Naropa University in 2019. I included an image from the film of Professor Wyndhams classroom.

Printed on the pink vinyl is a still that I created of a very quick moment from 1972 home video footage of the choir from the Second Baptist churchthe only black congregation in Boulder for many yearssinging, which resonated with my own experiences going to church growing up in Los Angeles. These places historically in the United States and other colonized countries are where people of color gather for respite and liberation. There are these moments that happen where people are trying to get closer to freedom by gathering together for release and for mutual exaltation.

See the article here:
Tomashi Jackson Probes American Democracy in Her Multilayered Work - ARTnews

WASHINGTON, D.C. In a new brief, nine Republican secretaries of state are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take a case out of Pennsylvania pushing the independent state legislature theory, a radical legal theory that could upend American elections.

The friend of the court brief submitted Tuesday by Republican secretaries of state from Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Wyoming and West Virginia argues that President Joe Biden (D)s enactment of a pro-voting executive order violates the U.S. Constitution. Specifically, Republican secretaries of state argue that the policies of Executive Order 14019 usurp the states and Congresss legislative authority pushing the radical ISL theory.

The Republican secretaries of state are in the company of 11 Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives and a far-right think-tank, the Claremont Institute, which also submitted friend of the court briefs in support of the radical ISL theory on Tuesday. The Biden administration has waived its right to respond to the petition in the Supreme Court.

If adopted by the Supreme Court, the ISL theory could mean that only state legislatures can regulate federal elections. In practice this could mean that all other parts of state government governors, the courts, the people or even state constitutions themselves would not be able to set the rules governing elections. Last June, the Supreme Court rejected this theory in a 6-3 decision in Moore v. Harper.

Since the Supreme Courts decision in Moore v. Harper, Republicans have been attempting to revive the theory through new lawsuits. In January, Republican state legislators from the Keystone State filed a lawsuit alleging that Bidens Executive Order 14019, which was passed in 2021 to promote voting access, violates the U.S. Constitution. The executive order directs the federal government to look into a variety of efforts to expand voting rights, including making federal workers and resources available to help staff polling locations as well as allowing federal agencies to share data with states that wish to establish automatic voter registration efforts.

Previously, the trial court dismissed the case for lack of standing, but in late April, the Republican plaintiffs asked the Supreme Court to take up their case while an appeal is still pending in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Arguing that only Congress can enact federal laws preempting state legal provisions regulating the times, places, and manner of Congressional elections, the Republican legislators who brought the case contend that Bidens executive order and other challenged policies cannot be implemented in Pennsylvania.

Now, nine Republican secretaries of state are also asking the Supreme Court to take up this radical challenge. The Elections Clause provides for states, not the President of the United States, to regulate state voter registration systems and designation of other agencies to provide voter registration services, the brief argues, further pushing the radical idea that only state legislatures can regulate elections.

Read the brief here.

Learn more about the case here.

Read the original post:
Republican Election Officials Support Radical Theory to Upend American Elections - Democracy Docket

The early months of summer on college campuses are usually bustling with proud parents ready to celebrate students years-long efforts to obtain a college degree.

But this year, many college campuses look very differentand some are eerily emptyas thousands of students and even faculty members established tent encampments on the lawns of nearly 100 campuses in protest of institutional investment in weapons, equipment, and technology that undergird and support the Israeli military campaign in Gaza. Protesting students want their universities to sever partnerships and financial programs connected to the Israeli government and military.

Faced with student protestors demands, educational institutions are finding themselves between a rock and a hard place. Divestment can be seen as taking sides when universities aim to stay apolitical, and more critically, it can reduce the financial returns that universities rely on to support their operations and activities. For student protestors, the view is that their university a moral authorityis profiting from a military campaign they vehemently disagree with. For universities, the view is not nearly as clear cut. The situation means many schools are navigating how to respond to students demands and protests, along with the interests of their network of donorswhile also managing how their reputations will be affected by each move they make.

Antisemitism is also a serious concern, given that the basis for the protests arose after the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Some Jewish students have reported that Pro-Palestinian encampments make them feel less safe on campus, pointing out that some of the chants protestors have adopted are antisemitic and have been co-opted by Hamas to call for the murder of Jews. Although the chant is being used rampantly, for activists, its taken on a different meaning, but for some Jews its a threat.

Its an especially complex decision for schools that have large endowments or networks of donors who can influence the investments and financial decisions of an institution. And making it even more difficult, the aggressive crackdown many schools deployed to dismantle student encampments, including police equipped with riot gear and military grade weapons, has spurred national criticism on the handling of protests on campus. The aftermath of these responses is both sizable and expensive: Thousands of people have been arrested in relation to campus protests; hundreds of student activists have been suspended or expelled; and several schools opted to cancel commencement ceremonies.

Archon Fung, a professor who teaches political science and citizenship at Harvard Kennedy School, told Fortune, civil disobedience is, by definition, breaking the rules, adding that such acts have an important place in democracy. Fung cited Columbia Universitys student protests of 1968 in opposition to the Vietnam War and the schools expansion into Harlem.

Fung explained that historically, student protest encampments have helped successfully end wars and global occupations that many experts now agree were injustices, like the war in Vietnam and South African apartheid. Fung also recalled how administration responded to student dissent over South African apartheid at his own undergraduate university, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which he attended in the late 1980s.

At the time, he said, the main acts of civil disobedience were calls for divestments from South Africa, and occupying buildings, as well as pitching tents, was one of the techniques. Police were sometimes called to clear those demonstrations, he recalled, but added that administration at the time was more open to dialogues with protestors and that the level of aggression against student demonstrators today is notably more intense.

Its hard for me to imagine any university president having an open debate with a representative of the pro-Palestinian cause, but I do miss that because I think the university should be a place of reason and the exchange of arguments back and forth.

In the past several months, hundreds of students have established Gaza Solidarity Encampments at more than 60 college campusesand while the protestors demands vary at each institution, they largely focus on divestment from Israel, financial transparency, and granting amnesty to students who face disciplinary action over campus activism.

Colleges have been rife with student dissent since the brutal Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Southern Israel, which killed over 1,200 people. Israels response, a catastrophic military campaign that killed more than 36,000 Palestinians, is now entering its ninth month. The encampment students also aim to show solidarity with millions of Palestinian civilians enduring the highest civilian casualty rate of any war in the 21st century. As Israel continues its military campaign, which is seen as the most destructive in recent history, Palestinians are suffering calamitous levels of disaster, including famine and disease outbreaks, and a crisis, in which at least a thousand children have lost limbs and over 19,000 children have been orphaned because of indiscriminate bombing in the war.

The most aggressive campus responses to encampments include authorizing police to mass arrest students and suspending, expelling, and evicting student activists. More than 4,000 people have been arrested so far on college campuses across the country, and incidents of disciplinary action are rampant, too. At least 53 students have been suspended and evicted from Columbia University this year due to participation in Gaza Solidarity Encampments, according to Columbia Spectator, the universitys publication. The University of Southern California barred a Muslim valedictorian, who graduated with a minor in resistance to genocide, from delivering the roles trademark commencement speech.

The University of Southern California declined Fortunes request for comment.

According to Donald Saleh, who has worked as an enrollment planning strategist and consultant for many universities for the past several decades, many institutions will need to consider how their reputations have been impacted by their response to student demonstrationsespecially in terms of retaining incoming prospective students.

Saleh told Fortune, a number of institutions that are in the headlines right now about these protests have large enrollments of international students. They often travel thousands of miles to attend schools and want to make sure theyre going to be someplace safe.

When the police are coming in on these campuses to break up the protests and take down the encampments, they dont do that without consultation with the leadership of the campus, Saleh said. The reputational concern is that College X or University Y could not manage this without having police come in, make arrests, and physically remove people from the campus.

These responses could be a cause of big financial concern, he said, if incoming prospective students decide to attend school elsewhere, which he said could be a common scenario.

At the very least, the protests have been affecting how schools engage with admitted students. The University of California, San Diego canceled campus tours for at least two days in May after students established encampments; student protestors at Washington University in St. Louis interrupted a packed admitted students event in the university chapel, unfurling a banner that read Divest from Palestininan Genocide, on April 13; and at New York University, tours were rerouted to avoid student encampments.

I would be taking more students off the waitlist to protect against the possibility that some of those students who have already committed are going to leave, Saleh said, adding that dwindling enrollment numbers can have a financial impact on a university.

Many colleges across the country balance their budgets on a year-to-year basis, he explained, and use the operating plans to predict how many students to enroll and award financial aid packages. When those estimates are disrupted in a negative way by events on your campus, he said, missing your target by just 2% or 3% has budgetary implications that ripple through at least for one year, often for more.

Another cause of reputational concern for institutions, he said, is how the donors of an institution may respond to how they handle student demonstrations.

If Im a donor and I have an affiliation with groups of students who now feel that the campus environment is threatening to them or unsafe for them, Saleh explained, my inclination to donate to that campus is going to be significantly less than it might have been four months ago. Saleh told Fortune he believes this reputational effect is something college administrators, fundraising staff, and alumni affairs employees will be very concerned about, especially as it relates to donors.

At Columbia University, for example, more than 200 students were arrested during two police raids on April 18 and April 30, the latter of which, coincidentally, is the same day 700 students were arrested for protesting the divisive Vietnam War and Columbias expansion into Harlem more than 50 years ago. As it turns out, Columbia restructured how its administration makes decisions, like police authorization, after those infamous protestsand in authorizing the police on campus this spring, broke those rules explicitly.

A Columbia University spokesperson told Fortune a small group of academic leaders had been in dialogue with student organizers to find a path that would result in the dismantling of the encampment, but they were not able to come to an agreement.

When asked specifically about violating the 1969 pact, a Columbia spokesperson did not respond to several of Fortunes requests for comment.

Fung, the Harvard professor, told Fortune, having been on campuses for 20 years and seeing a lot of different campaigns of civil disobedience, I dont recall anything nearly like this level of police response in the post-Vietnam era.

The level of aggression in schools responses is also made more egregious considering the student demonstrations have largely been nonviolent and peaceful in nature.

Roosevelt Monts, a professor who specializes in American citizenship and has been teaching at Columbia for 30 years, told Fortune that reports of violence and intimidation, by the student protestors are isolated and very much a minority, and that many colleges are responding to concerns of safety subjectively, rather than through documentation of incidents.

All things considered, Fung insists that the right for students to peacefullywhich means nonviolentlyprotest is important. Civil disobedience is saying, look, the ordinary democratic channels are blocked up. We cant get a hearing for this great injustice. So were going to break the law, he said. Sometimes, it moves society forward.

Its an opinion Monts shares, too. Students are often ahead of the curve on social and cultural issues, he said. This might be one of those issues.

Several of the worlds largest international organizations have been sounding alarms about the humanitarian crisis caused by Israels military campaign in Gazathe secretary of United Nations has been urging a cease-fire, and the International Criminal Courts prosecutor announced on May 20 that he has requested arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with his defense chief and three Hamas leaders over alleged war crimes.

Many European countries, including France, Belgium, and Germany, announced their governments would enforce the arrest warrants if it becomes issued by the international court.

More here:
Civil disobedience and calls for financial divestments 'have an important place in democracy'but many schools also ... - Fortune