EVER SINCE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY sent in the New York Police Department to clear its student Gaza solidarity encampment on April 18th, pro-Palestine student encampments have proliferated around the country—and have frequently been met with violent force. State troopers were called to the University of Texas at Austin; Atlanta police used tear gas and rubber bullets against the protesters at Emory. On Tuesday night, rows of New York City riot police stormed Columbia University and City College New York, arresting 300 people. Yet even as these scenes recall the violent police response to student antiwar protesters in 1968—and as students in Gaza, whose universities have all been destroyed, thank them for speaking up—the mainstream media has frequently justified these crackdowns as a necessary defense against lawless mobs who pose an antisemitic threat to the university. ….more