MSNBC hosts Chris Hayes and Alex Wagner used their respective Wednesday editions of All In and Alex Wagner Tonight to attack those who called in the police to end the illegal encampments and occupations on college campuses by claiming it was they who were escalating tensions and to prove their point, they pointed to those schools that surrendered to the mob.
Hayes came out of commercial break wondering what the big deal about violently breaking into a building and occupying it is, after all, actor Samuel L. Jackson was involved in a similar episode in the 60s, “Now, I tell this story for two reasons. One to remind us that college activism has long been a part of college education. The other reason, though, is to get a sense of proportion, which seems lacking today as we watched disturbing imagery emerge from campuses at Columbia, UCLA, University of Texas, University of South Florida, so many others, where cops or, in some cases, mobs took down pro-Palestinian student encampments and protests, as well as professors and journalists and just random bystanders.”
Hayes didn’t mention that the altercation counter-protestors had with the “pro-Palestinian student encampment” at UCLA came about because the campers assaulted a Jewish girl and committed other acts of violence the school did nothing about.
If violence sounds escalatory, Hayes was there to say that the real escalators are those who called in the cops, “The cumulative effect of this coverage, along with unverified assertions from police and politicians, has been to drive home the idea that student protests are basically a terrorist-level threat. That they have to be neutralized by battalions of cops armed like soldiers with MRAPs and sonic cannons. The reason this seems to me, a reaction that's out of proportion to the protests themselves.”
This led Hayes to praise those who surrendered to the mob, “It seems especially true when you look at other campuses like Brown University, where administrators negotiated with protesters who took down their encampment. At Wesleyan University whose president said the protesting there was non-violent and non-disruptive, adding, ‘as long as it continues in this way, the university will not attempt to clear the encampment.’”
Roughly 25 minutes later, Wagner played an NYPD video that did not sit well with her, “Sort of a half-promotional video for the NYPD, half a warning shot to future protesters. There's also a soundtrack, you may have noticed, and situation room footage as officers plan the Columbia sweep like it was, I don't know, the Bin Laden raid. It is not what you might call a tool for de-escalation.”
Violently occupying a building is not de-escalation either, but Wagner continued, and unlike Hayes, she actually mentioned what Brown agreed to, “But it is worth noting that some colleges have actually managed to do just that, to de-escalate the tension on their campuses this week. Both Brown and Northwestern University reached deals with student protesters this is week with protesters leaving encampments and the colleges agreeing to hear them out and to vote on divestment issues.”
Wagner didn’t mention that Northwestern agreed to also hire more Palestinian faculty, subsidize scholarships for five Palestinian students, and allow the mob and their supporters to sit on an advisory committee on university investments.
Both Brown and Northwestern’s response to the lawlessness and anti-Semitism was to give the anti-Semites more power and give their Jewish students and faculty nothing.
Still, for Wagner, the bad guys in this situation are anybody who objects to this madness, “This is happening across the country with lots of individual actors making separate decisions and that makes this story complicated, and that is important to remember because we have actors in our national discourse right now who are very much trying to exploit this tension for fairly obvious political gain.”
In related news, Northwestern is facing multiple lawsuits for its deal with the agitators.
Here are transcripts for the May 1 shows:
MSNBC All In With Chris Hayes
5/1/2024
8:42 PM ET
CHRIS HAYES: In the spring of 1969, a group of students at Morehouse College, a historically black college in Atlanta, were frustrated by what they said was the school’s slow progress on civil rights and they protested and had been rebuffed, so they locked the college trustees in their office for two days and essentially held them hostage. Now, one of the trustees was Martin Luther King Sr., father of the recently slain civil rights leader. He began having chest pains and one of the students later said we let him out of there so we wouldn’t be accused of murder. That student and his classmates eventually gave up under a promise of amnesty from the college.
The college reneged and he was expelled, it would be years before he was rehabilitated, decades before he became known the world over as actor Samuel L. Jackson. Now, I tell this story for two reasons. One to remind us that college activism has long been a part of college education.
The other reason, though, is to get a sense of proportion, which seems lacking today as we watched disturbing imagery emerge from campuses at Columbia, UCLA, University of Texas, University of South Florida, so many others, where cops, or in some cases mobs, took down pro-Palestinian student encampments and protests, as well as professors and journalists and just random bystanders.
The cumulative effect of this coverage, along with unverified assertions from police and politicians, has been to drive home the idea that student protests are basically a terrorist-level threat.
That they have to be neutralized by battalions of cops armed like soldiers with MRAPs and sonic cannons. The reason this seems to me, a reaction that's out of proportion to the protests themselves. It seems especially true when you look at other campuses like Brown University, where administrators negotiated with protesters who took down their encampment. At Wesleyan University whose president said the protesting there was non-violent and non-disruptive, adding “as long as it continues in this way, the university will not attempt to clear the encampment.”
***
MSNBC Alex Wagner Tonight
5/1/2024
9:06 PM ET
ALEX WAGNER: Sort of a half-promotional video for the NYPD, half a warning shot to future protesters. There's also a soundtrack, you may have noticed, and situation room footage as officers plan the Columbia sweep like it was, I don't know, the Bin Laden raid. It is not what you might call a tool for de-escalation. But it is worth noting that some colleges have actually managed to do just that, to de-escalate the tension on their campuses this week. Both Brown and Northwestern University reached deals with student protesters this is week with protesters leaving encampments and the colleges agreeing to hear them out and to vote on divestment issues. Whether or not that can be replicated elsewhere at this point is totally unclear. This is happening across the country with lots of individual actors making separate decisions and that makes this story complicated, and that is important to remember because we have actors in our national discourse right now who are very much trying to exploit this tension for fairly obvious political gain.
