Everyone is watching the chaos ensuing on American college campuses where pro-Hamas mobs have illegally set up "encampments" and "liberated zones," most of which have included violent riots, chants that call for the elimination of Israel and an "intifada" against Jewish people.
The encampment protesters at Columbia broke into Hamilton Hall, smashed the doors and windows, and barricaded the doors. Columbia called The New York City Police Department (NYPD) to intervene and take back their campus. At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the campus administration flat-out allowed protestors to barricade the library and prevented Jewish students from entering. The recorded conversation between the mother of a Jewish student and an employee at UCLA reveals that the staff completely lost control of the situation when the UCLA employee asked, "Is there another entrance that your son can go through?"
Indeed, the anarchy on these campuses is frightening, yet many journalists, activists, students, and social media professionals completely spin the narrative. As Debbie Lechtman, a Jewish researcher and historian, wrote, "They are selling the lie that student protestors always end up being on the right side of history." Examples often relate to when students protest against racial or gender injustice, climate change, and inequality.
While students have led the movements for much-needed social change like apartheid South Africa and the Greensboro sit-ins, the idea that students always stood on the right side of history is false. We need not look further than recent history to find moments when student protestors were utterly wrong. For instance, there were incidents during the 1930s where some American universities had student organizations with sympathies towards fascist ideologies, including Nazi Germany. The University of Chicago was one of these universities, which held a pro-Nazi protest in 1939, as was the University of Minnesota in 1941. Many of these protesters were part of the American isolationist movement, which described itself as "anti-war" and did not support American intervention during World War II despite knowing what was happening to European Jews.
University protests in America also favored segregation, particularly during the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-20th century. These protests often occurred in response to efforts to desegregate schools and universities following the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education 1954. One notable example happened at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) in 1962. When James Meredith, a black student, attempted to enroll at Ole Miss, it sparked violent protests and riots on campus, with some students and outside agitators vehemently opposing his admission due to his race.
Another example demonstrating how students were on the wrong side of history and caused real damage was in Iran. The Iranian left-wing students played a significant role in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which resulted in the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's leadership. The students' actions and calls for change helped create the conditions that facilitated Khomeini's rise to power. It was Iranian students who barricaded the American embassy, where 53 American diplomats and citizens were held hostage by the group of militarized Iranian college students. Many years later, the students came to regret their actions.
With his vision of an Islamic government, Ayatollah Khomeini was able to capitalize on the revolutionary fervor. Eventually, Khomeini and his supporters began to sideline and suppress rival political factions, including leftist and secular groups, to establish an Islamic theocracy in Iran. Despite their initial contributions to the revolution, many left-wing activists and intellectuals were subsequently marginalized, persecuted, or forced into exile under the new regime. Students and academics who did not align with the regime's ideologies were tortured and executed.
The parallel between the students who protested supporting the Iranian revolution and those protesting in these solidarity encampments is uncanny. What should concern us all is that Ayatollah Khomenei himself praised these American college students, as did the Houthis. When terror groups and the ayatollah support your cause, maybe you are on the wrong side of history.
University students do not have a clean record, and their movements are not always righteous. We should not look at these violent protests as heroic activism or equating opposition to student movements as siding with the ruling class. The students in these encampment protests do not stand for justice; they are campus bullies who are standing on the side of Hamas and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
