COMMENTARY
Where’s Biden’s Anger at the Feckless Universities?
Seth Mandel
May 2, 2024

…A UCLA protester holding a press conference yesterday was asked about the tentifada’s goal of forcing the university to divest from conceivably Israel-related companies. She responded that divestment is only the beginning: “Given that the University of California is founded on colonialism, it’s inherently a violent institution.” And all this violence, she believes, is the fault of the Jews. Therefore, “it’s a divestment from Zionism” itself that she wants, whatever that means. Where might a student have learned such concepts? Well, at UCLA, it’s hard to pin down: The school offers 82 courses dealing with colonialism, including a Jewish Studies graduate course on colonialism and Zionism. If you’re interested in decolonization, as this student seems to be, you might have taken one of UCLA’s introduction to Western civilization or contemporary history courses, or perhaps several of its world history and Middle East-related courses, which cover decolonization. READ MORE

THE HILL Columbia protest leader: ‘Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists’ A leader of the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University had a video emerge on social media this week, threatening violence to “Zionists.” “Zionists don’t deserve to live,” student Khymani James said in a video from January. He is also heard saying “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.” The remarks happened around the time James had a meeting with school officials over a social media post about fighting a Zionist…He added that those comments occurred when he was “unusually upset after an online mob” targeted him for being “visibly queer and Black.”

I24NEWS Columbia expels protester who said ‘Zionists don’t deserve to live’ Columbia University expelled anti-Israeli student activist Khymani James on Saturday, after a video of his saying that Zionists don’t deserve to live went viral, reports claimed.

REAL CLEAR POLITICS Charles Lipson: Five Ways Campus Turmoil Hurts Democrats and America Higher education is sinking lower and lower. That’s bad news for our country, which has benefited enormously from having the world’s best system of higher education. And it’s bad news for Democrats, who face a tight election. Their party is closely tied to education at all levels, especially at elite universities. It is the party of experts, after all, and the party of the left. Universities are both. Moreover, since the Democrats control the Executive Branch, the public holds them primarily accountable for ensuring social order. Their failures are obvious to the average voter. That’s bound to hurt Democratic Party candidates in November.