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College protesters seek amnesty to keep arrests and suspensions from trailing them

apnews.com College protesters seek amnesty to keep arrests and suspensions from trailing them

At issue is whether universities and law enforcement will clear the students of charges, or whether the suspensions and legal records will follow them into their adult lives.

Maryam Alwan figured the worst was over after New York City police in riot gear arrested her and other protesters on the Columbia University campus, loaded them onto buses and held them in custody for hours.

But the next evening, the college junior received an email from the university. Alwan and other students were being suspended after their arrests at the “ Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” a tactic colleges across the country have deployed to calm growing campus protests against the Israel-Hamas war.

The students’ plight has become a central part of protests, with students and a growing number of faculty demanding their amnesty. At issue is whether universities and law enforcement will clear the charges and withhold other consequences, or whether the suspensions and legal records will follow students into their adult lives.

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If they’re unable to get a sealed record at trial, they will be required to disclose all charges leading to conviction on any employment or housing application they complete. It’s horribly prejudicial of our system to allow the assumption that those with convictions are unworthy of employment or housing.
- System working as intended. All of this was intended to keep minorities (most black ppl) in a perpetual state of incarceration. Only now the groups deemed undesirable have expanded. We could've fixed it decades ago but the majority of this country (white ppl) were fine with it because it didn't affect them.
  
  The epitome of its not my problem until it is
  
  Step 1: keep slavery as punishment for crime.
  
  Step 2: criminalize everything, overpolice black people.
  
  Land of the free.
- Bernie Sanders was arrested at protests in his youth, iirc. If there is any glimmer of hope in this shit storm, maybe in forty years a few of these students will be leading s political movement together as senators and representatives.
  
  It’s restrictive to working in the private sector and renting an apartment. There is no disqualification for criminal background for a member of government. Trump can be elected if he’s convicted of any or all of the charges he’s facing. He’d just be barred from voting in the election.
- Not exactly a bad idea for the people doing something like hiring a pharmaceutical delivery driver to be able to check who they’re hiring.
  
  What does protesting got to do with one's risk of running a pharma heist?
Do we not have the right to protest? I fail to understand on what grounds they're being arrested.
- That's correct, you do not. Like ALL "rights" in the USA, there is another law waiting in the shadows that completely contradicts it or makes it so that it's not possible without it being illegal.
  
  You can protest. But only with permits on public and private land, without trespassing, obeying all police orders even if those are themselves illegal, blah blah blah.
  
  The sooner Americans realize all their freedoms do not exist in reality the sooner something can be done to fix it.
  
  A protest with a permit is just a parade
  
  Too many people worship the law as if it was the word of god. They don’t realize we are actually making this shit up as we go, and the laws can be changed at any moment.
  
  "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants"
  
  Thomas “I fucked Sally Hemings” Jefferson
  
  The first amendment has absolutely no references to permits. In fact it explicitly says you absolutely do not need anything, and that protests are legally protected free speech.
  
  You may protest all you want on public or federal land. I know. I routinely tell cops to "fuck off," because I know where I happen to be standing. I have yet to be arrested for a protest that I attended, and I have never even attempted to get a permit.
  
  Privately owned property is the only place they can summarily arrest you, and that's just a trespassing charge.
- Trespassing. You have the right to assembly, but that doesn't extend to anywhere, any time.
  
  These protestors could protest on the sidewalk, or get a permit and do a planned protest in a public park, or even work with the city to close roads for a planned march. As long as they kept it peaceful, police would have very little justification to arrest anyone.
  
  Instead, they are doing it on college campuses, or public roads without permission. And when they are told to leave, they refuse. At that point, you are trespassing, and the police are justified in arresting you.
  
  Civil disobedience grabs far more attention than protesting legally. We're here talking about their cause because it made headlines due to civil disobedience. But activism has its costs.
  
  Most of these protests are being done in zones designated by the university for protest. They are supposed to be allowed to protest there, as long as it doesn't disrupt people getting to class and such.
  
  Is it tresspassing, though? Not trying to argue with you, to be clear. They're students paying tuition and housing fees. I guess I could see that arguement if they weren't students. Though I agree, civil disobedience and disrupting the status quo is the only way to get people to take notice and do anything.
  
  Justified is the wrong word.
  
  public roads without permission
  
  But they are public?
  
  If the only legal way to protest is to do it alone in a field then the legality of the protest is a moot point. Protesting is about the public getting heard and the cost is to productivity. The cost shouldn’t be an arrest record and stigma. This isn’t because two or three assholes are disrupting a campus. Students are getting arrested in dozens. Professors are getting arrested too. What the colleges and universities are doing against their own students is unacceptable.
  
  The first amendment in USA gives them the right to protest even on the school ground and the school can't deny permission if the students are peaceful. And they are.
  
  Everything else you said as irrelevant.
  
  If the police can just tell you to leave then you don't actually have a right to protest.
- There are so many felonies in this country you basically commit a few every day by accident.
  
  Not for doubt, but because I can't think of any, can you give examples? Were you just hyperbolizing?
- Being right.
  
  Pointing out that we're finding atrocities
- It’s a tactic to break the protest, scare the protesters into compliance. Arrest them all, haul them off to jail. Ruin their futures. Then drop charges since they do have the right to protest, but now they won’t anymore
- If you think the police need a reason you haven't been paying attention.
- Do we not have the right to protest?
  
  No. Be sure to vote for Democrats to keep the fascism ~~away~~ in power.
  
  When people were protesting unarmed black people getting murdered in 2020; Donald publicly told police to rough them up during arrests, sent out DHS in unmarked vans to snatch people off the streets, tear gassed a group of protesters so he could hold his little Bible upside down. There's probably a bunch I am forgetting, it was a long fucking year.
  
  That was the same year his dimwitted response to the pandemic caused tens or hundreds of thousands more deaths than otherwise.
  
  He committed an insurrection. You want Repubs in power forever telling cops to beat the shit out of not only protestors, but voters? Go ahead with it.
  
  who should I vote for, then?
Holy shit the faculty against this need to strike immediately in solidarity. What the fuck sort of dystopia are we in that students are arrested and suspended for protesting? For protesting genocide? What the actual fuck.
- Google called the police on and fired anyone remotely involved with the quiet sit-in in protest of Project Nimbus. No investigation, no finesse, nothing. Just straight up intimidation.
So listen, I'm not pro Hamas. Killing non settlers at a music festival is just terroristic murder and even killing random settlers is both counterproductive and terroristic even though most of them are very bad people. That said, this framing is ridiculous:

Some demonstrations have included hate speech, antisemitic threats or support for Hamas, the group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, sparking a war in Gaza that has left more than 34,000 dead.

Blaming Hamas for Israel's slaughter is exactly the same as justifying Hamas's actions. That's very much a pro-genocide statement.
- Spot on! Fuck Hamas and all the terroristic acts against Jews and innocent lives. But one should also be able to recognise the ongoing crimes and genocide of the right wing Israeli government. Do they really think this war will lead to the destruction of Hamas or antisemitism in the region? I bet we will se double the amount of antisemites/terrorists in the future and nothing will have changed. The west is losing its face and the region was never further away from peace. Hamas trapped the Israeli government into a war and the Israeli extremists were more than happy to use the opportunity for this genocide. Seems like nobody is honestly interested in peace and the victims will be the Palistinian people and some festival goers.
- Permanently Deleted
So if the snipers don't kill them today, they won't be able to get a job in 20 years.

(I know exactly where that sniper at IU is standing and exactly where the protesters are and it is direct line-of-sight.)
- But I was assured they weren't snipers! Even though we should "treat them like snipers"? Umm so should I bring them coffee or call an artillery mission? Nobody told me whether they were friendly or enemy Not Snipers!?!
  
  I've seen a more close-up view of the Ohio one which suggest that might not be a gun, but that is so clearly a gun in the IU one that it's pretty damn hard to deny.
a tactic colleges across the country have deployed to quash growing campus protests against the genocide in Gaza.

FTFY
Wow, talk about trying to scare people into not protesting. However, it could have the opposite effect. Take away from the protestors and they have less to lose. They may start to shine a light on injustices at home, too.
- I imagine they're going to get sued in civil for refund of tuition.
- people who protested vietnam, sexism, occupy wall street, etc and weren't rich or well connected enough had to live with whatever actions their universities and local law enforcement institutions did to them for the rest of their lives and without this country changing its course; so i suspect that only the people paying attention will take note and be branded a tankie if they take any action.
  
  Weird. I protested on my campus in college and I wasn't arrested or suspended.
  
  It's almost like there's a constitutional right to do so?
  
  Yes, but most didn't have consequences and managed to effect change. Even if it wasn't as much change as they wanted.
  
  It looks like they are trying to use heavy handed tactics and fear, as well as self interest to quell the action. Its unlikely to work well as most are doing so selflessly.
  
  In fact it may embolden others rather than scare them off, or increase from a peaceful protest to having masks for anonymity etc.
  
  Yes, many suffered repercussions for Vietnam era protests bit they wear it with a badge of pride now and conscription is done politically. Mental health of personnel. Is also considered more, RHA is to protests and sympathy.
Wow this is fuckkkkkked up
Based solely on the over-reactions of the authorities, I’m guessing these protests are threatening a lot of money.
Lmao they thought suspending students for exercising their first amendment rights was going to calm things down? We have truly forgotten how to deal with protests in this country without resorting to authoritarianism.
- To forget something you have to have known in the first place. The US has a very very long history of trying to smash protests with the law. All the way back to the whiskey rebellion and before.
  
  To be fair the Whiskey rebellion was more of an armed insurrection than a protest. But yeah, point taken.
  
  Well the whole USofA as a nation is a violent protest in long form. Kinda hard to say they never knew the thing that started them.
The first amendment? Never heard of it.

Innocent until proven guilty? Pfffff, Arrest records are used to punish on the daily.
Imagine living in a country where the government says fear the other party and their insurrectionists but let them go free and instead arrest protesters. But at least Biden wiggled in some last minute toothless bill about transgender people while "slaying" his opponent with name calling.
Fascism
Isn't that a risk you take while protesting? They want to be consequence free? I'm just waiting for the young people to call for bloody revolution, as a 40 year old I'll gladly die or go to prison for a true revolution. I'll sacrifice myself for the younger people, I know the consequences.
- It's a risk that shouldn't exist when practicing freedom of speech in a peaceful manner.
  
  Not all of them have been peaceful, and it's still private property and they can ask you to leave, with legal consequences if you don't. And a lot of the rhetoric and chants have advocated violence.
- The consequence should be the inconvenience of protesting. Even if you're willing to go to jail doesn't mean you want to.
- Is it just to be jailed for protesting genocide?
  
  No. But you wear your arrest like a badge of honor, not ask for your record to be cleaned so you can go back to your capitalist 9-5, and protest on weekends
  
  I can give you plenty of reasons where it would be.
  
  To start with, you haven’t defined your terms.
  
  Is jailed actually jailed, or does book and release count?
  
  What is your definition of protest here?
  
  There are many things that have to be defined before you can try to pay you’re little word game there.
- No, and that you thought it might have been is the scariest thing to me. This is why people should exercise their rights, otherwise the population doesn't even know what rights are there and which aren't. And not knowing those rights, can't see them being encroached.
i’m not really sure how this is unfair. protesting can mean running up against laws and breaking them. the question is whether the cause you’re protesting for means enough to you to accept that.
- Because it is unrelated to their studies/work at the university and they shouldnt be attacked for it by their institution/employer for their political views.
  
  just being a student doesn't give you permission to use college campuses as you want. if you break rules or laws, there's consequences for that. if you believe that what you stand for is the most important thing, then you accept the consequences as a feature of what you're campaigning for. If you don't, then your heart isn't really in it and you just want to do whatever you want and get away with it because you feel like that's what you deserve.
- It's not illegal to protest.
  
  protesting has rules and boundaries. you are allowed to organise and protest within those, and going outside of that is usually a civil office (like trespass) or a criminal one depending on what goes on. These students are likely committing trespass.
- I’ll go with colleges are failing their basic mission of providing a safe place to help kids develop into adults. Whether you agree with them or not, the university should be in the business of creating that safe place, helping develop the future, not escalating, not poisoning the future of the kids entrusted to them.
  
  i hear you, but there's a difference between letting kids develop into adults and supporting students who trespass. You don't just get to break laws because you're a student and your school should support you to develop.

115 comments