The Authoritarian Crackdown on Student Protests in the Supposed Land of the Free
US university administrators have become complicit in a shutting down vocal opposition to the war in Gaza, reports Matt Bernardini
Ahead of the summer’s Democratic national convention in Chicago, protests on college campuses are sweeping across the nation as students express their displeasure over the incumbent President’s handling of a foreign war. Campus administrators and city authorities have dispersed police to violently crackdown on the protests, fuelling even more anger between the younger generation and those in power. No the year isn’t 1968, it’s 2024.
Demonstrations have exploded across American campuses, as young people protest the ongoing slaughtering of citizens in Gaza by the Israeli government, and Biden’s continued support by supplying Netanyahu’s government with weapons.
The tensions eerily mimic the events of 1968, when protests across America broke out against the Vietnam war and an unpopular Democratic president’s handling of it. Many of the same universities that had infamous protests against Lyndon Johnson, are once again home to students who feel that they can change the way America operates. And while Americans aren’t being sent off to fight in this war, the issue is deeply personal to many because of their familial ties to the region, as well as America’s continued military support of Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government.
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