The right to free speech and peaceful protest, what a funny joke.
So ACAB, and we are a country with stupidly low quality of freedom despite the morons who just think guns=freedom, and fuck this was a BS move.
However, the Constitution states only that the government will not pass laws that interfere with freedom of assembly. Courts have decided that this includes protests, picketing, labor strikes, etc.
Courts have also concluded that this doesn’t mean you can assemble wherever you want, namely on private property. These students were essentially just trespassed by the university. Can’t really blame the policeor government for this one, unless you want to lean more extreme that they should be saying “fuck off, we disagree”. But I’d rather have a system where the police follow the law because I don’t trust any of them to make any good decisions on their own morals.
The chief even came out with a statement that was a dig at the university president that he only observed peaceful protest, not the bullshit she was claiming.
Public property is fair game.
Columbia University is not public space
I’m a Columbia alum. Thank you op for continuing to bring this story and similar ones from all over the country to Lemmy. Hats off to The Spec for still covering the situation on campus. Shefik somehow hasn’t tried shutting them down just yet.
I’m still shocked to think NYPD was actually brought into South Lawn. Even there police chief said everyone was peaceful and they were only there because the president called them in.
That is actually insane, holy shit.
Lol the OP missed the biggest part: journalists are being locked up for daring to photograph this shit