Campuses Prepare to Prevent Violent Political Protest This Fall
Many college administrators have been fretting through the past mainly peaceful summer season with worries: will violent protestors return to the college campuses in the Fall just before the presidential election? How can their institution make sure the cherished academic values of freedom of speech and diverse identities be respected and upheld?
There have been numerous articles and conferences about things colleges can do to keep things peaceful. Here are a few of the most popular ideas:
1. Limiting ‘Expressive Activity’ to specific times: allowing protests during limited daytime hours, not after 9 or 10 pm, and some for only two hours in the afternoons.
2. Prohibiting encampments – sleeping or tenting overnight in open air campus spaces will be prohibited.
3. Getting university approval for an organized protest at least a few days ahead of time.
4. Prohibiting protests in certain places, allowing it only in designated areas.
5. Limiting certain speech, such as known anti-semitic phrases and calls to violent action.
6. Adding institutional counsel oversight, scrutinizing the language that protesters use.
7. Displaying Printed warnings about the possibility of being arrested, carried out by campus police and other law enforcement if warnings are ignored.
8. Banning amplified sound during certain hours.
9. Demanding that masks be removed on request.
The ACLU has protested many of these restrictions, arguing that they “stifle freedom of speech.” But as the Washington Post, among other, has noted, there is no doubt that university administrators are under considerable pressure to find the right balance between freedom of expression and student safety. Some see uncontrolled campus protests as particular problems for the Harris presidential campaign as she tries to follow a thin line between ardent supporters of Palestine and those of Israel and appease all those in between.
9/11, International Students and the 2024 Election
Last month, Americans memorialized the 23rd anniversary of the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon in DC on September 11, 2001. There were poignant tributes to the thousands who died. But few people realize how significantly that terrorist attack transformed immigration in the United States- especially for international students. Immigrants have always been welcomed ever since colonial times for their hard labor. No national immigration or labor laws were passed until the late 1880s, after the Civil War. These focused on allowing healthy, workable migrants to enter the USA through the newly established port of entry in New York Harbor, Ellis Island, run by the just formed Immigration and Naturalization Services. New laws also prohibited laborers (but not scholars or doctors) from Asia from entering. In 1924, the first comprehensive immigration law gave work permits almost exclusively to northern Europeans and border Mexicans and Canadians, with strict quotas on immigrants from all other countries. The Labor Department had legislative jurisdiction over immigration.
In the 1950s, elite colleges opened to international students from war-torn countries.
In 1964, however, the Civil Rights Act made it illegal to discriminate against or for any nationality. The Immigration and Nationality Act, passed in 1965, allowed people from every nationality to apply for a permanent immigration permit or a multitude of temporary work and student visas. The legislative committee in charge of immigration switched to the Congressional Judiciary committees. With civil rights and the Holocaust as the drivers, the focus of U.S. immigration laws changed to social justice. In 1986, The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) offered green cards to some 3 million immigrants living illegally in the U.S. in a one-time amnesty. It also made it illegal for employers to hire migrants without work permits, although this law was rarely enforced. By 2000, the number of international students on temporary non-immigration permits in the U.S. rose to over one million.
After 9/11. the focus of immigration management became national security. An entirely new agency was formed. The Department of Homeland Security (DHLS) combined 22 existing agencies, including Cybersecurity, the Secret Service, FEMA and the Coast Guard. DHLS managed all aspects of immigration entry and enforcement. It greatly expanded the Customs and Border Protection service. The INS was dissolved and replaced by two new bureaus: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It was the first agency ever to be charged with enforcing immigration laws inside the country. One of the first new laws to pass Congress after the 9/11 attack created SEVIS -- a digital information system to track the whereabouts of all international students, scholars and exchange visitors. SEVIS is connected to thousands of host colleges, the FBI and ICE.
Now, enforcement of immigration laws is a major issue in the 2024 presidential election.
NOTE: parts of this essay by Margaret Orchowski have appeared elsewhere.
It’s October: Pundits Are All Atwitter about the Latino Vote
At press time this late September, there are now less than 50 days before election day, November 5. Early voting has already begun in some states. And suddenly, as usual, many pundits who never write about Hispanic American citizen issues are obsessed with how the “Latino Vote” is going to go – for Trump or Harris? Many headlines this week say some version of the following: “Latinos Are Excited About Harris – but She Has A lot of Work to Do” (ABC, NBC, US NEWS & World Report).
The worry is especially evident in key swing states like Pennsylvania, but the deepest dive article of all, in this reporter’s opinion, was by Ryan Lizza on September 7 in Politico Magazine. In “‘Nobody in Politics Is Able to Say It’: The Truth About Latino Voters,” Lizza explains how the Latino vote is shifting. “In fact, the biggest problem with courting Latinos might be that politicians think of them strictly as an ethnic group in the first place,” argues Lizza. Obama’s “demographics is destiny” concept is over - Latinos have assimilated by economic class and education. As Lizza states, “the Latino demographic is the fastest growing segment of the blue collar, non-college educated workforce. The Democrats have had a real problem with the working class piece as the diploma divide has consolidated college-educated voters into their ranks. And what has happened as college-educated people have become more aligned with the Democratic Party is they’ve become a less diverse party. The exact opposite is happening with the Republican Party, and again, most of this is for cultural, educational and economic reasons, not racial reasons.” There are many more “aha” moments in Lizza’s article - it’s worth a read. What do you think?
