Compared to past protests, UNC is coming down hard on pro-Palestinian protesters | Opinion

As college students peacefully protest to demand their universities disclose and dissolve any economic and academic ties it has with Israel amid its ongoing siege of Gaza, the emerging narrative is that this is a coddled, stubborn generation of hellraisers, the likes of which we have not previously seen.

That narrative is used to justify the administration’s decision to send in police officers to shut down a “solidarity encampment” on UNC-Chapel Hill’s main quad last week, then castigate student protesters and the organizations they represent.

But the pro-Palestinian protests that have taken place on UNC’s campus in recent weeks do not exist in a vacuum, nor are they unique in size or substance. They are part of a long history of student protest movements at UNC — movements that bear a strong resemblance to the one we’re witnessing right now.

Truth be told, what makes this movement different is the intolerance with which the administration has responded to it.

Not all protest movements have been met with brute force. Take the anti-apartheid protests of the 1980s for example. Students constructed a “shantytown” in front of South Building to demand the university divest from South Africa, much like students today have erected encampments on college campuses across the country to demand divestment from Israel.

Back then, the encampment was not immediately met with hostility from the administration. Rather, the chancellor told campus police to allow the encampment to stand, and it remained in place for weeks. The protests continued for months in the form of sit-ins and hunger strikes, until the UNC Endowment Board ultimately agreed to divest all funds from South African companies.

Even protests during the Vietnam War, which ended violently on other campuses, carried on peacefully in Chapel Hill. Students boycotted classes, held sit-ins and marched on South Building, while graduate students went on strike, according to UNC Libraries.

Compare that to how UNC responded to the pro-Palestinian protesters, despite the fact that the encampment was peaceful prior to the police’s arrival. Police detained 36 people (though not all of them were UNC students) and videos show police shoving and pepper-spraying protesters. Fifteen students have been suspended, according to UNC’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which organized the protest. UNC has also suspended SJP “on an interim basis.” While the exact terms of student suspensions are not known at this time, faculty say that some students have been banned from campus for up to two years. Suspended students are not permitted to attend classes, take exams, work campus jobs or access campus housing.

It seems like a disproportionately harsh punishment, especially considering UNC has come under fire for its weak response to people who pose a genuine risk to the community in the past. When a Confederate group brought guns to campus in 2019, police shook their hands and no arrests were made, despite the fact that possessing a firearm on educational property is a felony under state law. A 2019 survey found that the prevalence of sexual assault at UNC was higher than the national average, but when UNC released disciplinary records in 2020, only 15 students had been found in violation of the university’s sexual assault policy in a 13-year period, and one of those students was not even suspended.

This is not to say that student protests on UNC’s campus have never been met with suppression or police force. They have, such as during the Civil Rights Movement or the 1969 food workers’ strike — or more recently, the toppling of Confederate monument Silent Sam. But this time around, that suppression has occurred much more swiftly, and it was unprovoked by disruptive or otherwise escalatory actions by protesters.

Despite the harsh light in which the administration and even the public has painted pro-Palestine protesters, there is clear precedent for their actions. They, like their predecessors, are simply hoping to bring about change through direct action. In that sense, not much has changed. But the way UNC and other universities have continued to treat these protesters suggests that the world around them has changed greatly, and become far less tolerant of free speech and expression with which they disagree.