From Yard Correspondent Larry Lowell with
Alison Porchnik in Morningside Heights
What's behind all those protesting students who have set up little tent cities on university lawns from Cambridge to Los Angeles?
If you asked them (and you weren't a drunken ideologue like Peggy Noonan) they'd tell you that they were concerned about the apparently endless slaughter of civilians in Gaza whose principal goal seems to be the perpetuation in power of a corrupt Israeli Prime Minister who funneled millions to the Hamas terrorists he now vows to wipe out.
But only a fool would talk to the students and listen to what they are saying, when of course the real answer is “outside agitators:”
According to The New York Times,
Mayor Eric Adams and other city leaders have accused so-called outside agitators — professional organizers with no ties to the university — of hijacking a peaceful student protest and spurring its participants to adopt ever more aggressive tactics.
“Professional, external actors are involved in these protests,” said Edward A. Caban, the New York City Police Commissioner. “They are not affiliated with either the institutions or campuses in question, and they are working to escalate the situation.”
And if the NYPD says so it must be true, Have they ever lied to us before?
Blaming protests against injustice on supposed “outside agitators” is a tactic used by the forces of reaction and racism in America forever, as The Spy recounted as long ago as last week. During the Civil Rights Movement, white racists blamed such agitators for stirring up their oppressed yet otherwise contented Black population (using somewhat different terminology of course).
Going back even further, pre-Civil War secessionists blamed Northern abolitionists for stirring up slave resistance to their enviable lot.
So how important is the role of outside agitators in stirring up conflicts at America's great universities and also at Yale? [That's enough of that – Ed.]
At Columbia outside agitators (that is people other than students and faculty) have tried their best to intimidate the University:
On Jan. 19, Angelica Berrie sent an email to Nemat Shafik, the president of Columbia University. Ms. Berrie reported that the Russell Berrie Foundation, named for her late husband, had scheduled three grant payments to Columbia.
But after months of campus protests around the Israel-Hamas war, Ms. Berrie also delivered a warning.
As the foundation prepared to transfer almost $613,000, Ms. Berrie told Dr. Shafik that future giving would partly hinge on “evidence that you and leaders across the university are taking appropriate steps to create a tolerant and secure environment for Jewish members of the Columbia community.”
Months passed, and the foundation, which has donated about $86 million to Columbia over the years, did not like what it saw. Frustrated and flummoxed by the sustained tumult at Columbia, the foundation suspended its giving to the university late last month.
Nor was Mrs. Berrie, whose connection to Columbia was based on her advantageous marriage, the only outside agitator using their wealth as a club. Billionaire football tycoon and man in need of relaxation Bob Kraft also decided he would boss Columbia around by suspending his um charitable donations.
Closer to the Hub of the Universe, filthy rich plutocratic hedge fund finaglers like Bill Ackman have also used their ill-gotten gains to agitate for overthrow of the entire ruling apparatus of Harvard:
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| Outside agitator arriving at 116th St. on sealed No. 1 express |
But behind [Ackman's] anger are personal grievances that predate the uproar that has engulfed campuses since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel and Israel’s subsequent invasion of the Gaza Strip. Ackman, by his own admission and according to others around him, resents that officials at his alma mater, to which he’s donated tens of millions of dollars, and its president, Claudine Gay, have not heeded his advice on a variety of topics.
Thus far, his agitation has had limited success (beyond the cashiering of President Gay). Perhaps the Corporation heeded the memorable words of the current Mrs. Ackman, who once said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
If that were not bad enough, as previously reported in The Spy, a cabal of subversive Republican racists and know-nothings in DC have conducted a non-stop campaign of harassment and intimidation of major universities such as Harvard, Columbia, and Penn, but not Yale of course. [That's your last warning – Ed.] That sounds a lot like outside agitation to us.
By the way, now that the Old Bill has cleared out Hamilton Hall, how prevalent were these outside agitators? You'll never guess:
City officials have said that 29 percent of those arrested at Columbia this week had no connection with the university. In a statement, a spokeswoman for Mayor Eric Adams said that the arrest numbers “speak for themselves.”
We didn't major in math at Columbia University, but to us that means that over 70% of those arrested by the 50 had a valid Columbia affiliation and therefore could not be accurately described as “outside agitators.”
We're beginning to wonder if your perspective on “outside agitators” depends on where on the outside you're standing. If you're trying your best to undermine free thought and liberal education, well, anyone without a Columbia student ID is a dangerous outside agitator.
If you're more worried about those doing the undermining, not to mention the relentless and useless slaughter of civilians in Gaza to prop up the corrupt Bibi government, maybe the outsiders are the ones doing the undermining and lauding the bombers.
Or maybe the whole thing is designed to distract us from the real issue, whether it's slavery, white racism, or the continuing refusal of Israel to grapple with the legitimate demands of the Palestinians for a state of their own.
And then sometimes it turns out you want a little outside agitation.
The day before Commencement at Harvard is known as Class Day, when the school usually recruits a celebrity speaker to generate some good publicity and warm feelings from the soon-to-be graduates who will be hectored until death (and after) for bucks by the same University that ignored them up to then.
This year, though, for some unaccountable reason Harvard can't find a big enough name, at least according to the Harvard Crimson (so who knows if this is true?):
More than 10 people have declined offers to serve as the keynote speaker for Harvard's Class Day, leaving the Harvard Alumni Association scrambling to find a speaker with less than two weeks before the ceremony
— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) May 11, 2024
Any volunteers out there? https://t.co/gWFBM7ZLvQ
How about a celebrity of undoubted charisma and integrity, who epitomizes the ideal of a strong and self-made woman who isn't afraid to speak truth to power?
Members of the Class of 2024, please give a warm Harvard welcome to Stormy Daniels! Better grab her before Yale does! [You're fired – Ed.]
