Virginia made national news over the weekend when some students walked out of the graduation ceremonies at Virginia Commonwealth University when Gov. Glenn Youngkin started speaking.
Some left to express support for Palestinians, others protested some of Youngkin’s policies and still others the VCU board’s decision not to require that students take a course in racial literacy. Maybe some were protesting all three.
This wasn’t the only school that saw some kind of protest at its graduation ceremonies — there were pro-Palestininan demonstrations at multiple schools across the country over the weekend. It’s also not the first time that students have walked out on Youngkin. Last year, when he spoke at George Mason University, some walked out while others turned their backs to protest what WUSA-TV called “his stance on how race and history are taught in schools and policies concerning transgender students.”
I do not mean to minimize or trivialize those who obviously have strong feelings on the matter, but this calls for some context before those of one generation start bashing another.
1. This protest involved a small percentage of students
WRIC-TV in Richmond, which was present at the VCU graduation, estimates that about 100 students walked out. VCU graduated approximately 4,700 students on Saturday, so those who walked out constituted 2.1% of the graduates.
2. Most colleges saw no disruptions at graduation
Lots of colleges held graduations over the weekend. I started to make a list and it quickly got too long. Let it suffice to say that most Virginia colleges held commencement ceremonies over the weekend. We have heard of no disruptions at most of those. Again, I’m not saying we should ignore those that happened — most planes land safely but a plane crash is always news — but the impression that campuses across the state or country are aflame with dissent seems wrong. Some are, some aren’t. I’m always curious why some campuses seem more politically alive than others, but we won’t figure that out today.
3. Likewise, only a small percentage of students have been arrested in pro-Palestinian protests.
At the University of Mary Washington, 12 people were arrested, nine of them students. The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia says that Mary Washington has 3,808 students, so those nine who were arrested constitute less than 1% of the student body.
At VCU in late April, police arrested 13 people, six of them students. VCU has an enrollment of 28,594, so that also constitutes less than 1% of the student body.
At Virginia Tech, police arrested 82 people, 53 of them students. Tech has an enrollment of 38,294 (I’m counting graduate students as part of all these enrollment figures), so those arrested constitute, again, less than 1% of the student body.
At the University of Virginia, 27 people were arrested, 12 of them students. Virginia has an enrollment of 25,944, so, yes, once again, less than 1% of the student body.
Even at Columbia University, which has become the epicenter of protests, we’re talking about a small number of students. Of the 202 arrested there, 109 were students. Columbia’s enrollment is about 8,800 — so those arrested constitute 1.2% of the student body.
Again, I’m not trying to minimize the importance of the protests — we’re seeing a generational shift here on how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is viewed — but I am thinking of those donors around the country who are now threatening to withhold donations to their alma mater. In some cases, they’re protesting how the universities have responded to those protests; others have said they’ll withhold donations because of the protests themselves, or, in some cases, not hire graduates from those schools. Declaring you won’t hire any graduates from that school seems both silly and wrong — a case of collective punishment, especially in light of the percentages I just showed.
Thirteen conservative federal judges have said they will no longer hire law school graduates from Columbia University because “we have lost confidence in Columbia as an institution of higher education.” If they felt Columbia’s law school was somehow substandard, that would be one thing. That’s not what they’re saying, though. They’re saying Columbia has been too lax in dealing with the protests there. “It has become clear that Columbia applies double standards when it comes to free speech and student misconduct,” the judges wrote. “If Columbia had been faced with a campus uprising of religious conservatives upset because they view abortion as a tragic genocide, we have no doubt that the university’s response would have been profoundly different.” Should any conservative graduates of Columbia Law School suffer because of this, though?
If any donors to Virginia schools are thinking of withholding checks from schools because of these protests, these are figures they may want to keep in mind. Who are you trying to punish and who will you wind up punishing?
Now, for two questions:
1. Why was the police response at Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia so different?
At Virginia, state police showed up in riot gear, and I saw one photo in which an officer was pointing a gun toward a crowd as one protester was dragged away. At Virginia Tech, all the images I saw showed police in normal uniforms and, while police certainly carry weapons, I saw no images of those weapons being brandished (and if they had been, I feel certain those photos would have circulated widely on social media). I saw a video of one protester at Tech being carried by police, but most photos and videos showed those arrested walking to waiting police vans.
Why was it necessary for police at the Charlottesville rally to show up in riot gear but not in Blacksburg? I asked state police spokeswoman Corrine Geller and here’s what she said: “There are several factors that can determine what type of uniform state police may be wearing at a civil disturbance situation … everything from the type of disturbance; to the timing of it — spontaneous or advance notice given; level of resistance and aggression of the crowd; intel available in advance; etc.”
I’m not privy to all the intelligence that police in both places had, but I am sure we still don’t know why the response was so different.
2. Were the arrests necessary?
Political opinions on this vary, as you might imagine. Those on the right point out that protesters were trespassing and violating other school rules. Those on the left — such as Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke — say the universities could have simply looked the other way as long as no one was being hurt. After all, had authorities not intervened, these protests would have probably been over by now anyway — the semester’s over.
I will not attempt to adjudicate that. However, I do notice this. In reviewing Virginia Tech’s police logs for April, I notice that Tech police made 31 arrests in April unrelated to any protest. Virtually all were for alcohol-related offenses. However, in another 44 alcohol-related cases, there were no arrests and the case was “referred to student conduct.” Put together, that means Virginia Tech had more students cited — by arrest or some other official action — for alcohol violations than were arrested in the pro-Palestinian protest.
I will simply leave this here for you to think about. Which is more serious: a student protest that technically involves trespassing or public intoxication and underage possession of alcohol?