By Ray Cardello for May 1, 2024, Season 26 / Post 11

I am writing this article with views from many angles. As a father, school bus driver, and observer of the news, there are so many things wrong with the campus protests/occupations, especially at Columbia University in New York City, and the reactions by the people who should be in charge of restoring order to these schools of higher education.

As a father, I think parenting children 35 to 40 years ago was easier than it is today. That time was before the social networking explosion, and no child was holding a smartphone in their hands all day. Children still had friends they interacted with face-to-face, and they were not bombarded with information on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, coaching them and telling them how they should look and behave in a fast-paced world. Their parents and teachers were usually in sync, and there was still a level of discipline and accountability.

Parents must compete with social media today, and with so much peer pressure to fit in, they do not stand a chance. Parents and teachers may not be in chorus, and parents usually compete to control their children’s upbringing. Parents often lean more toward being friends with their children than they do with being mom and dad. These coddled children know how to play the game, and the lack of boundaries starts early. These students occupying buildings at Columbia are not bright college students but immature children who see nothing wrong with what they are doing.

The schools that are experiencing the most prominent protests are private institutions, so the police are not able to enter these properties and quell these actions. Even though they are abusing Jewish classmates and professors, the police can only act by invitation. The school administration has to accept the brunt of the blame as these protests grow into civil disorder. Negotiating instead of shutting them down was the first issue, and when they continued to move the deadlines as they were broken, they showed a significant lack of leadership.

Their reasons for protest and their demands expose the issues with what they have been taught for 16 years. They are supporting and pledging allegiance to a terrorist group, Hamas, in their condemnation of Israel and their Jewish classmates. They are displaying their degree of entitlement with their demands of Columbia to sever ties with any entity with ties to Israel and the absolution of any punishment for what they have done for the last ten days.

These students and the activist groups that back them must be identified and punished. There has to be accountability. There have to be people who are spectators now: Columbia University President Minouche Shafik, Mayor Adams, Governor Hochul, Chuck Schumer, and President Biden, step up, condemn the action of these civil activists, and support the university with whatever punishment they hand down to these students. Finally, where are the parents? Did they send their children to Columbia to become political activists or terrorists or to get a first-class education? Right now, they are failing their children by allowing them to get caught up in the illegal movement. With each passing day, this situation will be more ugly and brutal to terminate. The police are poised and ready and should be called in to do their jobs and end this ugly chapter in history.