he higher education institutions in the United States are known for being centres of academic excellence that attract students from all over the world. Faculty members take pride in promoting free speech and critical minds. However, the way administration and law enforcement have dealt with recent pro-Gaza protests at several universities across the US has put a big question mark on such claims.

The outbreak of protests was not a coordinated effort. Neither was it confined to any specific area. Emory University in Atlanta, University of Texas in Austin, University of California in Los Angeles, Columbia University in New York, Tulane University in Louisiana and Arizona State University were prominent among many institutions where students and faculty initiated protests against Israeli aggression that has resulted in the killing of more than 34,000 Palestinians.

Hundreds of students and many faculty members have been arrested but remain undeterred. Many of them were subsequently released because the police didn’t know how to charge them. Many students are still in custody on charges of trespass, most notably when police entered Columbia University to tackle the students who had barricaded Hamilton Hall, one of the campus buildings. The response of the university administrations has been rather terse and the right of the students to free speech and assembly has been snubbed.

It seems that the administration of these institutions has taken its cue from the White House. In a statement issued through the WH press secretary, Andrew Bates, President Joe Biden called for the protests to be “peaceful and lawful.” “Hate speech and hate symbols have no place in America,” he went on to add.

President Biden’s statement came in the wake of Columbia University students taking over a campus building. He has, otherwise, chosen to stay mum on the protests, just as he and his administration have chosen to look the other way as Israel keeps bombing Palestinians. While states like Texas and Florida are governed by Republican administrations, New York and California have Democratic majorities. The student protests have been fiercely opposed by both the Democratic and Republic parties.

Experts attribute this to the pressure President Biden is facing from his Republican opponents in the election year. John Gray, a California native and a retired professor of political science, says that Joe Biden was attacked repeatedly as weak - somebody who couldn’t protect the US interests. “I think that has played in his psyche. Ukraine war and Israel conflict have added to that pressure internally. Now he finds himself in a position where he can’t take a step back and must show muscle to silence conservatives,” says Gray. When asked if this was against the liberal values typically espoused by the Democratic Party, he says there is very little to choose from between the two parties in the current circumstances.

Protests on US campuses against US foreign policy or war are not a new phenomenon. The civil rights movement against racial discrimination thrived at the institutions of higher education.

Hundreds of students and many faculty members have been arrested but remain undeterred. Many were released subsequently because the police didn’t know how to charge them.

There was a massive protest movement in the 1960s against the Vietnam War. In 1964, students at the University of California-Berkley protested against the university’s curbs on political activities and free speech in an era that was dominated by civil rights movement and Vietnam War. The most memorable protest was at the Kent State University in 1970. Four students were killed when the National Guards opened fire on students protesting against Vietnam War and the US invasion of Cambodia.

A few days after the shooting at Kent State University, police opened fire at a student dormitory at Jackson State University in Mississippi that had a predominantly Black student population. The students were protesting against racial injustice. Two students were killed and 12 were injured. These back-to-back incidents sparked a nationwide protest movement and hundreds of colleges and universities remained shut for weeks.

In 1985, there were anti-apartheid protests at several academic institutions across the US. Columbia University students, incidentally, were at the forefront of those protests as well. Following Columbia University, 155 other universities decided against doing any business with South Africa. These protests led to the US Congress passing the anti-apartheid bill in 1986.

Many US universities witnessed protests against the US war in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11. More recently, the Black Lives Matter protests against police violence were also held at several academic institutions. However, the academic community didn’t expect a return to the days of 1960s and ’70s, when police used brute force against the students. But the pro-Gaza protests have unmasked the reality behind the First Amendment of the US constitution that guarantees free speech.

Maggie, a Texas resident and a civil rights activist who visited Gaza in the 1980s, says that she was too young to remember what happened at the American universities and colleges during the Vietnam War. “But I have seen the cultural shift. People are afraid to talk about Palestine and what Israel is doing there,” she says; also lamenting the role of the US media which, she says,is showing a distorted picture of the reality to the public.

The US government, together with the administration of the universities where these protestors are gathered, might eventually succeed in taking the steam out of the protests. But come November 2024, these youngsters will be able to fire back using the power of their ballot in the presidential elections. Joe Biden was not too popular a candidate amongst the youth demographic in 2020 (who backed Bernie Sanders at the time). He may well bear the brunt of not heeding their sentiment in the coming polls.

The writer teaches journalism at Lamar University in Texas. He tweets at @awais saleem77