One of the main reasons for such demonstrations is to make it extremely expensive to have such speakers, because security has to be stepped up. Of course, the administration could decide to do that in advance, if having such speakers was something they wanted. Also, ex post facto, they could decide to identify the students and make them suffer some sort of consequences. I very much doubt they will, and the demonstrators know it.
The provost wrote a meaningless statement of sympathy to the Jewish students. But the university should have anticipated the problem and prepared for it and prevented or controlled it. Or, if they failed to do that, they should have responded to it by calling the university police or the Berkeley police. Of course they didn’t. The school is a big part of the problem. Perhaps – as in England – the police there are, as well.
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