IS IT TOO LATE TO DEVELOP A SPINE?

Campus riots and student strikes have again become a thing, and Northwestern president Morton Schapiro has finally had enough.

Schapiro, who’s led the private university in Evanston since 2009, wrote that protesters chanted profanities, calling him “piggy Morty,” when they gathered outside his home late Saturday. He suggested the reference to pigs bordered on anti-Semitism since he’s an observant Jew — calling the language “completely unacceptable” — and questioned whether outside agitators had joined the student group.

“To those protesters and their supporters who justify such actions, I ask you to take a long hard look in the mirror and realize that this isn’t actually ‘speaking truth to power’ or furthering your cause,” Schapiro wrote. “It is an abomination and you should be ashamed of yourselves. ... I am disgusted by those who chose to disgrace this University in such a fashion.”

Evanston Mayor Steve Hagerty released a statement Tuesday saying he supports the right of people to protest but also strongly condemned demonstrators who deface or destroy property.

But students and some professors disapprove of Schapiro’s harsh language. The group behind the protests, NU Community Not Cops, and faculty of the African American Studies department criticized Schapiro for only responding to student demands when the upheaval landed on his doorstep.

The house organ for business as usual in higher education did pick up this story. (I sometimes wonder if it is more newsworthy for a campus controversy to be covered by the local newspaper or by Inside Higher Ed, which is all diversity, all the time.)

The student group leading the charge against Schapiro and university police, Northwestern University Community Not Cops (NUCNC), takes inspiration from modern-day abolitionism, a philosophical and political movement that imagines a future without prisons and police. The movement received new attention this summer, after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and subsequent national protests.

Abolitionist thinkers often argue that money divested from law enforcement can go to fund social services that decrease crime through providing a community with resources. NUCNC has advocated that the university, while cutting ties with law enforcement, must invest in Black students. The original petition demanded the university investigate avenues for reparations for slavery, create funds to support students facing legal fees following activism, provide free counseling and donate to activist groups such as Black Lives Matter and the Chicago Bond Fund, among other measures.

Schapiro’s remarks drew criticism from across campus. Faculty and affiliates from the Department of African American Studies at the university wrote a public letter to Schapiro, questioning his choices and priorities.

That public letter is a real piece of work. Here's a sample.

The term “pig” has been used by Black radical movements for generations to invoke the structural violence that police officers present. In the context of our protests, which are very clearly in response to anti-Black police violence on campus and in Evanston, this was the meaning invoked. Morton Schapiro was called a pig by members of our campaign because he aligns himself with law enforcement and prioritizes police and private property over the lives of Black students.

We’ve learned that Morton Schapiro is suggesting that “pig” is an anti-Semitic term because of the “Judensau” trope, wherein some European countries in the 14th century, Jewish people were depicted as engaging in lewd relations with pigs. We find it absurd for Morton Schapiro to suggest that protestors were invoking an anti-Semitic trope derived from the European Middle Ages and not the word “pig” as it refers to the racist United States police.

Regardless of our intent, we apologize to our Jewish community, to individuals both inside and outside of the campaign who may have been harmed by language utilized at the protest.

However, we do not apologize to Morton Shapiro. False claims of anti-Semitism have been used throughout Northwestern’s history to shut down student activists, especially Palestinian activists, and to divide coalitions by falsely claiming that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. Because of the pervasive myths of colonialism and white supremacy, we find ourselves having to repeat: anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism. We continue to stand in solidarity with Palestinian liberation by our shared virtue of abolition. As we have been saying for months, we envision a world without state-sanctioned violence: from Evanston to Lagos to Bethlehem, cops have got to go.

There's a lot more in the letter. Read it at your own risk, or, if you're a militant Normal, make sure you're not drinking your coffee.  Now, if Mr Schapiro had any experience with world news, he might be aware of the chants of "pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon" that the brain-brothers of the Northwestern protesters are given to yell.  That is, whether it's an Old German insult, or a contemporary woke insult he's hearing, he's not wrong to think of it as a death threat.

It also appears that the woke mob are not so much interested in abolishing the police as in replacing existing campus security with their own.  "Though demonstration participants had engaged in unlawful conduct, some had the temerity to complain about 'harassment' — people taking 'unwanted' photos, heckling, and one man who dared to stand at an opposite street corner holding an American flag."  When the opposition brings its own security, that might turn out not to the woke mob's advantage.

Power Line's Steven Hayward prays that Mr Schapiro will stand his ground.  "Let’s hope President Schapiro holds his ground and expels some students."  I concur, although the tendency of faculty and administrators to self-select for pusillanimity makes that event unlikely.