THE LAW, IN ITS MAJESTY.

Washington Post columnist Robin Givhan attempts to inject Victim Studies into Anatole France's old observation.

It’s been a long time since a tent was simply a tent. Today, it almost certainly represents an issue, a problem, a population with which society would prefer not to contend.

The tents are unseemly. They need to be. They’re flimsy structures staked on uneven ground surrounded by the stately architecture of the academy, capitalism and power. Their flapping scrims of nylon and plastic clutter up the landscape and serve as a rebuke to the grandiosities of polite society. The tents shame countries, cities and individuals for their failures even when the voices of the activists fall silent, when the chanting stops and the sun sets. The tents are still there.

Most recently, tents have become fundamental to the pro-Palestinian encampments constructed in college yards and on plazas from New York to California. In the nation’s capital, an encampment has taken root on the campus of George Washington University, where a few dozen tents have been pitched on the street and in the courtyard. All of it encompasses a one-block span of downtown Washington over which police officers keep watch with modest interest rather than alarm.

It came to this years ago, when Our Progressive Betters condemned the flophouses in the name of Urban Renewal and emptied the insane asylums in the name of Humanity.  The column offers an amusing interpretation of those developments.

The tents are always telling us something that we don’t want to hear.

The tents of the homeless fill parks, clutter walkways and sprout in the shadow of freeway overpasses. So leaders of western states across the political divide have gone to the Supreme Court to have those tents declared illegal. Under current law, they can’t just summarily clear the tents if those who are living in them have nowhere else to go, if there are no beds at a shelter in their city. Officials in Grants Pass, Ore., don’t want homeless camps on their streets or in their parks. But asking the Supreme Court to allow them to remove the tents doesn’t remove the problem; it doesn’t make a weak social safety net any stronger.

That's what we mostly hear about Californian cities, if without the details of the open sewers and discarded needles, although Denver is trending that way as well.  It's to the tents pitched to Make a Statement that the column focuses upon.

The activists who settled into New York’s Zuccotti Park back in 2011 drew attention to income inequality, joblessness and the outsize political influence of financial firms. Occupy Wall Street spread from Manhattan across the country and around the world. The protesters marched and rallied but mostly what they were remembered for was rolling out their sleeping bags and setting up tented tarps and creating their own little squatters camp in the midst of capitalism’s Emerald City. They were belittled as jealous of the success of others, as anti-capitalist and as vaguely un-American.

In the midst of a city where money is considered the great equalizer, the men and women who slept outside under bright blue tarps through rain, wind and even a nor’easter were an insistent reminder of a society turned ugly and heartless for a cash payout.

No, Robin, encampments have long been a manifestation of guerrilla theater.  Faux shantytowns were props the Concerned Students set up on the quad to call attention to apartheid conditions in South Africa.  The sanctions had their effect, the apartheid conditions ended, and now everyone in South Africa is miserable.  Sometimes, the cardboard box is a prop; it's much more effective on a chilly winter evening to call attention to "the homeless" whilst avoiding any serious conversation about the effects of urban renewal and closing the asylums.

In those protests, students improvised the shanties or shelters from their own packing crates and sleeping bags.  In the current round of encampments, the matching tents suggest somebody's logistics chain is involved, whether it's the Soros organization or Iranian intelligence or Russian influencers fronting the money.

Most recently, tents have become fundamental to the pro-Palestinian encampments constructed in college yards and on plazas from New York to California. In the nation’s capital, an encampment has taken root on the campus of George Washington University, where a few dozen tents have been pitched on the street and in the courtyard. All of it encompasses a one-block span of downtown Washington over which police officers keep watch with modest interest rather than alarm.

The asphalt has been colorfully chalked with mantras about Palestinian liberation and small placards abound. “Full cease-fire in Gaza now!” “Will you free my Palestine?” “Dismantle the war machine.” A statue of George Washington has been graffitied with accusations of genocide along with the university’s culpability. The life-size sculpture has also been draped in Palestinian flags, its neck wrapped in a kaffiyeh.

But it’s the tents that take up the space. Their presence is a constant, ringing reminder of unrest and anger even when the student activists type quietly on their laptops or softly sing that “Palestine needs our love” or listen in silence as the evening’s schedule is ticked off over a bullhorn. An activist lists their demands for everyone to hear, which mostly means the folks watching and listening and holding microphones and cameras. He doesn’t mention the hostages being held by Hamas. But he wants the university to divest from “all corporate ties to the Zionist state of Israel” and to cancel all trips to “occupied Palestine” for research or study abroad.

Among many things, the use of the word “Zionist” sets off alarms for the many different people who hear it. Is it pure antisemitism? Or is it an attack on the Israeli government, whose senior leaders have expressed concern that the International Criminal Court will issue arrest warrants for them? Is it an assault on the right of Israel to exist? Or is it a demand that it not continue to exist within its current contours and constructs with the Palestinian people?

Whatever it is, Robin does not want college presidents removing the Arab Spring Break from the quad.

For some college presidents, there seems to be a belief that by ripping away the tents and clearing the courtyards, they are also expunging any hate and hurt from their campus — as if antisemitism lives in these makeshift shelters and not in the heart. They demand that the protests be polite, convenient and perfect, or in the words of Princeton University’s president, that the protests adhere to “time, place and manner” regulations. They call police to make arrests. They suspend students and declare them trespassers on their own campus. But the very meaning of a protest is to disrupt the status quo, to bring thoughtless momentum to a halt, to underscore precisely how imperfect the world really is.

Here I thought it was all about hooking up. Remember "Girls say Yes to Guys who say No?"  And the beat goes on.  "First day of pro-Palestinian protests passed without conflict. What's next for UW-Milwaukee, UW-Madison?"  The usual suspects are back, with their usual non-negotiable demands.

A standoff between student protesters and college administrators over tents on Wisconsin campuses continued for a second day, mirroring a national conflict that is growing increasingly confrontational.

In the first 24 hours of the encampments set up at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and UW-Milwaukee, hundreds of protesters peacefully demonstrated against the Israel-Hamas war. Police had a limited presence and made no arrests.

How this ends is unclear.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators vowed to remain for as long as it takes until their schools meet their demands to divest from companies tied to Israel. UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin said she isn’t negotiating until the tents come down while UW-Milwaukee said it couldn’t meet the demands.

“We are obviously afraid, but our fear of being shot at or being arrested is not bigger than our fear of not doing anything for our Palestinian siblings,” said Samia Saeed, a UW-Milwaukee junior involved in the Students for a Democratic Society.

"Not doing anything for our Palestinian siblings" apparently includes not talking with the drive-by media.

Protest leaders at both schools discouraged demonstrators from speaking with reporters and instructed them not to engage with police.

"We have been able to build open communication channels with the administration in the last five months," said UW-Madison professor Samer Alatout, one of several faculty mediating between administrators and students. "We're hoping we can build on those communication channels in order to avoid what's happening in other campuses (nationally)."

Camping is not allowed on university property under state code. But Alatout pointed out the rule carves out a way for the chancellor to make an exception.

Senior administrators have to temper principle with practicality.

The protests that began Monday put UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee in a difficult position. University leaders are balancing students’ right to protest with a desire to minimize disruptions to their campuses and enforce a state rule banning encampments.

Wednesday morning, there was some sort of confrontation on Library Mall in Madison, but as of Wednesday evening, the campouts remained.  Wisconsin governor Tony "Pencil Neck" Evers (D - Public Instruction) is of the Micawber school, if with more lucidity than Dementia Joe can muster.

“At some point in time, the encampments have to end. And so, whether that’s done voluntarily or not. But yes, it’s an issue. And we will eventually take action if we have to. But we believe that everybody’s in good faith here, and people will get sick of camping outside and go back to their dorm rooms or their houses.”

Maybe. On the other hand, the opportunity to get an indefinite postponement of finals, the same way first the corona tyranny and then the Days of Rage worked out four years ago, the occupations might go on into the early summer inter-session.