John,

University presidents have begun calling in armed police to arrest hundreds of students peacefully protesting against the war in Gaza. This is a dangerous and uncalled for escalation that fails to address the legitimate concerns that motivate the protests. Now President Biden is under pressure to further militarize the response by calling in the National Guard.

President Biden must resist these pressures. The last thing we need is to bring in the primary combat reserve of the U.S. Army, armed with the full arsenal of modern warfare. We saw how this tactic unraveled in a May, 1970 protest against the Vietnam War at Kent State, when 28 National Guard soldiers fired into a crowd of students. The result: nine students injured, one paralyzed for life, and four were killed.

The current situation is vulnerable to a similar escalation. College campuses are meant to be hotbeds of dissent and open dialogue, not scenes that threaten violence by the state.

Underlying the crackdown is the faulty accusation that protests against the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, create anti-Semitic hostility. It’s responsible to call out the inhumanity of Israel’s unrelenting attack against an entire civilian population, trapped within borders, that the United Nations has said borders on genocide.

President Biden must refuse to send the National Guard to put down campus protests. Tell the President to reaffirm the fundamental right to protest without the threat of a military crackdown now!

Students -- like all citizens -- have a constitutional right to free speech and assembly. This right certainly applies to these protests against the horrors of the systematic annihilation of civilians, mostly women and children, with no possible means of escape.

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez expressed her concerns in a tweet directed at the leaders of Barnard College and Columbia University, asking “How does a student with no disciplinary record suddenly get to a suspension less than 24 hours after a nonviolent protest?” She questioned the asymmetric crackdown on Palestinian human rights protests.

Without clear repudiation by President Biden, unilateral actions by state governors could create violence on our own campuses. Protests against the war in Gaza are a moral necessity, as tens of thousands of innocent civilians, more than two-thirds women and children, are under deadly siege.

Click here to tell President Biden, it’s time to support students’ right to protest against atrocities, without fear of a military crackdown.  

Thank you for supporting the constitutional right to peaceful protest.

- DFA AF Team