What caused 70 US universities to arrest protesting students while many more did not?

Earlier this year, the New York Times reported that about 3100 people had been arrested at pro-Palestinian campus protests across the US, noting that 70 schools had arrested or detained people. In addition to arrests, a varying degree of force has been used, including the use of targeted police surveillance, tear gas, and batons. 

After those arrests, some schools expelled those protesting students, banned them from campuses, and denied them degrees. Schools also established more onerous policies to stop occupations and other forms of peaceful protest. A few listened to the demands of their students, which included the divestment of funds related to Israel's violent occupation of Palestine. 

What can students, teachers, and other university workers learn from these administrative policies and crackdowns? The first thing is to find out what data are out there, and then what information is missing, and perhaps deliberately withheld.

Documenting Campus Crackdowns and Use of Force

The NY Times noted mass arrests/detentions at UCLA (271), Columbia (217), City College of New York (173), University of Texas, Austin (136), UMass Amherst (133), SUNY New Paltz (132), UC Santa Cruz (124), Emerson College (118), Washington University in Saint Louis (100), Northeastern (98), University of Southern California (93), Dartmouth College (89), Virginia Tech (82), Arizona State University (72), SUNY Purchase (68), Art Institute of Chicago (68), UC San Diego (64), Cal Poly Humboldt (60), Indiana University (57), Yale University (52), Fashion Institute of Technology (50), New School (43), Auraria Campus in Denver (40), Ohio State University (38), NYU (37), Portland State University (37), University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, (36), University of Pennsylvania (33), George Washington University (33), Stony Brook University (39), Emory University (28), University of Virginia (27), Tulane University (26), and University of New Mexico (16). In many cases, court charges were dropped but many students faced being barred from campuses or having their diplomas withheld.

The Crowd Counting Consortium at Harvard University's Kennedy School has also been keeping data on US protests and their outcomes from social media, noting that "protest participants have been injured by police or counter-protesters — sometimes severely — about as often as protesters have caused property damage, much of which has been limited to graffiti." Their interactive dashboard is here.  

According to a Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) database, out of 258 US universities that held protests, only 60 schools resorted to arrests.* Why did these schools, many name-brand schools, use arrests (and other forms of threats and coercion) as a tactic while others did not? A number of states reported no arrests, particularly in the US North, South, and West.

Analyzing the Data For Good Reasons

There appear to be few obvious answers (and measurable variables) to accurately explain this multi-layered phenomenon, something the media have largely ignored. But that does not mean that this cannot be explained to a better extent than the US media have explained it.

It's tempting to look at a few interesting data points (e.g. according to FIRE, Cornell University and Harvard did not have arrests, and neither did Baylor, Liberty University, and Hillsdale College. Six University of California schools had arrests but three did not. And all of the schools that came before the US House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee examining antisemitism (Harvard, Penn, MIT) had arrests after their appearances. The Arizona House had similar hearings in 2023 and 2024 regarding antisemitism and their two biggest schools, Arizona State University and the University of Arizona, had arrests.

Missing Data and Analysis

What else can we notice in this pattern about the administrations involved, the trustees, major donors, or the student body? How much pressure was there from major donors and trustees and can this be quantified? Anecdotally, there were a few public reports from wealthy donors who were unhappy with the protests. Who were those 3100 or so students and teachers who were arrested and what if any affiliations did they have? How many of the students who were arrested Jewish, and what side were they on? How many of these schools with arrests had chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Students Supporting Israel? How many schools with these student interest groups did not resort to arrests?

How much communication and coordination was there within schools and among schools, both by administrations and student interest groups? What other possible differences were there between the arrest group and the non-arrest group and are they measurable?

What other dependent variables besides arrests could be or should be be measured (e.g. convictions, fines and sentences, students expelled or banned from campus)? What will become of those who were arrested? Will they be part of a threat database? Will this interfere with their futures beyond higher education? Is it possible to come up with a path analysis or networking models of these events, to include what preceded the arrests and what followed? And what becomes of the few universities that operate more like fortresses today than ivory towers? How soon will they return to normal?


Arrest Group (Source: FIRE)*

4 Arizona State University Yes
8 Barnard College Yes
41 Columbia University Yes
46 Dartmouth College Yes
57 Emory University Yes
59 Florida State University Yes
60 Fordham University Yes
64 George Washington University Yes
78 Indiana University Yes
94 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Yes
105 New Mexico State University Yes
106 New York University Yes
110 Northeastern University Yes
111 Northern Arizona University Yes
112 Northwestern University Yes
115 Ohio State University Yes
123 Portland State University Yes
124 Princeton University Yes
140 Stanford University Yes
142 Stony Brook University Yes
155 Tulane University Yes
156 University at Buffalo Yes
161 University of Arizona Yes
163 University of California, Berkeley Yes
165 University of California, Irvine Yes
166 University of California, Los Angeles Yes
169 University of California, San Diego Yes
170 University of California, Santa Barbara Yes
171 University of California, Santa Cruz Yes
176 University of Colorado, Denver Yes
177 University of Connecticut Yes
181 University of Florida Yes
182 University of Georgia Yes
184 University of Houston Yes
187 University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Yes
189 University of Kansas Yes
194 University of Massachusetts Yes
197 University of Michigan Yes
198 University of Minnesota Yes
206 University of New Hampshire Yes
207 University of New Mexico Yes
208 University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Yes
209 University of North Carolina, Charlotte Yes
212 University of Notre Dame Yes
215 University of Pennsylvania Yes
216 University of Pittsburgh Yes
220 University of South Carolina Yes
221 University of South Florida Yes
222 University of Southern California Yes
225 University of Texas, Austin Yes
226 University of Texas, Dallas Yes
231 University of Utah Yes
233 University of Virginia Yes
236 University of Wisconsin, Madison Yes
242 Virginia Commonwealth University Yes
243 Virginia Tech University Yes
247 Washington University in St Louis Yes
248 Wayne State University Yes
257 Yale University Yes

Non-arrest Group (Source: FIRE)*

1 American University No
2 Amherst College No
3 Appalachian State University No
5 Arkansas State University No
6 Auburn University No
7 Bard College No
9 Bates College No
10 Baylor University No
11 Berea College No
12 Binghamton University No
13 Boise State University No
14 Boston College No
15 Boston University No
16 Bowdoin College No
17 Bowling Green State University No
18 Brandeis University No
19 Brigham Young University No
20 Brown University No*
21 Bucknell University No
22 California Institute of Technology No
23 California Polytechnic State University No
24 California State University, Fresno No
25 California State University, Los Angeles No
26 Carleton College No
27 Carnegie Mellon University No
28 Case Western Reserve University No
29 Central Michigan University No
30 Chapman University No
31 Claremont McKenna College No
32 Clark University No
33 Clarkson University No
34 Clemson University No
35 Colby College No
36 Colgate University No
37 College of Charleston No
38 Colorado College No
39 Colorado School of Mines No
40 Colorado State University No
42 Connecticut College No
43 Cornell University No
44 Creighton University No
45 Dakota State University No
47 Davidson College No
48 Denison University No
49 DePaul University No
50 DePauw University No
51 Drexel University No
52 Duke University No
53 Duquesne University No
54 East Carolina University No
55 Eastern Kentucky University No
56 Eastern Michigan University No
58 Florida International University No
61 Franklin and Marshall College No
62 Furman University No
63 George Mason University No
65 Georgetown University No
66 Georgia Institute of Technology No
67 Georgia State University No
68 Gettysburg College No
69 Grinnell College No
70 Hamilton College No
71 Harvard University No*
72 Harvey Mudd College No
73 Haverford College No
74 Hillsdale College No
75 Howard University No
76 Illinois Institute of Technology No
77 Illinois State University No
79 Indiana University Purdue University No
80 Iowa State University No
81 James Madison University No
82 Johns Hopkins University No
83 Kansas State University No
84 Kent State University No
85 Kenyon College No
86 Knox College No
87 Lafayette College No
88 Lehigh University No
89 Liberty University No
90 Louisiana State University No
91 Loyola University, Chicago No
92 Macalester College No
93 Marquette University No
95 Miami University No
96 Michigan State University No
97 Michigan Technological University No
98 Middlebury College No
99 Mississippi State University No
100 Missouri State University No
101 Montana State University No
102 Montclair State University No
103 Mount Holyoke College No
104 New Jersey Institute of Technology No
107 North Carolina State University No
108 North Dakota State University No
109 Northeastern Illinois University No
113 Oberlin College No
114 Occidental College No
116 Ohio University No
117 Oklahoma State University No
118 Oregon State University No
119 Pennsylvania State University No
120 Pepperdine University No
121 Pitzer College No
122 Pomona College No
125 Purdue University No
126 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute No
127 Rice University No
128 Rowan University No
129 Rutgers University No
130 Saint Louis University No
131 San Diego State University No
132 San Jose State University No
133 Santa Clara University No
134 Scripps College No
135 Skidmore College No
136 Smith College No
137 Southern Illinois University, Carbondale No
138 Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville No
139 Southern Methodist University No
141 Stevens Institute of Technology No
143 SUNY at Albany No
144 SUNY College at Geneseo No
145 Swarthmore College No
146 Syracuse University No
147 Temple University No
148 Texas A&M University No
149 Texas State University No
150 Texas Tech University No
151 The College of William and Mary No
152 Towson University No
153 Trinity College No
154 Tufts University No
157 University of Alabama, Birmingham No
158 University of Alabama, Huntsville No
159 University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa No
160 University of Alaska No
162 University of Arkansas No
164 University of California, Davis No
167 University of California, Merced No
168 University of California, Riverside No
172 University of Central Florida No
173 University of Chicago No
174 University of Cincinnati No
175 University of Colorado, Boulder No
178 University of Dayton No
179 University of Delaware No
180 University of Denver No
183 University of Hawaii No
185 University of Idaho No
186 University of Illinois, Chicago No
188 University of Iowa No
190 University of Kentucky No
191 University of Louisville No
192 University of Maine No
193 University of Maryland No
195 University of Memphis No
196 University of Miami No
199 University of Mississippi No
200 University of Missouri, Columbia No
201 University of Missouri, Kansas City No
202 University of Missouri, St Louis No
203 University of Nebraska No
204 University of Nevada, Las Vegas No
205 University of Nevada, Reno No
210 University of North Carolina, Greensboro No
211 University of North Texas No
213 University of Oklahoma No
214 University of Oregon No
217 University of Rhode Island No
218 University of Rochester No
219 University of San Francisco No
223 University of Tennessee No
224 University of Texas, Arlington No
227 University of Texas, El Paso No
228 University of Texas, San Antonio No
229 University of Toledo No
230 University of Tulsa No
232 University of Vermont No
234 University of Washington No
235 University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire No
237 University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee No
238 University of Wyoming No
239 Utah State University No
240 Vanderbilt University No
241 Vassar College No
244 Wake Forest University No
245 Washington and Lee University No
246 Washington State University No
249 Wellesley College No
250 Wesleyan University No
251 West Virginia University No
252 Western Michigan University No
253 Wheaton College No
254 Williams College No
255 Worcester Polytechnic Institute No
256 Wright State University No 

*Media sources indicate that in 2023, 2 graduate students were arrested at Harvard, and more than 40 people were arrested at Brown University. 

Related links:

Campus Protests, Campus Safety, and the Student Imagination 

Democratic Protests on Campus: Modeling the Better World We Seek (Annelise Orleck)

Methods of Student Nonviolent Resistance

Wikipedia Community Documents Pro-Palestinian Protests on University and College Campuses

Dangerous Spaces: Sexual Assault and Other Forms of Violence On and Off Campus

One Fascism or Two?: The Reemergence of "Fascism(s)" in US Higher Education

A People's History of Higher Education in the US?

Letter to an incoming freshman

Higher Education, Technology, and A Growing Social Anxiety

The Era We Are In

We are living in a neoliberal/libertarian era filled with technological change, emotional and behavioral change, and social change. An era resulting in alienation (disconnection/isolation) for the working class and anomie (lawlessness) among elites and those who serve them. We are simultaneously moving forward with technology and backward with human values and principles. Elites are reestablishing a more brutal world, hearkening back to previous centuries--a world the Higher Education Inquirer has been observing and documenting since 2016. No wonder folks of the working class and middle class are anxious. 

Manufactured College Mania

For years, authorities such as the New York Federal Reserve expressed the notion (or perhaps myth) that higher education was an imperative for young folks. They said that the wealth premium for college graduates was a million dollars over the course of a lifetime--ignoring the fact that a large percentage of people who started college never graduated--and that tens of millions of consumers and their families were drowning in student loan debt. 

2U, Guild Education, and a number of online robocolleges reflected the neoliberal promise of higher education and online technology to improve social mobility.  The mainstream media were largely complicit with these higher ed schemes. 

2U brought advanced degrees and certificates to the masses, using brand names such as Harvard, MIT, Yale, USC, University of North Carolina, and the University of Texas to promote the expensive credentials that did not work for many consumers. 

Guild Education brought educational opportunities to folks at Walmart, Target, Macy's and other Fortune 500 companies who would be replacing their workers with robotics, AI, and other technologies. But the educational opportunities were for credentials from subprime online schools like Purdue University Global. Few workers took the bait. 

As 2U files for bankruptcy, it leaves a number of debt holders holding the bag, including more than $500M to Wilmington Trust, and $30M to other vendors and clients, including Guild Education, and a number of elite universities. Guild Education is still alive, but like 2U, has had to fire a quarter of its workers, even downsizing its name to Guild, as investor money dries up. It continues to spend money on its image, as a Team USA sponsor.    

The online robocolleges (including Liberty University, Grand Canyon University, University of Phoenix, Purdue University Global, and University of Arizona Global)  brought adult education and hope to the masses, especially those who were underemployed. In many cases, it was false hope, as they also brought insurmountable student debt to American consumers. Billions and billions in debt that cannot be repaid, now considered toxic assets to the US government. 

Along the way there have been important detractors in popular culture, especially on the right. Conservative radio celebrity Dave Ramsey, railed against irresponsible folks carrying lots of debt, including student loan debt. He was not wrong, but he did not implicate those who preyed on student consumers. On the left, the Debt Collective also railed against student loan debt, long before the right, but they were often ignored or marginalized. 

Adapting to a Brutal System

The system  works for elites and some of those who serve them, but not for others, even some of the middle class. Good jobs once at the end of the education pipeline have been replaced by 12-hour shifts, 60 hour work weeks, bullsh*t jobs, and gig work. 

Working-class Americans are living shorter lives, lives in some cases made worse not so much by lack of education, but by the destruction of union jobs, and by social media, and other intended and unintended consequences of technology and neoliberalism. Millions of folks, working class and some middle class, who have invested in higher education and have overwhelming debt and fading job prospects, feel like they have been lied to.

We also have lives made more sedentary and solitary by technology. Lives made more hectic and less tolerable. Inequality making lives too easy for those with privilege and lives too difficult for the working class to manage. Lives managed by having fewer relationships and fewer children. Many smartly choosing not to bring children into this new world. All of this manufactured by technology and human greed.  

The College Dream is Over...for the Working Class

There are two competing messages about higher education: the first that college brings opportunity and wealth and the second, that higher education may bring debt and misery. The truth is, these different messages are meant for two groups: pushing brand name schools and student loans for the most ambitious middle class/working class and a lesser form of education for the struggling working class. 

In 2020, Gary Roth said that the college dream was over. Yet the socially manufactured college mania continues, flooding the internet with ads for college and college loans, as social realities point to a future with fewer good and meaningful jobs even for those with degrees. Higher education will continue to work for some, but should every consumer, especially among the struggling working class, believe the message is for them? 

Related links:

More than half of college grads are stuck in jobs that don't require degrees (msn.com)

AI-ROBOT CAPITALISTS WILL DESTROY THE HUMAN ECONOMY (Randall Collins)

Edtech Meltdown 

Guild Education: Enablers of Anti-Union Corporations and Subprime College Programs

2U Declares Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Will Anyone Else Name All The Elite Universities That Were Complicit?

College Mania!: An Open Letter to the NY Fed (2019)

"Let's all pretend we couldn't see it coming": The US Working-Class Depression (2020)

The College Dream is Over (Gary Roth, 2020)

Pending HEI Investigations

The Higher Education Inquirer (HEI) is working on a number of investigative projects. They include:

(1) Maximus is the sole contractor for the US Department of Education's Default Resolution Group (DRG) and its "Fresh Start" program.  The DRG contract is set to expire, and information about their contract appears to have been removed from public view. DRG is likely to face more problems as defaults are expected to rise dramatically in late 2024. 

(2) Subprime scholarship at America's largest online robocolleges, including Liberty University's online doctoral degrees in history and philosophy. We are communicating with subject matter experts to determine the extent of the problem. 

(3) Our 6 1/2 year battle to obtain information about bad actors receiving Department of Defense Tuition Assistance (TA).  

Approximately $600 million in tuition assistance each year is managed by DOD VOL ED and its contractors. About 100,000 servicemembers each year use TA benefits to pay for continuing education, and a disproportionate amount goes to robocolleges.

In 2017, as a continuation of Obama-era policies, contractors PwC and Gatehouse compiled a list of the 50 worst offenders, schools that were violating DOD MOU and President Obama's Principles of Excellence (Executive Order 13607). 

Under President Trump, DOD refused to name the bad actors and did not punish anyone for their violations.  In 2018, DOD education program analyst Anthony Clarke said that DOD did not want to create a "witch hunt." After 2019, the oversight program fell under the radar.  

The University of Phoenix was implicated in a number of violations, but there is no record that DOD did anything to correct the situation, other than to reprimand at least one base commander. DOD has had a long-term relationship with predatory subprime colleges for years through the Council of College and Military Educators (CCME). 

DOD has a current contract with Purdue University Global offering degrees of questionable academic value. 

HEI has spent a great effort communicating with DOD officials, whistleblowers, and political aides, and following up with information that first appeared in in the Military Times in 2018 and 2019, then reappeared in 2024. We are also awaiting a substantive response from DOD FOIA 22-1203-F submitted in July 2022 that has received multiple delays and is not expected to be answered until October 4, 2024, about 1 month before the US federal elections.     

Related links:

Maximus, Student Loan Debt, and the Poverty Industrial Complex 

Articles About Robocolleges 

Articles About DOD Tuition Assistance

 

Ahead of the Learned Herd: Why the Higher Education Inquirer Grows During the Endless College Meltdown (Dahn Shaulis and Glen McGhee)

The Higher Education Inquirer (HEI) continues to grow without financial support and without paying for advertising or SEO help. The reason is that HEI continues to provide useful information for folks who follow US higher education. We do it in the spirit of Upton Sinclair and others pejoratively known as the muckrakers. And we gladly take the label. 

For years, the higher ed herd dismissed warnings of looming financial crises, but HEI accurately foresaw the revenue declines and unsustainable models forcing college closures, and the downside of the online pivot (including online program managers and robocolleges). We also saw a decade of enrollment declines with no end in sight. 

HEI has published a number of articles that provide value to higher ed workers (including adjuncts), future, present, and former students (including the tens of millions of student loan debtors), and other folks affiliated with the higher ed industry (including workers at edtech and financial companies). We called it the College Meltdown. 

 

We have examined a number of groupings in the industry (from community colleges and for-profit schools to elite universities and everything in between) and issues (to include student and worker protests, student loan debt, and violence on campus).  We highlight those who are trying to good, like David Halperin (Republic Report), Gary Stocker (College Viability), Mark Salisbury (TuitionFit), Helena Worthen (Power Despite Precarity), Theresa Sweet and Tarah Gramza (Sweet v Cardona), and Ann Bowers (Debt Collective). 

HEI has also had the good fortune of getting outstanding contributions from Randall Collins, Bryan Alexander, Robert Kelchen, Phil Hill, Gary Roth, Bill Harrington, and others. Bryan Alexander's contributions have been extremely important in highlighting the existential threat of global climate change and the civil strife that accompanies it.

While honest reporting is important to us, we do take sides, just as other outlets do (most others take the side of big business and government). We are for the People, and we hunt for corruption that undermines democracy. We have examined companies (like Guild, Maximus, and EducationDynamics) that few others will bother to examine. We continue to follow subprime for-profit colleges that have morphed into subprime state universities (like Purdue Global and University of Arizona Global) and other bad actors in higher ed (like 2U and the University of Phoenix). 

We value history, the real unvarnished history, not the tales, myths and lies that have been repeated to children for generations and used as indoctrination at all levels of society. And we value those who look honestly at the present and the future, those not trying to sell themselves or their hidden agendas. 

As Howard Zinn proclaimed, you can't be neutral on a moving train. And US higher education, we fear, is a train moving away from America's hopes and dreams of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice, towards a less utopian, more dangerous, place.