We look at how university administrators have responded to Palestine solidarity protests by students with Frederick Lawrence, former president of Brandeis University and now the CEO of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and a lecturer at Georgetown Law School. Brandeis was founded in 1948 by the American Jewish community in the wake of the Holocaust and named after the first Jewish Supreme Court justice, the celebrated free speech advocate Louis Brandeis. Lawrence says the nationwide university crackdown on student protesters is a worrying violation of the principles of academic freedom. “Provoking people, challenging people, asking difficult questions, making people uncomfortable, that’s part of the price of living in a democracy,” he says. He also notes that what constitutes a threat to campus safety should be narrowly defined. “You are not entitled to be intellectually safe. You are entitled to be physically safe.”, This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. NERMEEN SHAIKH: As we continue to look at the widening police crackdown on pro-Palestinian student protests, we’re joined now in Washington, D.C., by Frederick Lawrence, the former president of Brandeis University, which was founded in 1948 by the American,2024-05-02 12:32:00,Read More
2024-05-02