In Could 1969 a Nationwide Guard helicopter hung over the campus of UC Berkeley, spraying protesters with what The Instances then described as “heavy clouds of tear gasoline.”
It was the sixth consecutive day of campus demonstrations over plans to develop the land generally known as “Folks’s Park.” An formidable governor who would go on to develop into president had referred to as in 2,300 Nationwide Guard troops and a whole lot of Freeway Patrolmen. They introduced shotguns, rifles and bayonets.
The issues, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan mentioned in a feisty televised look, all began as a result of universities “let younger individuals suppose that they had the precise to decide on the legal guidelines they’d obey, so long as they have been doing it within the identify of social protest.”
Reagan was unapologetic in his response to protests on the campus, which was additionally residence to massive demonstrations in opposition to the Vietnam Struggle. He referred to as scholar protests “orgies of destruction.”
Gov. Ronald Reagan walks previous among the 100 regulation enforcement officers assembled at College Corridor on his arrival to attend a gathering of the regents of the College of California on the Berkeley campus. A screaming mob of demonstrators was dispersed at UC Berkeley in an enormous tear gasoline barrage and Reagan later alerted Nationwide Guardsmen ought to their help be required.
(Bettmann / Getty)
Nearly precisely 55 years later, California campuses are once more overwhelmed by scholar uprisings and police crackdowns, together with violent clashes final week at UCLA. This time, over the Israel-Hamas conflict.
And one other formidable California governor is responding with a really totally different method.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has lingered within the background as universities grapple with scholar protests, which have led to not less than 200 arrests at UCLA, three accidents at UC Berkeley and compelled courses to maneuver on-line at Cal Poly Humboldt.
Whereas he’s met privately with regulation enforcement officers and college leaders, Newsom has but to talk to the information media in regards to the unrest. He directed the state’s workplace of emergency providers to help police response on campuses when requested by native companies, however didn’t activate the Nationwide Guard. He took to social media final week to sentence the violence at UCLA, with a written assertion saying “The best to free speech doesn’t lengthen to inciting violence, vandalism or lawlessness on campus.”
College students and activists assemble in Sproul Plaza on the campus of UC Berkeley for a protest associated to the close by Folks’s Park on Could 19, 1969.
(Garth Eliassen / Getty Photos)
On Thursday, hours after the arrests at UCLA, Newsom posted a video selling expanded nationwide monuments that confirmed him at a creek beneath the bushes on a sun-drenched hillside — a transfer seen by some as tone-deaf.
For a governor who is never shy about grabbing the highlight on controversial points, together with new abortion restrictions and mass shootings, Newsom’s response to the campus upheaval has been noticeably low-key.
Reagan and Newsom are political opposites and led California at very totally different instances. In some ways, their divergent responses to campus unrest mirror how they offered themselves to the voters who elected them. Reagan, a Republican, ran for workplace throughout an ancient times of campus protests and had promised to “clear up the mess at Berkeley.” Newsom, a Democrat, campaigned as a champion for legalizing marijuana and homosexual marriage, and supported ending California’s decades-old tough-on-crime insurance policies.
However the responses additionally mirror totally different political eras and spotlight the complexities posed by the Israel-Hamas conflict, notably for Democrats.
A lone demonstrator stays behind to argue with Nationwide Guard troops who moved in to assist California Freeway Patrol officers break up a rally on the UC Berkeley campus on Could 16, 1969.
(Related Press)
“Reagan’s strikes match the political atmosphere and the political dynamic of the time,” mentioned Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a retired professor on the Sol Value Faculty of Public Coverage at USC.
“Newsom understands that if he [gets] out entrance, he dangers alienating, at this time limit, vital constituencies he doesn’t need to.”
Younger individuals, progressives, individuals of colour and Jewish voters are all essential constituencies for Democrats, Bebitch Jeffe mentioned, however the get together is break up over President Biden’s response to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The divisions have created a gap for Republicans, even in Sacramento the place they lack energy. That didn’t cease GOP leaders from calling a information convention within the state Capitol final week to name for reducing state funding for directors at campuses the place protests turned violent, and rescinding Cal Grant scholarships from college students engaged in prison acts.
“It’s unacceptable that our governor has largely mentioned little or no about this and brought little or no motion to quell what has been occurring on our campuses,” Meeting Republican chief James Gallagher (R-Yuba Metropolis) mentioned Thursday.
Some Democrats have been elevating alarms in regards to the local weather on California campuses for months.
In a letter in November, a month after Hamas attacked Israel, members of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus referred to as for “fast motion” from College of California President Michael V. Drake and California State College Chancellor Mildred García to guard Jewish college students from what they referred to as an “explosion of antisemitism.”
Newsom, too, despatched the college leaders a letter then calling on them to do extra to cease threats in opposition to college students who have been “focused due to a Jewish, Arab, or Muslim identification.” He wrote that “some school have infected the discourse with violent rhetoric. That is unacceptable and calls for motion.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks throughout an occasion in San Francisco on Nov. 9, 2023.
(Jeff Chiu / Related Press)
In March, properly earlier than the protests had reached the extent of violence they did this previous week, the Jewish caucus launched a invoice that may require California faculty leaders to undertake insurance policies “prohibiting violence, harassment, intimidation and harassment” particularly in the case of any occasions that “name for or help genocide.”
Democrats main the laws have emphasised that they aren’t making an attempt to restrict free speech, however the American Civil Liberties Union opposed the invoice, saying it goes additional than federal legal guidelines that already don’t shield hate speech or violence below the 1st Modification and that it may permit universities to “silence a variety of protected speech primarily based on viewpoint alone.”
Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who’s a co-author of the campus invoice and signed the letter to college management, mentioned he helps the precise to protest, particularly on faculty campuses.
However what’s occurring now “crosses a line,” he mentioned.
“What’s totally different right here is along with the protest, we’ve the concentrating on harassment of 1 particular group of scholars — Jewish college students,” he mentioned. “I would like them to have the ability to protest the conflict in Gaza and to name for a cease-fire and to name for peace. … that’s wholesome. However you’ve some people who find themselves going properly past that and saying antisemitic issues, and it’s undermining what they’re really protesting for.”
The governor has taken quiet actions in current weeks by convening Jewish and Muslim leaders, publishing a plan to fight antisemitism and speaking with Palestinian American communities about Islamophopia. He has mentioned he helps Biden’s name for a cease-fire in Gaza.
Newsom has no direct authority over California’s public universities, however does exert affect as an ex officio member of the UC regents and the Cal State Board of Trustees. That offers him some duty for what occurs on campus, mentioned Invoice Whalen, a fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institute who was a speechwriter for GOP Gov. Pete Wilson.
Demonstrators occupy a pro-Palestinian encampment at UCLA as authorities breach and break up the encampment on Thursday.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Instances)
“The governor technically is the owner of those operations,” Whalen mentioned. “Even when he’s behind the scenes, you’d hope that he’s very energetic.”
However the politics inside the Democratic Occasion make it troublesome for him to be too forceful, Bebitch Jeffe mentioned. Newsom is supporting Biden’s reelection marketing campaign whereas additionally navigating divisions amongst Democratic voters who’re torn over U.S. help for Israel.
“In case you’re Gavin Newsom and also you don’t know whether or not it’ll assist or damage you, simply depart the battlefield,” Bebitch Jeffe mentioned. “And that’s apparently what he’s executed.”
Instances librarian Scott Wilson contributed analysis for this text.
