Outside Agitators

The phrases and statements used to justify police action against Columbia University students supporting Palestine are a blast from the past. The blast is not a hopeful one or one that demonstrates how far we have come as a country. Instead, it demonstrates the more things change the more they remain the same. I heard Eric Adams, Mayor of New York City, justifying police action at Columbia by citing the urgency to act because of “Outside Agitators”. These “Outside Agitators”, the rationale goes, infiltrated the student movement at Columbia and spurred them to more extreme actions. These actions would not have happened, the reasoning continues, had it not been for those “Outsiders”.