Law enforcement officers clear out a pro-Hamas protest encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Los Angeles, California, US, May 2, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/David Swanson

University of California President Michael V. Drake directed chancellors of all 10 UC campuses to strictly enforce existing rules prohibiting encampments, unauthorized structures, restrictions on free movement, and masking to conceal identity.

In other words, he asked them to stop the violations of university policy by anti-Israel protestors — something that Jewish students were complaining about for months, and that was condoned on most campuses.

Now, finally, the actions of the anti-Israel (and often pro-Hams) protestors have been recognized as being against university policies. The UC system has also conceded that they violate the rights of students.

Drake also wrote a letter to the university community, which starts off by saying how important freedom of expression is, and then throws down the “but”:

Clear communication and consistent application of policies and laws are key to achieving the delicate but essential balance between free speech rights and the need to protect the safety of our community and maintain critical University operations.

With these goals in mind, we will take several steps to facilitate more consistency across our locations, including:

Clarifying and reinforcing requirements for policies impacting expressive activities, including policies that prohibit camping or encampments, unauthorized structures, restrictions on free movement, masking to conceal identity, and refusing to reveal one’s identity when asked to do so by University personnel;

Developing a framework for consistent implementation of our policies and for consistent responses to policy violations;…

These were all policies that already existed on these campuses. The university chancellors looked the other way, perhaps out of fear, perhaps because they agreed with the Israel haters, perhaps for another reason.

But the fact is that policies exist for a reason, and the University of California campuses threw students, especially Jewish students, under the bus by choosing not to apply them.

Putting tents up on campus was never allowed under policy.

Blocking students from public areas of campus was never allowed under policy.

Concealing one’s face for reasons other than medical was never allowed under policy.

And yet all of these things were allowed to happen.

It’s nice that the UC system belatedly decided to ensure that the coming semester isn’t like the previous ones. But it is no less important that they are tacitly admitting that they shouldn’t have allowed this to happen, and shouldn’t have allowed their university campuses and “freedom of expression” to be hijacked by the anti-Israel mob.