Education
A Religious School That’s Also a Public School
Religious conservatives often lament they have been on the losing end of recent social trends, and they’re not entirely wrong about that. Same-sex marriage has become legal nationwide. Church attendance is down. About 30 percent of Americans identify as having no religion.
But there are also several ways in which organized religion has been on a political winning streak. Abortion is the most obvious example, and yesterday brought another instance in a different realm: education.
State officials in Oklahoma approved the local Roman Catholic archdiocese’s request to operate a public charter school. It will be the first explicitly religious public school in the U.S. in modern times, experts say. Supporters of the school hope to use it as a test case to take to the Supreme Court and win a clear right for charter schools to offer religious instruction.
Charter schools are public schools, financed by taxpayer dollars, but given the freedom to operate more flexibly than traditional schools. Nationwide, 8 percent of public schools are charter schools. Advocates of religious charter schools argue that church groups should have the same right to manage schools as other organizations.
Opponents argue that religious charter schools erase the separation between church and state by using government funds to support religious instruction. Over time, opponents say, the growth of church-affiliated charter schools could starve traditional schools of funding and lead to increased segregation of children along religious lines. Rachel Laser, the head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, criticized the Oklahoma decision as “a sea change for American democracy” and promised to file legal action against it.
The Oklahoma board that oversees charter schools voted 3-2 to approve the new school, which will be called St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. It will focus on students in rural areas. You can read more about the decision in this story by my colleague Sarah Mervosh.
And at the court
Whatever happens with the Oklahoma case, the Supreme Court’s Republican-appointed majority has already expanded the reach and influence of religious groups. “The Supreme Court has over the last few years issued an extraordinary series of decisions expanding the role of religion in public life, sometimes at the expense of other values, like gay rights and access to contraception,” Adam Liptak, who covers the court for The Times, told me.
Between the 1950s and mid-1980s, the court sided with religious interests roughly half the time, an academic study found. Since John Roberts became chief justice in 2005, the share has jumped to more than 80 percent. By some measures, Roberts and the five other current conservative justices appear to be the six most pro-religion justices in the court’s history.
The kinds of cases the court is hearing have changed, too, Adam notes. When Earl Warren was chief justice in the 1950s and 1960s, all of the rulings in favor of religion benefited minority groups or dissenting practitioners. In the Roberts court, the winners tend to be mainstream Christians.
In cases over the past several years, the court has ruled that:
Up next
In coming weeks, as the court’s current term winds down, the justices are expected to rule on two more religion cases.
One considers whether a website designer can refuse to work with same-sex couples on the grounds that forcing her to celebrate same-sex marriages would violate her free-speech rights. The justices’ comments during oral arguments suggested they were likely to side with the designer, a decision that would effectively prioritize religious rights and free speech over L.G.B.T.Q. equality. It would also suggest that L.G.B.T.Q. rights were more vulnerable than some other forms of civil rights.
In the second case, the Supreme Court seems similarly poised to rule for religion, although the oral argument suggested that the ruling might be narrow. In that case, a postal worker has asked for the right not to work on Sunday — his Sabbath — without losing his job.
For more: Adam Liptak explained the academic research about the court’s new pro-religion stance in this column.
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Video: Protesters Scuffle With Police During Pomona College Commencement
new video loaded: Protesters Scuffle With Police During Pomona College Commencement
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transcript
Protesters Scuffle With Police During Pomona College Commencement
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators tried to block access to Pomona College’s graduation ceremony on Sunday.
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[chanting in call and response] Not another nickel, not another dime. No more money for Israel’s crime. Resistance is justified when people are occupied.
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Education
Video: Police Use Pepper Spray on Protesters on G.W.U.’s Campus
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Police Use Pepper Spray on Protesters on G.W.U.’s Campus
Police officers arrested 33 pro-Palestinian protesters and cleared a tent encampment on the campus of George Washingon University.
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“The Metropolitan Police Department. If you are currently on George Washington University property, you are in violation of D.C. Code 22-3302, unlawful entry on property.” “Back up, dude, back up. You’re going to get locked up tonight — back up.” “Free, free Palestine.” “What the [expletive] are you doing?” [expletives] “I can’t stop — [expletives].”
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Education
How Counterprotesters at U.C.L.A. Provoked Violence, Unchecked for Hours
A satellite image of the UCLA campus.
On Tuesday night, violence erupted at an encampment that pro-Palestinian protesters had set up on April 25.
The image is annotated to show the extent of the pro-Palestinian encampment, which takes up the width of the plaza between Powell Library and Royce Hall.
The clashes began after counterprotesters tried to dismantle the encampment’s barricade. Pro-Palestinian protesters rushed to rebuild it, and violence ensued.
Arrows denote pro-Israeli counterprotesters moving towards the barricade at the edge of the encampment. Arrows show pro-Palestinian counterprotesters moving up against the same barricade.
Police arrived hours later, but they did not intervene immediately.
An arrow denotes police arriving from the same direction as the counterprotesters and moving towards the barricade.
A New York Times examination of more than 100 videos from clashes at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that violence ebbed and flowed for nearly five hours, mostly with little or no police intervention. The violence had been instigated by dozens of people who are seen in videos counterprotesting the encampment.
The videos showed counterprotesters attacking students in the pro-Palestinian encampment for several hours, including beating them with sticks, using chemical sprays and launching fireworks as weapons. As of Friday, no arrests had been made in connection with the attack.
To build a timeline of the events that night, The Times analyzed two livestreams, along with social media videos captured by journalists and witnesses.
The melee began when a group of counterprotesters started tearing away metal barriers that had been in place to cordon off pro-Palestinian protesters. Hours earlier, U.C.L.A. officials had declared the encampment illegal.
Security personnel hired by the university are seen in yellow vests standing to the side throughout the incident. A university spokesperson declined to comment on the security staff’s response.
It is not clear how the counterprotest was organized or what allegiances people committing the violence had. The videos show many of the counterprotesters were wearing pro-Israel slogans on their clothing. Some counterprotesters blared music, including Israel’s national anthem, a Hebrew children’s song and “Harbu Darbu,” an Israeli song about the Israel Defense Forces’ campaign in Gaza.
As counterprotesters tossed away metal barricades, one of them was seen trying to strike a person near the encampment, and another threw a piece of wood into it — some of the first signs of violence.
Attacks on the encampment continued for nearly three hours before police arrived.
Counterprotesters shot fireworks toward the encampment at least six times, according to videos analyzed by The Times. One of them went off inside, causing protesters to scream. Another exploded at the edge of the encampment. One was thrown in the direction of a group of protesters who were carrying an injured person out of the encampment.
Some counterprotesters sprayed chemicals both into the encampment and directly at people’s faces.
At times, counterprotesters swarmed individuals — sometimes a group descended on a single person. They could be seen punching, kicking and attacking people with makeshift weapons, including sticks, traffic cones and wooden boards.
In one video, protesters sheltering inside the encampment can be heard yelling, “Do not engage! Hold the line!”
In some instances, protesters in the encampment are seen fighting back, using chemical spray on counterprotesters trying to tear down barricades or swiping at them with sticks.
Except for a brief attempt to capture a loudspeaker used by counterprotesters, and water bottles being tossed out of the encampment, none of the videos analyzed by The Times show any clear instance of encampment protesters initiating confrontations with counterprotesters beyond defending the barricades.
Shortly before 1 a.m. — more than two hours after the violence erupted — a spokesperson with the mayor’s office posted a statement that said U.C.L.A officials had called the Los Angeles Police Department for help and they were responding “immediately.”
Officers from a separate law enforcement agency — the California Highway Patrol — began assembling nearby, at about 1:45 a.m. Riot police with the L.A.P.D. joined them a few minutes later. Counterprotesters applauded their arrival, chanting “U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A.!”
Just four minutes after the officers arrived, counterprotesters attacked a man standing dozens of feet from the officers.
Twenty minutes after police arrive, a video shows a counterprotester spraying a chemical toward the encampment during a scuffle over a metal barricade. Another counterprotester can be seen punching someone in the head near the encampment after swinging a plank at barricades.
Fifteen minutes later, while those in the encampment chanted “Free, free Palestine,” counterprotesters organized a rush toward the barricades. During the rush, a counterprotester pulls away a metal barricade from a woman, yelling “You stand no chance, old lady.”
Throughout the intermittent violence, officers were captured on video standing about 300 feet away from the area for roughly an hour, without stepping in.
It was not until 2:42 a.m. that officers began to move toward the encampment, after which counterprotesters dispersed and the night’s violence between the two camps mostly subsided.
The L.A.P.D. and the California Highway Patrol did not answer questions from The Times about their responses on Tuesday night, deferring to U.C.L.A.
While declining to answer specific questions, a university spokesperson provided a statement to The Times from Mary Osako, U.C.L.A.’s vice chancellor of strategic communications: “We are carefully examining our security processes from that night and are grateful to U.C. President Michael Drake for also calling for an investigation. We are grateful that the fire department and medical personnel were on the scene that night.”
L.A.P.D. officers were seen putting on protective gear and walking toward the barricade around 2:50 a.m. They stood in between the encampment and the counterprotest group, and the counterprotesters began dispersing.
While police continued to stand outside the encampment, a video filmed at 3:32 a.m. shows a man who was walking away from the scene being attacked by a counterprotester, then dragged and pummeled by others. An editor at the U.C.L.A. student newspaper, the Daily Bruin, told The Times the man was a journalist at the paper, and that they were walking with other student journalists who had been covering the violence. The editor said she had also been punched and sprayed in the eyes with a chemical.
On Wednesday, U.C.L.A.’s chancellor, Gene Block, issued a statement calling the actions by “instigators” who attacked the encampment unacceptable. A spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom criticized campus law enforcement’s delayed response and said it demands answers.
Los Angeles Jewish and Muslim organizations also condemned the attacks. Hussam Ayloush, the director of the Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called on the California attorney general to investigate the lack of police response. The Jewish Federation Los Angeles blamed U.C.L.A. officials for creating an unsafe environment over months and said the officials had “been systemically slow to respond when law enforcement is desperately needed.”
Fifteen people were reportedly injured in the attack, according to a letter sent by the president of the University of California system to the board of regents.
The night after the attack began, law enforcement warned pro-Palestinian demonstrators to leave the encampment or be arrested. By early Thursday morning, police had dismantled the encampment and arrested more than 200 people from the encampment.
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