Journalist suggests it's anti-American to 'not support' young people engaging in college protests
Journalist Kara Swisher said on Saturday that to not support younger people engaging in college protests could be seen as "anti-American."
While discussing the anti-Israel protests happening on college campuses on CNN, Washington Free Beacon reporter Eliana Johnson said it would be good politics for President Biden to come out against the protesters who are telling Jewish people to go back to Poland, and saying Zionists don't deserve to live.
"Well, some people are saying that," Swisher jumped in. "The question is, are you for order and against chaos, or for protests and the right to free speech? And what's interesting is how quickly everyone is shifting. All the free-speech warriors are suddenly like, ‘Order, order, we must have order.’"
"And so there are heinous things that are said, but there is a line where you have to support also young people, especially when they do things that they do badly. Not to support them, is sort of anti-American in a way," she continued.
Johnson responded and said free speech was fine but noted that university life has been profoundly affected by the demonstrators. Columbia University moved classes online in the wake of the protests and the University of Southern California (USC) canceled its graduation ceremony.
"We've gone well beyond free speech and into shuttering the operations of universities. And I do think it's a missed opportunity for Biden to say there are limits, we've gone beyond speech and into harassment and disruption here, and we will not stand for that," she added.
USC CLOSES CAMPUS ‘UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE’ FOLLOWING ANTI-ISRAEL PROTEST, 93 ARRESTED FOR TRESPASSING
New York Times podcast host Lulu Garcia-Navarro said some of the police reaction to the protests was excessive.
Swisher agreed, citing incidents in Texas and Indiana, and said "because then that's a whole different story."
"You are changing the political mentality of young people right now, and if you push down too hard on them, especially at this age, and not being able to express yourselves, I think you have a much bigger problem later on," Swisher said.
Anti-Israel protests have broken out at college campuses across the U.S., including at Columbia, Yale, University of Texas at Austin, USC, NYU, and more.
A Pro-Palestinian student group at UT-Austin shared on Friday that it was placed on interim suspension following the arrest of several students earlier this week, Fox News Digital reported.
"UT’s suspension of the Palestine Solidarity Committee is an attack on free speech to distract from and enable israel’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people!," the organization wrote on Instagram. "While Jay Hartzell and Greg Abbot authorized Texas State Troopers, Austin Police, and UT police to violently attack and arrest protesters on campus, Palestinians continue to live in a state of emergency that UT refuses to recognize."
Fox News' Haley Chi-Sing contributed to this report.