Steve Hilton blasts UC Irvine for ‘caving to the mob’ over anti-Israel chaos on campus
Steve Hilton, Golden Together founder and Fox News contributor, blasted the University of California, Irvine, for "caving to the mob" after anti-Israel agitators created chaos and stormed buildings on campus.
Hilton told Fox News Digital the school failed to protect the rights of the hardworking majority of students.
"Our focus has been to call on the leadership of the university, the UC system overall, and the political leadership of the state to guarantee a normal student experience for every student, a majority of whom are law-abiding, hardworking students who don't want anything to do with this," Hilton explained.
Hilton also raised concerns about how the widespread antisemitism on college campuses is often fueled by outside agitators.
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"And, in a sense, worse than that, by enemies of the United States who want to sow division and hate in the country," Hilton added. "There have been reports of Chinese influence in these protests. You've got the Qatari influence, which has been well known and documented to a certain extent. You've got the role of the far-left parties."
Hilton questioned how this could be allowed to happen.
"How do the people in charge allow something that's really positive about America — our openness and welcoming character — to be exploited in these ways, to divide us and to cause such disruption to people?" Hilton wondered.
Hilton continued to explain that what we are seeing at UC Irvine and other college campuses across the country is a fundamental right and the foundation of the First Amendment, however appalling it is, but that it doesn't extend to creating destruction, mayhem and chaos for everyone else.
"Make your point, but don't destroy other people's opportunities while you're doing it. You'd have thought that was very obvious, and then it would be just the instinct of the people in charge to enforce those values. But we've just seen a collapse in that kind of leadership.
"And it seems yet again, it's another example of the range of issues today in America, and especially here in California, where the people who do the wrong thing are rewarded and indulged and protected, and the people who do the right thing are the ones who end up getting punished."
He added that what we are witnessing across the country is a reflection of the "weakness and failures" of the Biden administration.
"Biden has been pathetic on this as on everything else. And for the simple reason that I've been pointing out since he got into the Oval Office, which is that he is nothing but a weak, unprincipled machine politician who doesn't have strong convictions, doesn't really believe in anything other than his own political advancement," Hilton said.
"And so he gets pushed around on every issue, and he'll just go with where he thinks the political opportunity lies for him. And so you've seen him all over the place on this issue, just as on so many others."
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Hilton said Biden is clearly scrambling to shore up his base because he sees the protests are hurting his support in the upcoming election.
"That is the opposite of what a leader should do. He should stand for what he believes in, stand for the right thing, and especially in a situation like this, where the country is crying out for strong leadership. We've seen the exact opposite," Hilton concluded.
On Thursday, the university confirmed that 47 individuals were arrested, 26 students and two employees, and cited for violations after hundreds of anti-Israel protesters swarmed UC Irvine's campus on Wednesday and set up barricades. The university said of those arrested, 19 are non-affiliates, meaning they are neither a student nor an employee of UC Irvine.
At one point, several hundred protesters entered the school's Physical Sciences Lecture Hall and began to barricade the building.
The university said those arrested violated school policy and state laws and were arrested for failure to disperse and trespassing.
The university has also moved to remote operations Thursday.
Fox News Digital's Bradford Betz and Sarah Rumph-Whitten contributed to this report.