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      The Democrats lost the White House in 1968 amid anti-war protests. What will 2024 bring?

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      When student Lauren Brown first heard the commotion, including firecrackers, she assumed the sounds were coming from nearby frat houses. Then, at about four in the morning, she heard helicopters. Later, she awoke to news and footage of a violent attack by pro-Israeli protesters on an encampment set up to oppose the war in Gaza.“It was hard to watch,” said Brown, 19, a freshman at the University of California, Los Angeles, whose dorm was near the encampment. “And I wondered where the police were. I saw posts from people talking about them being teargassed and maced and campus security was just watching.”Eventually, a large police contingent did arrive and forcibly cleared the sprawling encampment early on Thursday morning. Flash-bangs were launched to disperse crowds gathered outside and more than 200 people were arrested. Afterward, campus facility workers could be seen picking up flattened tents and pieces of spray-painted plywood, and throwing them into grey dumpsters.Similar scenes of tumult have played out this week at about 40 universities and colleges in America, resulting in clashes with police, mass arrests and a directive from Joe Biden to restore order. The unrest has unfolded from coast to coast on a scale not seen since the Vietnam war protests of the 1960s and 1970s.The president has cause for concern as the issue threatens his youth vote, divides his Democratic party and gives Donald Trump’s Republicans an opening to push allegations of antisemitism and depict Biden’s America as spiralling out of control.There are inescapable parallels with 1968, a tumultuous year of assassinations and anti-war demonstrations that led to chaos at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Democrats lost the White House to Republican “law and order” candidate Richard Nixon.Now, there are fears that history will repeat itself as anti-war protests again convulse university campuses, and the Democratic National Convention again heads to Chicago. Biden faces Republican “law and order” candidate Donald Trump in November’s presidential election.Bernie Sanders, an independent US senator from Vermont, told CNN this week: “I am thinking back and other people are making this reference that this may be Biden’s Vietnam.”Drawing parallels with President Lyndon Johnson, whose considerable domestic achievements were overshadowed by the Vietnam war and who did not seek reelection in 1968, Sanders added: “I worry very much that President Biden is putting himself in a position where he has alienated not just young people but a lot of the Democratic base, in terms of his views on Israel and this war.”The Gaza war started when Hamas militants attacked Israel on 7 October last year, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 240 hostage. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 34,600 people in Gaza, mostly women and children.The ferocity of that response, and America’s “ironclad” support for Israel, ignited protests by students at Columbia University in New York that rapidly spread to other campuses across the country. Students built encampments in solidarity with Gaza, demanding a ceasefire and that universities divest from Israel. The demonstrations have been mostly peaceful, although some protesters have been caught on camera making antisemitic remarks and violent threats.University administrators, who have tried to balance the right to protest and complaints of violence and hate speech, have increasingly called on police to clear out the demonstrators before year-end exams and graduation ceremonies. More than 2,300 arrests have been made in the past two weeks, some during violent confrontations with police, giving rise to accusations of use of excessive force.View image in fullscreenBiden, who has faced pressure from all political sides over the conflict in Gaza, attempted to thread the needle on Thursday, saying: “We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent. But neither are we a lawless country. We’re a civil society, and order must prevail.”The president faces opposition in his own party for his strong support for Israel’s military offensive. Hundreds of thousands of people registered versions of “uncommitted” protest votes against him in the Democratic presidential primary.Yaya Anantanang, a student organiser at George Washington University in Washington, told the Politico website: “My message is that we do not support Biden. We do not capitulate to the liberal electoral politics, because, quite frankly, the liberation of Palestinians will not come through a Democratic president but by organizing and ensuring that there is full divestment within all of these institutions.”Such views ring alarm bells for those who fear that even a small dip in support from Biden’s coalition could make all the difference in a tight election.Kerry Kennedy, the daughter of Robert F Kennedy, who was gunned down while running for president in 1968, urged the protesters to support Biden despite their misgivings. “We need their votes now,” she said. “They might not love Joe Biden’s policies but the choice is not between Joe Biden and their ideal. The choice is between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, who’s going to institute the Muslim ban on day one.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRepublicans, meanwhile, are seeking to exploit the unrest for political gain. They have accused Biden of being soft on what they say is antisemitic sentiment among the protesters and Democrats of indulging “wokeness” in America’s education system.Chris Sununu, the Republican governor of New Hampshire, said: “The crisis you’re seeing on college campuses is a result of the colleges themselves not having and pushing the right education, the right discussion in the classrooms, in the right way. They play this woke game where they don’t want to touch an issue.“They create a vacuum of information. The students get bad information and propaganda. They’re effectively being used by terrorist organisations overseas to push an anti-American, anti-Israeli message, which is just awful. It’s not a difference of opinion. It’s complete misinformation.”Images of disarray on campus have played endlessly on Fox News and in other rightwing media, feeding a narrative of instability and lawlessness under Biden while conveniently sucking political oxygen away from Trump’s own negatives.On Tuesday, for example, the Republican nominee was in court for his hush-money trial; Time magazine published an interview in which Trump set out an extremist vision of an imperial presidency; and Florida introduced a six-week abortion ban after Trump helped overturn Roe v Wade. But TV screens were dominated by the protests.Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-executive director of the progressive movement Indivisible, said: “All of those stories – any individual one would have been possibly disqualifying for a presidential candidate in a previous election – received a fraction of the coverage of the protests against [the Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s massacre of Gazans.View image in fullscreen“That’s problematic for those of us who want to see Joe Biden re-elected and want to see Democrats win because every day that we spend talking about this immoral war that US tax dollars are supporting is a day we’re not talking about the dangerous, creeping fascism presented by the Republican party.”Still, Democrats hope that, with the academic year soon drawing to a close, students will head home for the summer and the energy will disperse. Donna Brazile, a former interim chair of the Democratic National Committee, doubts that the issue will be decisive in November.“We’re going to have an October surprise every month, and we cannot predict which of the many surprises will actually drive the election.” she said. “A month ago, it was abortion was going drive the election. Now it’s the campus protesters. Next month it’ll be something else.”Brazile also defended the students’ right to protest as past generations have against the Vietnam war, South African apartheid, the Iraq war and, during the most recent election campaign, police brutality. “I’ve been on several college campuses and the majority of them are quite peaceful,” she said.“These are students who are using their first amendment right to advocate for change in the Middle East, and everyone has to be clear that there are rules. Just a handful have gotten out of control because if you violate the rules or break the law, you you have no right to do that. That is forbidden.” More

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      University of California Workers May Strike After UCLA Raid

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      The largest employee union in the University of California system said on Thursday that it was preparing to ask some or all of its members to authorize a strike over the treatment of pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of California, Los Angeles.The announcement by United Auto Workers Local 4811, which represents some 48,000 graduate student teaching assistants, researchers and other student workers across the state, came hours after police officers arrested about 200 demonstrators at U.C.L.A. for failing to leave.U.A.W. 4811 intends to file unfair labor practices charges that, in essence, accuse U.C.L.A. of discriminating against pro-Palestinian speech and unilaterally changing policies protecting employees’ free speech without bargaining, said Rafael Jaime, the union’s co-president and a Ph.D. candidate in the university’s English department.The group said the university failed to protect union members who were among the pro-Palestinian student protesters when counterprotesters attacked an encampment that had stood since April 25.Mr. Jaime said he was at the encampment Tuesday night as counterprotesters tore down barricades and shot fireworks at pro-Palestinian demonstrators, and that he was hit by pepper spray. Campus police on site did not intervene, and reinforcements from the Los Angeles Police Department and California Highway Patrol did not arrive for hours. No arrests were made.The lack of response was quickly denounced by local leaders and Gov. Gavin Newsom, as well as by students and faculty members.“The university was nowhere to be seen for hours and hours,” Mr. Jaime said. “They just stood there and allowed our co-workers to be brutalized.”On Wednesday night, dozens of police officers in riot gear arrived to disperse protesters who remained at the pro-Palestinian encampment. Mr. Jaime said officers shot projectiles into the crowd of protesters and forcefully arrested students. He said he did not know how many union members had been arrested.and forcefully arrested students, including union members.Arresting some 200 pro-Palestinian demonstrators while not arresting any counterprotesters who assaulted them, he said, amounted to prioritizing anti-Palestinian speech over pro-Palestinian speech, which violated the rights of university employees to free speech.Mr. Jaime said that the union could call a strike authorization vote as early as next week, but he emphasized that it was too early to say whether a strike would include union members across the University of California system or just at U.C.L.A.Officials at the University of California Office of the President said in a statement that the union could not legally engage in a work stoppage and expressed frustration that the union would “exploit” the situation.The statement said that “the University of California is deeply alarmed, concerned and disappointed that our UAW-represented academic employees would choose this moment of crisis to take a vote to engage in an unlawful work stoppage.” Officials added that the university “values these employees and asks them to join it in supporting our communities at this time.”The union’s members do much of the day-to-day work across the vast University of California system, which serves nearly 300,000 students, has some of the nation’s top researchers and is often referred to as the “crown jewel” of the state. The academic workers grade papers, lead discussion sessions and conduct research.But the university employees often struggle with the cost of living in some of the nation’s most expensive housing markets. In 2022, the union’s members — then split into two locals — walked off the job for six weeks in one of the largest strikes by university-based workers in national history. The union called for a cease-fire in Gaza in October, making it part of an early wave of unions declaring support for Palestinians. More

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      New Progressive PAC Targets 8 Key House Races in California

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      Democrats nearly pulled off the impossible in the 2022 midterms.In the final weeks of the campaign, with an unpopular president in his first term, polls forecast a red wave that would sweep the country and flip control of the House and the Senate — prompting alarm from Democrats and predictions from Republicans of a decisive victory.But that wave never materialized, a mirage of bad polling and inflated expectations. Democrats came close to maintaining a national trifecta, but Republicans eked out a thin majority in the House — prevailing in a handful of seats in New York and California, each by just a few thousand votes.Now, a new coalition of progressive groups in California has formed a super PAC aiming to bolster Democratic candidates in a state that the party sees as crucial to winning control of the House this fall.The super PAC, Battleground California, says it aims to spend $15 million this year on eight competitive House races, seven with Republican incumbents — in Northern California, Orange County, the Inland Empire east of Los Angeles, the Central Valley and Los Angeles — as well as the seat left open by Representative Katie Porter, a Democrat who is not running for re-election after a failed Senate campaign.It is an ambitious effort, one that seeks to establish a durable progressive machine in California — advised and supported by local activists and community organizations — to lift swing district Democratic candidates through an extensive field operation, including marathon door-knocking campaigns aimed at driving turnout among minority groups.“Trusted messengers from the community are a very critical element,” said Steve Phillips, a co-founder of the California Donor Table, the group leading the Battleground California PAC, adding that those residents are not only more trusted by voters but are better able to provide feedback on what messages work and what messages don’t.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Small Campus in the Redwoods Has the Nation’s Most Entrenched Protest

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      Pro-Palestinian protesters have occupied the administration building at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt for the past week and forced a campus closure until May 10.When university administrators across the nation worry about the potential fallout from campus protests, they may have Siemens Hall in mind.The building, at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, includes the campus president’s office and has been occupied for a week by pro-Palestinian protesters who barricaded themselves inside and fought off an early attempt by the police to remove them. Protesters have since tagged walls and renamed it “Intifada Hall” by ripping off most of the signage on the brick exterior.Inside, they painted graffiti messages like “Time 2 Free Gaza,” “Pigs Not Allowed,” and “Land Back,” according to a video posted by the local news site Redheaded Blackbelt. They occupied and defaced the office of the president, Tom Jackson Jr., spraying “Blood On Your Hands” across one framed wall hanging and “I Will Live Free or Die Trying” on his door.The school, more than 275 miles north of San Francisco, among the ancient coastal redwoods dripping with fog mist, is the site of the most entrenched of the campus protests across the country. It has gone well beyond the encampments on student quads elsewhere; at Cal Poly Humboldt, protesters took over the power center of the campus and have rejected increasingly desperate entreaties from officials for them to vacate the premises.The university has shut down the entire campus, first for a couple days, then a week and now through May 10, one day before its scheduled commencement. After the Siemens Hall takeover, protesters set up dozens of tents on patches of grass around the hall, and demonstrators took over a second building to use its bathrooms and hold meetings. University officials estimate the damage to be in the millions of dollars.To those outside Northern California, the show of force at Cal Poly Humboldt, in the college town of Arcata, has been a surprising turn in a region more typically associated with a hippie pacifism and marijuana farms. But beneath the good-vibes image, locals say, a culture of protest and resentment toward authority has percolated at the 6,000-student campus.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Museums to Visit in California This Year

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      A special section of The New York Times on museums highlights art across the state.A Yuri Suzuki installation at SFMOMA’s “Art of Noise” exhibition. The work, titled “Arborhythm,” collects, remixes and broadcasts sounds from the streets of San Francisco from the balcony of the museum.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesHappy Monday.The New York Times published a special section on museums over the weekend, with more than two dozen articles about how institutions across the country are striving to offer their visitors more to see, do and feel.I highly recommend browsing the full series. One of the articles covers the ways that museums are making better use of their outdoor spaces; another highlights a museum dedicated to the history and science of nuclear weapons; and there is a profile of a joint show mounted by two museums, one on each side of the U.S.-Mexico border.There’s also a long list of American museums to visit this year, including several on the West Coast, as well as a guide to new and exciting museum programs for children.And, of course, there is a lot going on in the art world in California. Here are some of the highlights:The Broad in Los Angeles will open a sweeping exhibition on May 25 covering 20 years of work by Mickalene Thomas, an artist who was exploring the Black female figure well before it became so popular.“It’s difficult to understand, from where we are now, how radical her work was when I first showed it,” Susanne Vielmetter, a Los Angeles gallerist who gave Thomas one of her first solo shows in 2007, told my colleague Robin Pogrebin. “I cannot think of a single artist who at that time was making portraiture of female Black figures from a perspective of female desire.”The artist Mickalene Thomas in front of her work “Portrait of Maya No. 10” (2017).Mickalene Thomas/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Amy Harrity for The New York TimesAn unusual collaboration among 10 large public universities, including U.C.L.A., will bring shows focused on democracy to campus museums across the country. It’s part of an effort to reduce political polarization and increase student voter turnout.From May 4 through Aug. 18, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art will be showcasing visual and technological artifacts from the world of music, including early listening devices and iconic album covers, in its “Art of Noise” exhibition. But, as Chris Colin explains, what the show really explores is humans’ relationship to music.At the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in Los Angeles County, a new installation by the artist Betye Saar manipulates light to simulate the stages of nightfall. It’s one of many shows across the country in which artists are playing with darkness.Museums dedicated to the natural sciences have long been associated with dark spaces and nature dioramas, but that may be changing. At the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County, a new area will soon be opened that features a theater, a cafe and new seating and exhibition spaces. “There is nature in L.A., and we believe that if you have a better understanding of what’s in your backyard and your neighborhood, you’ll have a much better appreciation of life on our planet,” Lori Bettison-Varga, the museum’s president and director, told The Times.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How a New Trial for Harvey Weinstein Could Again Test the Legal System

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      A new jury would hear from only one or both of the women whom he was convicted of assaulting, in what analysts say will be a much narrower and weaker case.As one of Harvey Weinstein’s key accusers took the witness stand during his trial in New York, she broke down in tears, sobbing uncontrollably. After a brief break, she still could not compose herself. The trial was adjourned for the day. Hyperventilating, the woman was ushered out and her piercing screams bellowed out from a back room.The episode was one of many tense moments in the highly publicized, weekslong trial of the former Hollywood titan in 2020. Now, they may happen all over again.On Thursday, New York’s highest court ruled that the trial judge who presided over the sex crimes case in Manhattan erred when he let several women testify that Mr. Weinstein had assaulted them, even though their accusations were not part of the charges brought against the producer. The appeals court ordered a new trial.But the original trial in 2020 against Mr. Weinstein was about much more than one man’s guilt. It had morphed into something more, as his accusers sparked the global #MeToo movement: Prosecutors were trying to prove not only that Mr. Weinstein was a sexual predator, but also that the justice system was both willing and able to hold powerful men accountable for their treatment of women.The new ruling may do little to change the public’s perception of Mr. Weinstein, who is still notorious and behind bars and was sentenced to 16 years in prison for sex crimes in California.For some, however, it raised new doubts about the legal system’s ability to hold influential people like him responsible.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      I left my suit in San Francisco: thieves swipe bags from Adam Schiff’s car

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      San Francisco has earned an unwelcome national reputation for car burglaries, which Adam Schiff was reminded of the hard way: the Democratic representative had his luggage swiped from his car while it was parked in a downtown garage.With his formal clothing gone, Schiff ended up at a fundraising dinner Thursday for his US Senate campaign dressed like he was headed to a Los Angeles Dodgers game – in shirtsleeves and an insulated vest. Others who attended the event were mostly decked out in suit jackets and ties.Schiff’s campaign confirmed the burglary and declined further comment, citing an ongoing investigation.“Yes, they took my bags,” the representative lamented to the San Francisco Chronicle.Statistically, reported auto break-ins are down in San Francisco, but vehicles with busted windows leaving sprinkles of broken glass remain a common sight in the city. Visitors and residents are constantly reminded to remove valuables from parked cars.It was advice Schiff neglected to follow.In August, the city’s police chief announced a crackdown on auto smash-and-grabs. The San Francisco police department reported nearly 900 break-ins in February, down from 1,850 in July. There were more than 3,000 reported thefts in September 2022. More

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      USC vetoed a Muslim student’s graduation speech for her pro-Palestinian views. Why? | Mohammed Zain Shafi Khan

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      When Asna Tabassum, a hijab-wearing Muslim, was announced as the valedictorian for the University of Southern California class of 2024, my initial reaction was the thought of my south Asian mother saying, “What are you doing? Why aren’t you valedictorian?” But what followed was pride.Then the university announced last week that it would no longer allow Tabassum to speak at commencement. After pro-Israel groups mischaracterized Tabassum’s pro-Palestinian views as “antisemitic”, the USC administration claimed that security concerns made her speech untenable.“I am not surprised by those who attempt to propagate hatred,” Tabassum, a friend of mine, wrote in a statement. “I am surprised that my own university – my home for four years – has abandoned me.”USC has not just abandoned an accomplished student, but also nearly 1,000 Muslims on campus. I happen to be one of them.Right now, the reality of being a Muslim student is intertwined with the university’s decision to rescind Tabassum’s well-earned honour. We were teased by our institution, taunted even, as they refuse to publicly stand by their choice.As a Muslim, the lack of support scares me. My hijab-wearing friends have been called terrorists and spat at; my Palestinian peer has had their car broken into and their Qur’an torn and I am judged for wearing a keffiyeh to class or having a sticker on my laptop that reads “Free Palestine”.When Arab and Muslim students are directly affected, the university’s silence makes its position clear.When the office of the president can release a statement condemning Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October, but not one condemning Israel for killing tens of thousands of Palestinians, it makes the university’s position clear.And when the university refuses to publicly support its choice for valedictorian, again the school’s position is clear.Understandably, students and faculty are upset and angry. Last Friday, 11 members of the USC advisory committee on Muslim life resigned “in protest against the university administration’s decision to revoke Asna Tabassum’s valedictory address at commencement”.This committee was convened by the president “to consider a number of tangible solutions to support Muslim students, faculty and staff”. But now, when USC cannot support one student, I doubt it wants to support any of us.This is what it is to be Muslim at a college campus: enraged, scared and robbed of the hope that Tabassum represents. As a student, I placed my trust in this institution that has taught me, but that trust has waned.As a journalist, I am also alarmed. This profession, this institution, and its foundation are based upon the free exchange of ideas and the freedom to share those ideas. The cowardice of hiding behind the veil of “safety concerns” is appalling. Furthermore, California’s Leonard Law stipulates that even private universities like USC are obliged to uphold speech protected by the first amendment.USC seems to not just be above the law, but also hypocritical. Just last semester, the Turkish ambassador and Azerbaijani consul-general were on campus as part of an event hosted by the university during the height of Azerbaijan’s military campaign against the majority-Armenian region of Artsakh, also known as Nagorno Karabakh. The Armenian community on campus was facing tragedy, watching their people being starved and mourning their loss.When students demanded that the university, especially at such a time, rescind its invitation to the delegation, the university refused, arguing that doing so would infringe the delegation’s freedom to speak.The provost’s office sent out an email about USC’s commitment to academic freedom, writing: “These freedoms are outlined within the USC policy on free speech and serve to protect the viewpoints – no matter how controversial or unpopular – of all members of our community.” In response to the protests, the university also increased security for the delegation – an option the university failed to provide Tabassum.Freedom of speech was protected then. Just not now.While the university may have made its decision, the students have made one for themselves too: “Let her speak.” Over 300 students recently marched in solidarity with Tabassum, demanding that the USC administration reinvite the valedictorian to speak at commencement. The university did just the opposite. With a decision that has enraged the class of 2024, USC has instead “released” all its outside speakers from speaking during the main commencement ceremony. This means that keynote speaker Jon M Chu will not be speaking at commencement. Tabassum will not be speaking at commencement. The only person who will be speaking is Carol Folt, USC’s president. And, respectfully, no graduate who has worked tirelessly for four years wants to just hear from the president.Instead of emailing students about this change, the administration simply updated the commencement website and posted an Instagram story.If the aim of the university is to maintain the safety and security of its 65,000 graduation attendees, it may have achieved that. Because, in all fairness, who is going to attend this graduation now, and for what? Graduating students are not represented, they are not excited and right now they are angry – even more so given that many of them never had their high school graduation, due to Covid.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut all of the above is moot at this point. The university has now gone further and announced that it has simply canceled the main stage graduation ceremony – again citing unnamed safety concerns following a day of peaceful protest that only turned violent with the university-sanctioned introduction of law enforcement.But if the university can promptly expel hundreds of non-violent protesters from campus less than 24 hours after their occupation began, how is it possible that the best a university that charges nearly $70,000 per year could do is cancel the entire event?I refuse to believe these choices were about security. From the start, it’s been about restricting Tabassum from speaking. It’s been about USC failing to stand up for its Muslim, Arab and Palestinian students.The university has chosen to be on the wrong side of history. It can start repairing some of the harm done by prioritizing the needs of its students over protecting its president.USC hasn’t listened to its Muslim students, its Arab students or its Palestinian students when we asked for the university to figure out a way to let Asna Tabassum speak safely. By ignoring our voice, as it did Tabassum’s, USC has silenced us all.For this and many other hasty decisions taken by the university these past two weeks, it’s clear what the next decision should be: let Carol Folt go.
      Mohammed Zain Shafi Khan is a journalist and student at the University of Southern California studying international relations and journalism More