US House speaker Mike Johnson heckled and booed at Columbia University visit
‘My message to the students inside the encampment is go back to class and stop the nonsense,’ says U.S. House speaker Mike Johnson
Columbia University students, heckled U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson as he visited the flashpoint of nationwide student demonstrations at the Manhattan campus over Israel’s war in Gaza.
As soon as Johnson stepped onto the podium with fellow Republican colleagues, the heckling commenced.
His visit was intended to denounce purported antisemitism and the pro-Palestine protests that have been ongoing on campus since the previous week.
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Students intermittently booed and shouted at Johnson and his colleagues, chanting slogans such as “Free Palestine,” and “Stop the genocide.”
The House Speaker dismissed suggestions that the protests were legally protected free speech. Johnson said that Columbia had not acted to restore order on campus and had failed to protect Jewish students amid concerns about antisemitism on and around campus.
‘Go back to class and stop the nonsense,’ Johnson’s message to students
“This is dangerous,” Mr Johnson said. “We respect free speech, we respect diversity of ideas, but there is a way to do that in a lawful manner and that’s not what this is.”
“My message to the students inside the encampment is go back to class and stop the nonsense,” he said.
At one point, a student shouted, “Get off our campus!” while another exclaimed, “Mike, you suck!” as the Republican lawmaker concluded his speech.
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“The cherished traditions of this university are being overtaken right now by radical and extreme ideologies,” said Johnson. “They place a target on the backs of Jewish students in the United States here on this campus.”
“I’m here today joining my colleagues in calling on (Columbia University) President Minouche Shafik to resign if she cannot immediately bring order to this chaos,” he said.
During a radio interview ahead of his visit, Johnson described Shafik as a “very weak” and “inept leader.”
“As speaker of the House, I am committing today that Congress will not be silent as Jewish students are expected to run for their lives and stay home from their classes, hiding in fear,” he said.
Pro-Palestinian protests across U.S. campuses
Student-led protests demanding universities condemn Israel’s war on Gaza and divest from Israeli firms continued to spread on Wednesday, with new encampments being erected in the face of law enforcement crackdowns.
Last week’s decision by Shafik to ask the New York Police Department to arrest dozens of protesters has largely served as a flashpoint for a wider protest movement.
Protests have been reported at a wide array of campuses including California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt; Yale University; the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities; Swarthmore College and the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania; the University of Rochester in New York; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tufts University and Emerson College in Massachusetts, and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Source: Newsroom
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