Stanford Arrests Students for Property Damage, Overlooks State-Sponsored Violence
Eleven pro-Palestinian activists at Stanford face arraignment after a grand jury indicted them on felony vandalism and conspiracy charges following their peaceful protest and brief occupation of the university president's office. This comes after the students reportedly inflicted minor property damage (using bike locks to barricade themselves in). Meanwhile, the Israeli government continues its
assault on Gaza, which the UN's top court is investigating for plausible genocide. One might wonder where the university's swift prosecutorial zeal for 'stopping damage' to property was when countless universities, for decades, invested in companies complicit in human rights abuses. The contrast is stark: Stanford appears more concerned with a few bike locks than the 40,000+ lives, overwhelmingly
civilian, lost in Gaza since October. It signals a chilling message: property is sacrosanct, while the global outcry against mass destruction and death can be conveniently ignored, even criminalized. This isn't about protecting property; it's about chilling dissent against policies that the powerful protect.