Tell me what is a better reflection of sanity — the poise of “Strike Package” Tom Stritikus as his crowning moment was under siege, or the people outside rallying because they feel a moral, spiritual and societal obligation to shake the cage in the name of the Palestinians? To say either is to fall into the false dichotomy our media often presents us.
They say in an insane world, the sane are looked upon as crazy. I say, to expand on the analogy: those perpetuating the systems upholding the insanity will never build new worlds where we all feel less crazy. It has also been said that protests are the language of the unheard. Let there be no mistake in attributing blame: regardless of who initiated physical contact, we have escalated to physical confrontation because negotiations have broken down. Some will point towards the negotiators on the student side and state that this moment of escalation is a result of their inefficacy as local leaders executing the will of broader movements — as best they can as individuals. Others will point towards the administration and say how could the self-titled “adults in the room” drive them to such great lengths. Each side may have its facts but everyone looking can sense that we’ve long begun climbing the ladder of escalation. Everyone can sense, globally, the supercharged environment, but few can resist the temptation to devolve into our worst instincts.
To the people who are content with the ever-encroaching specter of surveillance-based security, when is it enough? When Oxy’s security architecture can sniff out every dissenter and its expulsion mechanism can do its work? When the Code of Student Conduct’s “adjustments” makes it so none dare speak their mind from a stoop without a stamp of approval from SLICE?
Let’s envision some different scenarios for a moment to emphasize the timelines that almost were. What if instead of unarmed private security guards and Campus Safety, there were two people guarding the entrance to the Stritikus inauguration who were armed? A mob of over eight unarmed people clad in masks trying to make their way into an armed perimeter would’ve made national news.
What if, instead of rolling down the stairs, a student protester had fallen directly on their neck and died? Would we wait 20 years to think about what they’d said and inscribe their dying sentiments on the stairs beneath those carrying Obama’s words?
What if the group had made it in and, with their mere presence and style of dress, caused a panic? The stairs of our little coliseum could have become a scene where elders were pushed, babies were dropped and lives were lost. Proponents of continuing along the ladder of escalation on the administrative side will say “This is why the protesters deserve persecution.” To do so is to not realize the deep, irreconcilable dissonance Oxy will have created within its own identity and cemented a culture of institutionalized counter-insurgency.
Oxy is a school that presents as liberal and has signed onto initiatives vocalizing a discomfort with federal overreach into their decision-making process. But subjecting to prosecution the students you teach this liberal thinking to, because they wish to live out what you told them, is to become your own factory for martyrs. You are either on the side of resistance or the side of the status quo. Appeasement has never truly made the boot of the merciless less heavy. Ask Columbia University. Columbia shows what happens when appeasement is mistaken for principle: reins tighten, and the spirit of dissent grows stronger.
Crucify one man and you can seal his story to only those that know. Crucify a group, and you create an unshakeable spirit of insurgency. To echo the words of Fred Hampton, you can stop a revolutionary but you cannot stop a revolution once the seed of change has taken root in the minds of many.
People who Oxy does not deem worthy of punishment will remember the abuse of their friends and fellow students. Whether or not Students for Justice in Palestine has the support of the silent majority, when our shared security environment escalates we can only wonder: “If Oxy was willing to do that to them, what would they do to me if I disagree?”
There is no absolving any party of their partial responsibility nor is there a real, serious logic that decouples the administration from the consequence of their own dissonance in policy. How can Oxy sign onto an effort that claims to resist a rogue administration and not continue in the spirit of that resistance? To push back on the larger forces at play while militarizing back home is not only a missed opportunity, but an affront to the legacy of Occidental College. This event is a blight on the tapestry of our tale as an organization if we’re to say it’s supposed to be illustrative of a dynamic of real community and earnest dialogue. The institutional strategy of “delay until you graduate out the problem kids” was too effective. You wanted to declaw the cat, and now its dysfunctionality is hell that the couches, Telefund computers and student bodies pay for. Your “Men-In-Black-flash-and-forget device” worked so well that those who currently carry the torches never came to know how far we’ve come in the language/methods of resistance and are a shell of who those experiences should have made us (post-2015 & 2020). We are left with neither a sense of how to win nor the internal compass required to go anywhere in particular. The only thing that remains is a deep sense that we should be marching.
The official channels for students to express complex views and receive the context of their predecessors — so we’re not arguing antiquated points and not beginning negotiations with non-starters — have been crippled. In place of that institutional memory and sustained relationship between the administration and students, we have such a strained dynamic that we’ve resorted to a mutually assured destruction-like doctrine where one side thinks itself untouchable so long as nobody messes with the inflow of students. The other thinks itself immune because history will remember those who stood and judged those who were complicit.
But here lies an institutional opportunity few are speaking to. We are operating in a moment of legal ambiguity — where the rules governing speech, protest and accountability are rapidly evolving. Colleges, especially those who publicly challenged Trump-era overreach, must act not just defensively but strategically. This means using the current lack of precedent as a springboard — to build antifragile protocols that uphold dissent, ensure student awareness and signal solidarity without fear. The legal pressures of a White House that resist the courts are only insurmountable if we face it as individual organizations and not a collective. If we claim to value student voice, then all of academia (law especially) should be innovating ways to protect it, even under fire.
We must remember, on all sides, a civil war is not a clear-cut “us against them.” It is brother on brother, neighbor against neighbor, guardians against those they guard. A cohesive culture cannot exist as we weaponize language to alienate opposing sides from their supporters and set the stage for an adversarial spiral.
Whether or not one aligns with the style of protest, potential political perspectives or objectives of either side, I think we all should be able to see that our environments are reflections of our dynamics within them. If things are hostile, it is because we could not find solutions through dialogue — thus begins the instinctual descent into war.
If we are to respect Aaron Bushnell’s self-immolation as a protest against inhumanity, then we must also recognize that driving people to feel powerless against the tide of injustice is itself a betrayal — a failure to answer the deep, desperate request for a national return to basic accountability and human dignity.
I am not a member of Students for Justice in Palestine or any other organization. I am neither Republican nor Democrat. I am a concerned citizen of these United States, and I fear for her unity at a time when the fleet must function cohesively for us to survive this era. College students have historically been a voice for peace, and the world is watching the U.S. to see if the leader of the free world deserves that title anymore. The world is undergoing an industrial revolution, and we are re-evaluating who our friends will be moving forward. If we are to still lead or even be allowed at the party, we cannot impose our will anymore because everyone has wisened up to the condescension. To “Make America Great,” we have to concern ourselves with community and what it means to be regenerative to one another — not degenerative.
Dishea Lightfoot ’25, Economics. Contact at dlightfoot@oxy.edu.
