Arizona Department of Education Superintendent Tom Horne advised K-12 schools to look to Arizona State University (ASU) and University of Arizona (UArizona) for how to respond to Gaza protesters.
In a press release issued on Monday following a long weekend of higher education protests against Israel in Arizona and nationwide, Horne praised ASU and UArizona leadership — specifically presidents Robert Robbins and Michael Crow — for their handling of the mass protests compared to other universities, which he characterized as antisemitic.
“Robert Robbins and Michael Crow deserve exceptional praise for standing up to antisemitism on their campuses. This stands in stark contrast to how many colleges, universities and ideological faculty members have kowtowed to disruptive pro-Hamas demonstrations,” said Horne. “It is also an excellent template for K-12 schools in Arizona to follow should any attempt be made by students to copy the type of protests that have shut down portions of college campuses and caused Jewish students to feel unsafe.”
Horne warned that history would repeat itself, should those in leadership not be proactive with handling protests. The superintendent cited several incidents of violence that broke out at other campuses nationwide, including rocks reportedly thrown at Jewish students at Columbia University and a pole with a Palestinian flag being stabbed into the eye of another Jewish student at Yale University.
“Our DNA is no different from the DNA of Germans in the 1930s, and Nazis started with young thugs attacking people on the street,” said Horne. “We need to be vigilant.”
Law enforcement for both campuses were swift to deter and move out protesters as they attempted to establish encampments.
Of the two institutions, UArizona had the calmer turnout in terms of protestors. At ASU, over 70 arrests were made, 15 of whom were students, after protesters set up an illegal encampment as part of their protest.
Dozens arrested overnight at ASU campus following encampment protest.
— Jack | OnSceneTV Phoenix (@NewsPhotog_Jack) April 27, 2024
UArizona protesters also set up an encampment on Monday, but later dispersed. After those protesters left, officials barricaded the campus mall to prevent further encampments.
Law enforcement had to drive out the protesters and relied on assistance from fraternity members to assist in cleanup.
However, by Tuesday protesters returned to encamp again elsewhere on campus.
A majority of the Gaza protests were concentrated along the upper east coast. The following higher education institutions have experienced Gaza protests over the last few weeks:
California: California State Polytechnic Institute, Stanford University, University of Southern California Los Angeles;
Colorado: Auraria Campus;
Connecticut: University of Connecticut, Yale University;
D.C.: George Washington University;
Delaware: University of Delaware;
Florida: Florida State University;
Georgia: Emory University, University of Georgia;
Illinois: Northwestern University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign;
Indiana: Indiana University Bloomington;
Massachusetts: Emerson College, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northeastern University, Tufts University;
Michigan: Michigan State University;
Minnesota: University of Minnesota;
Missouri: Washington University.
North Carolina: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill;
New Jersey: Princeton University;
New Mexico: University of New Mexico Albuquerque;
New York: City College of New York, Columbia University, Cornell University, Fashion Institute of Technology, the New School, New York University, University of Rochester;
Pennsylvania: Swarthmore College, University of Pennsylvania;
Ohio: Ohio State University;
Rhode Island: Brown University;
South Carolina: University of South Carolina;
Texas: Rice University, University of Texas at Austin;
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Students at Arizona State University reportedly held anti-Israel demonstrations on campus Friday.
Videos shared by local free speech advocate Ann Atkinson on X show students yelling “Free, Free, Free Palestine” on the Old Main Lawn, which was covered in tents, signs, and protesters.
BREAKING – ASU students are reporting what appears to be anti-Israel demonstrations setting up on ASU’s Old Main lawn, across the street from the Presidents office.
How will ASU handle this? Will the demonstrations remain peaceful or will they draw inspiration from the ivy… pic.twitter.com/OPj0KnPGMr
Arizona State police handcuffed multiple people amid the protest. Protesters started to form a group in front of Old Main near College Avenue and University Drive on the ASU campus around 9 a.m.
ASU prohibits encampments on property that are outside of university-sanctioned activity.
“Individuals found setting up unapproved encampments will be directed to dismantle them immediately,” an ASU spokesperson told ABC15. “Failure to comply may result in being trespassed from campus and possible arrest. We prioritize the safety and well-being of the campus community and uphold policies to ensure a welcoming environment for everyone.
When police first approached the scene Friday morning and ordered the students to stop protesting, demonstrators chanted, “Hey Hey, ho ho, those damn pigs have got to go.”
Arizona State University joined various universities and other academic groups in issuing a statement in support of Israel in October following the initial Hamas attack, which killed around 1,200 Israelis and foreigners.
“We are horrified and sickened by the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas,” the statement read.
The protestors issued a list of demands asking the university to change its pro-Israel stance.
Here is the list of demands from the protesters: they want ASU to cut all ties with Israel and for ASU president Michael Crow to resign pic.twitter.com/bwvuxKopwi
Demands included asking ASU to issue an official statement condemning the zionist genocide of Palestinians; disclosing all investments made with student money; divesting from companies tied to Israel or complicit in the occupation of Gaza; ending partnerships with groups tied to Israel; providing amnesty for students and faculty disciplined for supporting Palestine; and ending investigations on pro-Palestinian groups.
The protestors demanded that ASU President Michael Crow immediately resign and called for the ASU police to be abolished.
Atkinson suggested that protesters may have wanted to clash with the police.
“Current reporting indicates the protesters did not follow basic rules and are being accused of trespassing,” she said on X. “You would think organizers of a protest like this, which is supported by some ASU faculty and community organizers, and is also set up across the street from the university presidents office, would be smart enough to follow the rules. Perhaps their objective was a conflict with police.”
ASU is one of many schools to face unlawful anti-Israel protests from students.
More than 100 students were arrested last Thursday at Columbia University. Since then hundreds of students have set up similar encampments from California to Massachusetts.
Students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill organized tents, tarps, and air mattresses in a central courtyard, while students at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan set up an encampment Thursday inside the college’s Goldman Center.
Police arrested 36 people Thursday night when hundreds of Ohio State University students, faculty, and community members set up tents outside the student union. Almost 60 were arrested after protests at the University of Texas.
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
Arizona State University plans to use taxpayer dollars to host a talk by former Democratic congresswoman Nancy Pelosi on Monday.
Pelosi will have a conversation with Obama administration strategist David Axelrod as part of the ASU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ “Democracy at Work” series. The event is only open to ASU faculty, staff, and students.
Pelosi served as speaker of the house from 2007 to 2011 and from 2019 to 2023.
The talk comes as Pelosi has been actively campaigning for President Joe Biden’s reelection. In March, Biden, former President Barack Obama, and Pelosi held a virtual rally to celebrate the anniversary of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). They touted the ACA for lowering the cost of healthcare, and warned against former President Donald Trump’s efforts to repeal the ACA.
Pelosi has a history of championing left-wing causes. Despite claiming to be Catholic, Pelosi has said it is a “sin” to restrict access to abortion. As a congresswoman, she supported abortion on demand up to the moment of birth.
Other speakers in the “Democracy at Work” series include former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, journalist Karl Rove, Obama adviser David Plouff, former Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, ASU President Michael Crow, and Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif.
Axelrod is professor of practice at Arizona State University and senior political commentator for CNN. He is the host of the “Axe Files” and is the founding director of the University of Chicago’s non-partisan Institute of Politics.
Patrick Kenney, the Dean of ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, did not immediately respond to AZ Free News’ request for comment.
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
Racist programs and activities do not belong in our state. But in the name of so-called “progress,” they have taken Arizona’s universities by storm. This isn’t the way it was supposed to be. Back in 2010, our state’s voters passed Proposition 107. This amendment to Arizona’s Constitution banned affirmative action programs in the state that were administered by statewide or local units of government, including state agencies, cities, counties, and school districts. But the left found a loophole and has been working to exploit it ever since.
Using words that sound harmless like “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion” (DEI), our universities have been flying under the radar in an attempt to indoctrinate students and bring racial discrimination back to campus.
At ASU, the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication currently requires some of its students to take a course called, “Diversity and Civility at Cronkite.” And the Goldwater Institute recently revealed that more than 100 classes offered in ASU’s Spring 2024 catalog include terms like “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion.” The University of Arizona’s medical schools in Tucson and Phoenix have been the epitome of DEI best practices—with DEI offices, requirements to complete six hours of DEI credit, and more. And NAU has launched multiple initiatives to increase the number of Native American and Hispanic science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) graduates, including revising graduate admissions processes to increase inclusivity and diversity.
But it’s not just students who have been affected by DEI programs…
Arizona State University (ASU) is facing a lawsuit over the inclusivity training it mandates for faculty.
The Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute sued the university earlier this month over the allegedly discriminatory training, on behalf of longtime ASU philosophy and religious studies professor Dr. Owen Anderson. The organization specifically alleged that ASU’s training violated Arizona law, A.R.S. § 41-1494(A), prohibiting trainings, orientations, or therapies that present any blame or judgment on the basis of race, ethnicity, or sex.
“Arizona state law prohibits mandatory training for state employees and use of taxpayer resources to teach doctrines that discriminate based on race, ethnicity, sex, and other characteristics,” said Goldwater Staff Attorney Stacy Skankey in a press release.
Contested aspects of the ASU training, “ASU Inclusive Communities,” required faculty to acknowledge the history of white supremacy and social conditions persisting its existence as a structural phenomenon; society’s normalization of white supremacy; the sociohistorical legacy of racism, sexism, homophobia, and structural inequalities that impact minority faculty; white privilege; antiracism; and the relationship between sexual identities and power and the privilege of heterosexuality.
The training also included a video to which Anderson objected. The video encouraged faculty to “critique whiteness,” and to ascribe definite beliefs of good and evil as inherently racist.
“And what colonization did, was it really created this system of binary thinking,” stated the video. “There were folks that were inherently good and folks that were inherently bad, and that led to the systems of superiority that were then written into the foundational documents of our Nation.”
In addition to completing the training, ASU required faculty to pass an exam. The correct answers for that exam reinforced controversial concepts of systemic bias, intersectionality, land acknowledgement, equity, decolonization, microaggressions, and social justice. The Goldwater Institute claimed in their lawsuit that the inclusivity training only served to teach concepts of blame or judgment based on race, ethnicity, or sex.
“The Inclusive Communities training provides discriminatory concepts including, but not limited to: white people are inherently racist and oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously; heterosexuals are inherently sexist and oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously; white people should receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of their race or ethnicity; white people bear responsibility for actions committed by other white people; land acknowledgement statements are a way of holding one race or ethnicity responsible for the actions committed by other members of the same race or ethnicity; transformative justice calls for an individual to bear responsibility for actions committed by other members of the same race, ethnic group or sex; and dominant identities (whites or heterosexuals) are treated morally or intellectually superior to other races, ethnic groups or sexes.”
As justification for its call of decolonization, the ASU training also challenged the validity and goodness of the American founding.
ASU’s required employee training, called “inclusive communities,” teaches that the Founding Documents of the United States, and its history and laws, are tied to white supremacy. Should believing that be a requirement of employment? @Ann_Atkinson_AZ@SethLeibsohn@charliekirk11…
In a press release, Anderson said that his employment shouldn’t hinge on his submitting to ideas that conflict with his beliefs.
“This ‘training’ is simply racism under the guise of DEI. It goes against my conscience, and I want no part of it,” said Anderson.
The contents of this training were obtained last May through a public records request by the Goldwater Institute. Prior to filing the lawsuit earlier this month, the organization sent a letter to the Arizona Board of Regents last fall asking ASU to cease and desist spending on the inclusivity training and others like it that allegedly run afoul of state antidiscrimination law.
The university requires faculty to repeat the inclusivity training every two years.
The case, Anderson v. Arizona Board of Regents, is in the Maricopa County Superior Court.
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