David Darmofal, Professor and Department Vice Chair in the Department of Political Science at the University of South Carolina, shared photos of campus today which appeared empty of students let alone encampments of pro-Palestinian protestors as seen at Columbia University and UCLA, among other universities.
Darmofal wrote: “This is what it looks like on our campus today. Based on the data, I’m guessing this is what it looks like at 99%+ of the colleges & universities in the United States today.”
[Beyond Columbia and UCLA, protests have also been notable with arrests made at New York University, the University of Texas at Austin, University of North Carolina, University of Southern California, California State Polytechnic University, Tulane, University of Utah, University of Colorado, Ohio State University, Emerson College, Yale University, Princeton University, Northeastern University, Virginia Tech, Indiana University, University of Illinois and others.]
Note: Darmofal “has research interests in political behavior, American political development, and political methodology. Much of his research examines how political geography and spatial interactions shape the behavior of political actors.”
This is what it looks like on our campus today. Based on the data, I’m guessing this is what it looks like at 99%+ of the colleges & universities in the United States today. pic.twitter.com/WbmvW9a3pX
— David Darmofal (@david_darmofal) April 30, 2024
Dr. Nola Haynes, Adjunct Professor – Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service at Georgetown University, replied to Darmofal’s post: “It was picture perfect at Georgetown today.”
Yale-trained psychologist Dr. Nina Shiffrin Starin replied to Darmofal: “To be fair your university isn’t known for having a high percentage of Jews. Most of the universities with big protests have lots of Jews.” (The number of Jewish students on campus may not be relevant, as the protests are targeted less at fellow university students than at university policies and endowment divestiture regarding Israel.)
But the fact Dr. Starin cites is accurate: Of the 26,430 undergraduate students at the University of South Carolina, approximately 450 are Jewish Students (1.7% of the population). At Columbia University, approximately 22.5% of the undergraduate population is Jewish (1500 Jewish Students out of 6668 students).
