Speaker 1: And we are back with another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle's senior Elections correspondent at The
Federalist and your experienced Shirpa on today's Quest for Knowledge.
As always, you can email the show at radio at
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My guest today is Daniel Surr with Hughes and Sir,
the law firm representing Columbia University students and graduates, suing
the students activist and unions that they claim organized and
backed anti Israel in camps, forcing the university campus to
shut down at the end of the twenty twenty four
spring semester. We all remember those images playing out of
pandemonium on college campuses across the country. The class action
lawsuit also names notorious Congressional Squad members Democrat reps Alexandria
Cazio Cortes New York, Jamal Bowman also of New York,
and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota as defendants. It alleges the
Columbia students were subject to bullying and harassment, refused access
to in person classes and campus facilities, as well as
denied a commencement which was canceled because of the violent
protest on campus. Daniel, thank you so much for joining
us on the Federalist Radio Hour.
Speaker 2: Great to be here, Matt, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: This is I think an extremely important lawsuit because it
gets at what we saw or so long happening in
this country, not just on the campus of Columbia, although
this is directly aimed at Columbia. This is indeed a
class action lawsuit, but it is not, as I understand it,
a lawsuit filed against the university itself.
Speaker 2: Is that correct?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, Matt. What's so important here is putting
accountability where it should start. Universities have their own legal
obligations under state and federal law to ensure that students
have a safe and discrimination free campus, and they're all
students are entitled to that, and universities need to follow
through on that. But we didn't sue Columbia here. We
sued the people who actually created the unsafe environment, the discrimination,
hate filled environment in the first place, and that starts
with students for justice in Palestine and the other student
group that chose to sponsor and continue trespassing with these
illegal encampments on Columbia's campus.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to me that Columbia is not here though,
because you have all of these groups. Of course, as
you mentioned, as the allegation states, they are driving these protests.
But can you not make the argument that Columbia, the
university itself, accepted this environment, an environment that it should
have could have closed down much earlier.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a fair point, Matt. One of
the real problems in these circumstances is that the universities
owe a duty to all of their students to provide
an education and to provide a safe campus. And here
we had a Columba I think, you know, in the
midst of the pandemonium great word choice earlier, where they
could have deployed. In fact, they did deploy police resources
at the very beginning of the encampment, and then they
chose to instead try to appease the students when the
encampment went back up by negotiating with them, by playing
foot see with them over divestment for the endowment, and
they didn't really again draw a hard line and put
an end to the illegal behavior until the students violently
seized a building, held hostage a number of janitors. That
was finally the event that triggered Columbia taking action.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for those who think that these protests were simply
just a matter of free expression, and let's face it,
have been an attorney for a long time dealing with
First Amendment rights and free expressions, so you know you
are fully versed in those laws and in particularly the
significance and importance of those laws. But this was beyond
the by any measurement, any reasonable measurement, with the domains
of free speech, the exercise thereof. I mean, let me
let me take you back, just in case you've forgotten
or you've wanted to get these images out of your mind.
As a spring turned very violent on these college campuses,
particularly Columbia. This from Fox News. Campus protesters scream chants
such as death to Israel, death to America, death to Jews, Hamas,
we love you, we support your rockets too, Israel, go
to Hell, and the seventh of October is coming to
be every day for you. According to the lawsuit, two
Jewish Columbia students were reportedly called Nazi Nazis and other words,
and this is a family program, we'll keep it that way.
And Jewish students were punched. Govved spat at physically blocked
for moving freely throughout campus by participants in the encampment.
The suit claims, So, Daniel, this goes well beyond the speech.
I mean, you could make an argument that the death
to America, death the Jews, Hamas, we love you, we
support your rockets too, is extremely inflammatory. But it's the
physical violence that took place, captured and seen by millions
across this country and the world. I think that's really
at issue here, is it?
Speaker 3: Dot, It's several things, Matt. So for starters, you're absolutely right.
The First Amendment includes a right to protest. It doesn't
include a right to assault other people. It doesn't include
a right to attack other students or law enforcement. Doesn't
include a right to block public spaces. So that's number one.
Number two, the First Amendment is subject to reasonable time, place,
and manner restrictions. Right the government can say you can
have a rally in a park and you need a
permit for that rally, and you can use a bullhorn
at that rally, but you can't use the bullhorn after
ten pm.
Speaker 2: And the reason for that is.
Speaker 3: Because we need to respect not only your First Amendment rights,
but also the rights of the rest of the community,
which include not having rallies on your front lawn rather
than in the park, or not having rallies using a
bullhorn at two in the morning when you're going to
wake everybody up, right, reasonable time, place and manner restrictions.
So the students at Columbia here, if they had just
asked for a permit to hold a rally and have
a student organization event, they could have.
Speaker 2: That's not what they did.
Speaker 4: They set up tents, they stayed for weeks, and when
they were told over and over again by both university administrators,
public safety, and police that they had gone beyond what
they were permitted and that they were illegally trespassing and
they were prohibiting other students from also having their rights respected,
their attitude.
Speaker 3: Was screw you, We're going to stay until you give
us what you want. That it was total disregard for
any of the basic principles of appropriate free speech.
Speaker 1: There are five plaintiffs in this lawsuit at present am
I correct?
Speaker 2: Correct?
Speaker 1: Okay? So five of them are these Jewish students on campus.
Speaker 2: They are.
Speaker 3: So this lawsuit I think is really on behalf of
every student at Columbia, because every student had their spring
semester ruined by what happened here. You know, every student
at Columbia was denied two weeks of the education that
they paid for. Every student in Columbia was denied access
to the gym that they paid a fee for. Every
student was denied access to the cafeteria that they had
brought meals at. Right, So every student was impacted, but
obviously in a particular way. These Jewish students were not
only affected by the closure of campus, but were also
emotionally affected and their safety was affected by the virulent harassment.
And I think it's that, you know, you read the quotes, Matt,
I think the right word is hate speech that was
being hurled at them by these people who should be
their classmates, but certainly weren't acting like it.
Speaker 1: As you mentioned. You know, these students, their parents, whoever
paying for this education, and it was absolutely taken away
from them. And not only that, were there not students
that had to fle the campus because they felt that
they were in danger of more violent attacks.
Speaker 3: It's absolutely right, Matt, so in fact, the rabbi of
the on campus Hillel, the campus ministry program for Jewish students,
encouraged students to leave, saying he no longer felt confident
that Colombia was able to provide a safe environment for
Jewish students. And so you have all these families, these parents,
these students who have paid not just good money, but
let's be honest, it's Colombia, lots.
Speaker 1: Of good money, oh yes, with.
Speaker 3: An expectation of an education, and they're forced to flee
campus because of the dangerous, unsafe environment that had been
created by these radical agitators. And as a result, they
didn't get what they paid for. And all we're asking
for is compensation from the people who broke law. We're saying,
if you're going to harm other people when you break
the law, you should make them whole for the damage
that you caused. That's a pretty basic principle of American law.
Speaker 1: And you know, these students also, as you noted and
the lawsuit notes, lost their commenments, commencement ceremony. Now that's
an experience, of course that I shouldn't say every student,
but many students dream of in their long course to achieving,
you know.
Speaker 2: A graduate certificate.
Speaker 1: They were denied that, and you don't get those moments back.
I think about the kids who graduated from high school
or college in you know, twenty twenty. They were denied
the same experience. But that had a lot to do,
of course, with a pandemic. It also had much to
do with overreaching bureaucrats who shut everything down at that time.
And we've hopefully learned some valuable lessons since. But these
are students at Columbus that lost this lifetime moment because
of what clearly was riotous protest on campus.
Speaker 3: You think back on life, and there are so few
of these truly mountaintop highlight moments.
Speaker 2: Your wedding day, your kids' wedding days.
Speaker 3: The day that you hold your child the first time
at the hospital, and the day that you graduate from college. Right,
there's a reason that grandparents fly in, that your whole
family shows up, that your parents take you out to
a massive state dinner. It's because it's a lifetime achievement
moment encapsulated in that day. And so for Columbia to
cancel that because they couldn't guarantee the safety of students,
because these riotous protesters had created such an unsafe environment.
You know, that's a loss for all of these graduates
and they deserve to be compensated for it.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: The difference of the pandemic is you can't sue COVID.
You knew who the bad guy was, but it's not
like you can sue a virus. Here, we know why
graduation was canceled. It was because these on and off
campus agitators collaborated to create a dangerous environment that forced cancelation,
and they can be sued, They can be held accountable,
and that's all we're asking for in this lawsuit is
hold accountable the people who created this dangerous environment with
their illegal activity.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think of that environment based on you know,
the lawsuit. As it spells out the experiences of these
five plaintiffs, you wouldn't want your grandparents flying in for
for this the state of you know what Columbia was undergoing,
and let's face it, their Jewish grandparents would not feel
very safe on this campus during these very violent protests.
All right, let's take a look at the defendants involved.
You had mentioned a couple of them, and they are
the if you will, the usual suspects. Who are some
of them? Anyway? All over these college protests in the
spring of this year on campuses from New York to California.
But who are we looking at in terms of the
defendants in this case?
Speaker 3: I meant these events really spring from an ecosystem. That
It's not like these were spontaneous, organic student events, or
at least they didn't stay that way.
Speaker 2: It was really an ecosystem.
Speaker 3: It obviously starts with the students Students for Justice in
Palestine in particular, but it extends to their enablers on
the faculty. You'll remember the green vest photos of faculty
members wearing green vests, ringing the encampment or wearing their
academic regalia. Right, they didn't have a commencement to wear
it too, so they got it out to ring the
protest to stop law enforcement from going in and cleaning
out the trespassers.
Speaker 2: So the faculty enabled this.
Speaker 3: So we sued both the adjunct faculty union and the
full time faculty union, who public documents and news reporting
show were integral in organizing the picket lines that protected
the encampment. And then they're the off campus professional left
wing agitators who are some within the Palestinian activist organizations,
people like Within Our Lifetime and National Students for Justice
in Palestine, and some more just general you know, left
wing community organizing groups like the People's Forum in New York.
But who provided the training, the support, and really the
encouragement and incitement to these students to kind of all
collaborate on this witch is brew of illegal behavior that
turned into.
Speaker 2: You know, a riot at the end of the day.
Speaker 1: I know that there has been reporting on the funding
structure that's involved in in some of these groups. I'm
curious if any of these organizations have been tied to
individuals or organizations on the terrorist watch groups as well.
Speaker 3: Great question, Matt, So I think we're going to learn
a lot over the course of this case about exactly
how the money flows, because once again, these were not spontaneous,
organic student acts. They were funded, they were structured, they
were trained, they had national media support that was being
pushed by these advocacy groups, and all of that takes money,
and we are going to, i think see a lot
of that transparency come out hopefully. I'll also note there's
a separate case brought by another set of lawyers in
the Eastern District of Virginia against American Muslims in Palestine
for what those plaintiffs were all family members of victims
of the October seventh hostage taking or murder taking event
that their complaint alleges that they are very direct ties
between the terrorist organizations abroad and the American advocacy groups
that are often linked with a lot of this activity.
Speaker 1: Interesting because we know that Hamas, which is the terrorist
organization designated as such by our own State Department, is
the violent terrorist organization that these many of these protesters
are ultimately supporting when they're screaming from the River to
the Sea Palace, Steine will be free, and all of
these sort of catchphrases that we've seen, we know the
context of this, at the core of Israel's war right
now against terrorism and the most brutal terrorist acts we've
seen since the Holocaust World War Two, all of that
is important in this lawsuit, I think in the context
therein We're going to delve a little bit more into
that in just a moment. I guess today is Daniel
SIRR with Hughes and Sir, the law firm representing Columbia
University students and graduates, suing the students activist and unions
they claim organized and back anti Israel encampments forcing the
university campus to shut down and the twenty twenty four
spring semester. Some of the individuals in the group, though, Daniel,
are if I'm correct in this, if I remember in
reading the lawsuit student union groups and faculty union groups
as well.
Speaker 2: That's right, Matt. So one of the ironies in all
of this.
Speaker 3: Is the United Auto Workers is one of the defendants,
and you'd be like, Wow, what is the UAW doing
as a defendant in a case like this, And the
answer is that actually a significant chunk of the uaw's membership,
like a quarter to a third or more of uaw's membership,
these days is found on college campuses. In fact, a
bunch of employees at Cornell University just went on strike
this week through their UAW local. So UAW has a
significant presence on college campuses. It represents the adjunct faculty,
the so called student workers, the graduate students, the adjunct professors.
At Columbia, the vice president of that organization was arrested
by the police and the course of these protests for
his illegal behavior, the union was very active in organizing
students to both participate, graduate students to participate in the
encampment and adjunct faculty to protect the encampment, to participate
in a picket line around the encampment. And we saw
the same thing from the American Association of University Professors AAUP,
the union for the full time faculty, similarly organizing a
rally and I think facilitating some of the green vest behavior.
These unions were very much on the front lines of
enabling what happened with the encampment, and the national UAW
is named as a defendant because they came in alongside
their local and supported them, provided them with encouragement, and
I think incited them to continue their illegal behavior. And
when a union ratify eyes the illegal behavior of its local,
it also becomes liable for that. So both the UAW
National and these two particular unions are all among the
defendants because they were all integral in supporting and inciting
the illegal behavior happening inside the encampment.
Speaker 1: And I ask you a question that I think is
a logical question that our readers and our listeners would ask,
and that is, what the hell does the UAW a
union that is traditionally known as a representative group of
auto workers, it's in the name, the people who assemble vehicles,
cars and trucks and vans across this country, what on
earth do they have to do with Columbia faculty, university
faculty in general. I think you kind of touched upon it,
But I think we find this baffling to begin with.
Speaker 3: It is baffling until you see it in context. So
it used to be the case that unions, I think
you're right, represented individual industries. But then as private sector,
especially private sector union membership declined, there was a cannibalization.
Right that the union started fighting with each other over
an increasingly shrinking pie of union members and started crossing
over industries. Right, I've sued the Teamsters for representing government
social workers. The American Federation of Teachers Randy Weingarten also
represents nurses and other healthcare professionals and other government employees
outside of the school setting. Right Like, there are all
these weird amalgamations, and what is essentially reflects is that
people choose their union these days not based on how
what industry you're in, but on how aggressive, how virulent,
how political the union is. And so the UAW has
sort of staked out a position as being a very aggressive,
having a tone that is very focused on solidarity and
very aggressive. And so if you like that tone, if
you want something that's going to be aggressive, well then
your union leadership at the local level migrates toward UAW,
whereas other unions that are much more closely aligned to
just the traditional leadership of the Democratic Party are less
aggressive in tone or less aggressive in tactics end up
not having those members. And so it's less about what
industry you're in and more about what approach you think
is going to work. I think layered on top of
all of that in the uaw's case is a real
problem for Sean Fain, who's the president VAW. He's the
new president. He came in on a platform of taking
a more aggressive approach in negotiations with the Big three automakers.
But he's got a lot of members, especially in Michigan,
who come from or are connected to Arab American communities
and who are really fired up about Gaza and who
are really unhappy with the Biden administration's policy on Gaza,
so much so that at the last EAW convention there
was a major fight over whether or not UAW should
endorse the Biden ticket at the time earlier this summer
because so many UAW workers who come from Araba American
communities and so many UAW members who come from academic
university settings were unhappy with the Biden administration and wanted
to withhold the endorsement over this issue.
Speaker 2: So Sean has been.
Speaker 3: In this really tough spot, and I think has been
leaning into issues like Colombia in order to prove his
street cred.
Speaker 2: Well at the same time.
Speaker 3: Getting the opportunity to go at the DNC and deliver
a speech to the convention from the main stage.
Speaker 1: I think that's really interesting context. And actually that was
my follow up question you answered, it is how much
of this is driven by membership in the Detroit area,
which is increasingly, you know, members of the Islamic community,
some of whom certainly are very much pro Hamas and
very much very much anti Israel, many which anti Israel.
We see that playing out in the election, of course,
and I think this context is very important because none
of this happens without October seven, twenty twenty three, and
I don't want to lose sight of that at all.
That's really where this lawsuit stems from, because you don't
don't have any of this madness on our college campuses
without the absolute lack of humanity exhibited by Hamas. On
October seven, twenty twenty three, more than a thousand people
destroyed summarily. And we're not just talking about murdered. We're
talking about victims of rape, people who were tortured and burned, babies,
the elderly. I don't want anybody to ever forget that fact.
And so Israel launched a war against the terrorist group Hamas.
And I put all of this in context because this
is the question that so many of us have had
for so long. Why did these colleges and universities like
Columbia simply roll over to this radicalized protest movement. Do
you think that really stems from a terrorist organization that
is in control of Gaza that ends up defending this
terrorist organization. Why did we have so many of our
particularly our taxpayer funded colleges and universities, roll over to this.
Speaker 2: I think the one word answer is faculty. Right.
Speaker 3: The irony of all of this is that we had
student protesters who were clearly engaging in illegal trespassing, student
protesters who were clearly engaging in hate speech and harassment,
in bullying, in things that the university would never tolerate otherwise.
Right if this had been in a different politically sensitive context, Right,
if we had had signs up about bearing the exact
same message, but like saying death to the gay people,
write something like a Westboro Baptist or kind of sign
might have said.
Speaker 1: Or hamas by the way, or hamas by the way,
such signs.
Speaker 2: Let's say, there's no way.
Speaker 3: The university would have tolerated that kind of hate speech
or bullying or harassment of classmates. Right, It's just this
one particular type of hate speech that the university tolerates,
And the reason is not because students are saying it.
Students get cracked down on for saying inappropriate.
Speaker 2: Things all the time.
Speaker 3: It's that the faculty at Columbia at elsewhere are hardcore
leftists who are enabling it, who are demanding that the
university tolerate it, and university administrators whose general inclination otherwise
is probably agreeing ideologically and in general to try to
appease rather than draw a hard line, gets sucked into
making mistakes when the obvious answer is just enforce the rules.
Just to force the rules, enforce the rules for everybody
the same. College Republicans can have a Trump rally on
the lawn for two hours and then when they're permit expires,
they leave.
Speaker 2: The Goz of.
Speaker 3: People can have a rally for two hours and when
they're permit expires, they leave. But if College Republicans put
up a tent encampment, you clean them out. If the
Gods of people put up a tent encampment, you.
Speaker 2: Clean them out.
Speaker 3: Because there are rules, and we enforce the rules, because
the rules ensure respect not just for your First Amendment rights,
but for the rights of everybody else in the university
community as well.
Speaker 1: And we've seen so much lawlessness from the left over
the last four years period exam myriad examples come to mind,
but this obviously is the latest and two final questions
for you on this front. What's the process like ahead
you filed in I believe late July. This is coming
to the four now filed in federal court in New York.
Where does this go from here? And how are the
plaintiffs doing these days after the experiences they've gone through.
Speaker 3: So the process from here is it starts by actually
serving the plan of the defendants. And one of our challenges, frankly, Matt,
is that the defendants operate on a very shadowy basis.
Are these networks of Palestinian advocacy organizations that don't play
by the traditional rules of advocacy, and so one aspect
of that is this lawlessness, this disrespect for the First Amendment.
Another aspect of that is they don't incorporate, they don't
have registered agents, they don't have offices. They exist on
the internet, they exist in social media. There are definitely
people and dollars behind these things, but they hide behind
front groups and they don't have the traditional advocacy structures
for people who play the advocacy game in the traditional way,
and so that's going to be our first challenge, I
think is just getting service on several of these defendants.
I'm confident we will, but it's going to be, you know,
bringing accountability, which is something that they've i think structured
themselves to make difficult. Your second question, you're very kind
to ask. I think what's on the plane Offf's mind?
And you know, when I talk to these guys, is
really the same question for every student. What's going to
happen when we come back in a week or two.
What's the fall semester going to look like. Are we
going to see a resurgence in the same anti Semitic
discriminatory behavior. Are we going to see the same hate speech?
Are people going to be holding the protests? Again, we
know from publicly available news reports that the pro Gaza
protesters have not taken the summer off. They have been organizing,
They've been holding zoom calls, they've been doing training events.
They are very much planning and preparing for the return
to school after Labor Day. And I think for my plaintiffs,
and probably for a lot of Jewish students and just
students in general, there's a deep concern about what are
they going to return to and will the universities Columbia
and others have learned their lesson and actually hold a
firm line to ensure that every student returns to a safe,
welcoming environment.
Speaker 2: Are we going to see a repeat of the.
Speaker 3: Chaos and the dangerous behavior and the illegal behavior and
the destructive behavior and the vandalism. Is that all coming
back for round two? And there's just no way to
answer that question until we get through September and we see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we can all understand the concern, the
trepidation by the five plaintiffs and really any student concerned
about the rioting, the violence, the disorder, the pandemonium on
these college campuses. Like I said, we'll see we're seeing
a preview of that, of course at the Democratic National Convention.
And stay tuned, I suppose on that front. Thanks to
my guest today, Daniel Sir, with the law firm Hughes
and Sir, you've been listening to another edition of the
Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, senior correspondent at the Federalist.
We'll be back soon with more. Until then, stay lovers
of freedom and anxious for the frame earn the fame
boys reason, and then away