VIEWPOINT | Masks off everybody – almost everybody

Column by Froma Harrop

At least 18 states don’t allow people to go about their streets wearing pointed Ku Klux Klan hoods. The white costumes serve the double purpose of racial intimidation and hiding the identities of the creeps inside them. Most of those anti-masking laws were passed early last century in response to Klan violence. 

Today’s masking controversies attach to a very different issue, but the motives bear some similarities. Many of the pro-Palestinian campus demonstrators are pairing face masks with keffiyehs, a symbol of intifada. When the costumes reveal just a slice of face, the wearers look like ISIS terrorists, which could well be their intention. 

At UCLA, some masked pro-Palestinian demonstrators were attacked by masked anti-pro-Palestinian demonstrators. Both sides were too cowardly to be associated with a look that future employers might not appreciate. And both groups apparently attracted outsiders looking for action.

Most respectable institutions respect themselves. Colleges have been a special case in that many market their campuses as forums for protest. Columbia University, for one, ran a nostalgic retrospective of the violent campus unrest of 1968. You’d think it was its finest hour. 

Columbia has rules for protests, including that it be given advance notice. It hasn’t seen a point in enforcing them until the current situation. Columbia didn’t anticipate students with strongly held beliefs clashing with students holding other strongly held beliefs.

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