GOP Senators Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton are calling on President Biden to deploy the National Guard to quell pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses, particularly Columbia University in New York City.
Hawley compared the situation to the 1957 Little Rock Central High School integration crisis, in which President Eisenhower called in the 101st Airborne Division to protect nine African-American students. He urged Biden to “call out the National Guard at our universities to protect Jewish Americans.”
Cotton called for the Biden administration to “break up” pro-Palestinian groups on Columbia’s campus if New York Governor Kathy Hochul does not deploy the New York National Guard. He warned that “the nascent pogroms at Columbia have to stop TODAY.”
Cotton’s call for federal intervention is reminiscent of his previous request for then-President Trump to send in troops to quell protests following George Floyd’s murder. He had suggested invoking the Insurrection Act to restore order.
Columbia University has announced that it will hold classes remotely in an attempt to defuse the tense situation on campus. Student protests against the war in Gaza have included demands for the university to divest from companies profiting from the conflict. The university has already called in the NYPD, leading to over 100 arrests, and suspended some students, but these actions have not quelled the demonstrations.
The protests have spread to other universities, including Yale, where over 45 demonstrators were arrested on Monday.
