Rogueish

It isn’t even that some people think it’s okay to do so, in other words; it’s that when some people think its fine and some people don’t, the end result is: the police will do whatever they want. If they want to grab a non-resisting protester by her hair and throw her to the ground — this time, next time, every time — they will.

The Review Board’s report opens with the strange claim that “there is no obvious standard against which to judge these actions.” This is used to introduce the notion of “campus norms,” which the report suggests involve a greater respect for free speech than legal requirements or written policies. In fact, I don’t think there’s a single point in the report where “each committee member’s own understanding and interpretation” of campus norms leads to an unambiguous criticism of the police or administration. “Campus norms,” that is, turns out to be the name of the lack of standards which allows the board to refuse to judge the administration.