College Protesters: Who are they?

On college campuses from coast to coast, civil unrest is taking place at an alarming rate. But don’t ask the rabble to identify themselves; these protesters are loud, but they don’t appear to be proud. There is an obvious reason for protesting in disguise: fear of reprisal.

Today’s protesters want to be heard but not identified, so they cover their faces, thinking it will protect them from being held accountable. This need to conceal suggests a desire to “protect their anonymity even as they demand universities and governments be held to account,” according to The New York Times.

Today’s college campuses look nothing like those of days gone by. They are jam-packed with international students, leaving many Americans questioning whether some foreign students came here to get an education or for some other reason.

According to Statista, there are more than 15 thousand students across the nation from Saudi Arabia, another ten thousand from Iran, over eight thousand from Turkey, and many, many more from China. “In 2022/23, there were 467,027 international graduate students, which accounted for over one-third of the international students in the country,” according to Statista. That means there are approximately 1.5 million students who hail from other countries. There are no statistics, however, to tell us how many came here for an education and how many came to agitate. College protesters want to engage in free speech – but they don’t want their visas revoked.

Fear of reprisal extends to more than just taking away a young international student’s visa and shipping them back home. There’s a fear of online doxing, resume or career damage, and more. Why would they care about such things? Surveys show that 73% of all international students don’t want to get their diploma and go home; they want to stay here. More than one-third, 38%, “would like to live in the U.S. long-term, for four years or longer,” according to a FWD.us survey.

College Protesters: Peek-a-Boo

In the age of the internet, a mask and head scarf are not going to do the trick. With an abundance of surveillance cameras and facial recognition software, the technology is way ahead of the angry mobs. Ultimately, scarves and masks will not protect the protesters from identification because facial recognition also includes retinal scans.

Some states have laws that prevent using facial recognition software on people engaged in constitutionally protected activities like protesting. Like it or not, technology may still have a profound influence over whether the individuals taking part in the anti-Semitic protests will eventually be unmasked.