Students at Rutgers University showed their patriotism after an earlier this week demonstration on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where students sung the National Anthem and stopped an American flag from falling to the ground.
Students at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, waved American flags and screamed “USA!” on Voorhees Mall on Thursday in response to anti-Israel demonstrations.
Rutgers student Jeremy Li, class of 2025, told Fox News Digital on Friday that during the later part of their camping yesterday, a small group of what I would consider patriotic students came on campus and they clearly were yelling “USA!” They also sung the National Anthem. “They were probably standing up for American values, despite all the conflicting chaos that’s been happening on campus recently.”
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The counter-protesters, Li continued, were “great to see.”
“A movement that began at UNC is currently taking place, and hopefully it will spread throughout the entire nation.”
There are a lot of Jewish students at Rutgers, and Abbey, a Jewish student, told Fox News Digital that “it’s not right” for them “to feel unsafe while trying to take their finals.
“I had a lot of friends here yesterday who were chanting ‘USA’ and ‘all for Israel,’ and I think that’s really beautiful because that’s what this country is all about,” Abbey continued.
The decision was deemed “unprecedented” by Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway in a letter to the community on Thursday.
“On Voorhees Mall a few days ago, a number of people—including Rutgers students and non-locals—erected tents. In response to protesting groups, such as this one, the university has always taken action to clarify its regulations, which uphold free speech rights and set boundaries for disruptive behaviour, according to Holloway. “Our strategy has been focused on de-escalation and yesterday, we met with a group of students representing the protest to discuss the need to ensure that their fellow students’ exam period was not disrupted.”
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But Holloway added overnight, “Students for Justice in Palestine called for a major demonstration on the Voorhees Mall at the start of exam season, with the express purpose of upsetting our students’ final exams. In the end, the protests affected over a thousand students and caused disruptions to 28 exams.
“Free speech and the ability to protest are important to us, but they shouldn’t come at the expense of the safety and education of our children. In order for our pupils to study and flourish, we work hard to strike a balance between these rights and create a secure atmosphere.”
On Tuesday, protesters on the North Carolina quad took down the American flag and replaced it with a Palestinian flag. Old Glory was moved back to its rightful location by law enforcement under the direction of Interim Chancellor Lee Roberts.
Students and fraternity members intervened to prevent it from touching the ground when demonstrators tried to take it down a second time. Since then, a GoFundMe was set up by a third party for the Chapel Hill kids, and when it ended, it had raised over $500,000.
Since then, UNC has enclosed the campus flagpole with a fence.
Li expressed his hope that the events at UNC and now Rutgers will have a nationwide impact, citing the violence that has taken place on other campuses around the nation.
“Hopefully, more and more students will confront the absurdity that students who support Hamas are putting up. We witnessed them vandalise, demolish, and occupy buildings at Columbia,” Li remarked.
