MacIver News Minute: No Rules Against UW Faculty Breaking Laws on Campus

You might have seen Samar Alatout’s name in the news last month. He is the faculty advisor for students for justice in Palestine at UW Madison. There are videos of him repeatedly attacking police when they tried to take down an illegal encampment there. He’s even seen interfering with an arrest. These are serious crimes, and Alatout was arrested that day. It is Dane County, though, and so hours later he was released without any charges. However, even if he was charged with felonies and convicted, it’s unlikely the university would have done anything about it. It would only have risen to “serious criminal misconduct” under the university’s administrative code if Alatout had seriously injured someone – which he clearly did not. And so, we have a system, where a UW faculty member was seen on camera committing felonies on university property – and even if he was convicted, there is nothing the university could have done about it. No wonder why protesters think they can get away with anything on campus.