Petula Dvorak: Time to review forgotten art of policing demonstrations

Pro-Palestinian supporters climb a fence during demonstrations at City College of New York as the NYPD cracks down on protest camps there and at Columbia University. Photo: Getty

Petula Dvorak
© Washington Post

Police in Washington DC showed the rest of America how to respond to campus protests across the nation: They did nothing. And it was perfect.

While other police forces are providing highlight reels of enforcers marching on university quads in riot gear (from California to New York, Illinois to Texas) or galloping in on horseback, officers carrying and dragging students away or shockingly slamming an Emory University professor to the ground in Georgia, the cops here in the capital gave the ivory tower a lesson in constitutional rights.