Privileged Scholarship and Arson

Universities have deteriorated into insanity inducing institutions. From The College Fix: Judge sentences ‘scholar-activist’ to 20 years in prison for firebombing UC Berkeley cop car

A federal judge sentenced a ‘scholar-activist” to almost 20 years in prison and ordered him to pay nearly $100,000 in fines for firebombing a University of California Berkeley police car and committing other acts of arson.

Judge Jeffrey White went further than even requested by the prosecution, who asked for 15 years in prison for Casey Goonan, who committed the crimes in June 2024.

Is political violence terrorism?

The Department of Justice said Goonan admitted he had political motives for his violence.

As for the privileged part of the equation.

Goonan graduated from Northwestern University in 2022 with a doctorate in African-American Studies, as previously reported by The College Fix. He lived at home with his parents in California in their $1.1 million house

And of course he was praised by other academics.

His defense? The prosecution is because he opposes Israel. Couldn't possibly be because he fire-bombed a cop car in an act of domestic terrorism, or domestic-not-terrorism, or whatever this was.

“Goonan acknowledged that these attacks were inspired by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, and that he called on others to attack property on Bay Area college campuses in support of Palestine,” the DOJ announced yesterday. “Goonan admitted that his conduct was designed to influence and affect the conduct of governments by intimidation and coercion and to retaliate against the governments of the United States and the State of California for their conduct.”

How would you define that?

Hat tip to Clayton Cramer: What a Ph.D. is Good For