On Friday, students occupying the administration building at Occidental College ejected Breitbart News’ Adelle Nazarian from their “safe space,” saying they felt “threatened” by her presence and referring to her as “an adult in a student-occupied space.”
“We’re requesting that you respect the fact that this is a community-owned space by students,” one of the male students said. He said there was “an issue of safety” as a result of Nazarian’s “adult presence,” which supposedly posed a direct threat to the occupying students’ well-being.
Nazarian recorded the incident. The audio is below (language warning).
The episode recalls the classic quote by New Left activist Jack Weinberg, veteran of the UC Berkeley Free Speech Movement of 1964, who told the San Francisco Chronicle: “We have a saying in the movement that we don’t trust anybody over 30.”
The saying went viral and became a favorite for reporters who wished to ridicule the mindset of the young, New Left.
Meanwhile, at Occidental’s “safe space,” an Asian professor, whose gender was difficult to ascertain, refused to provide their name to Breitbart but offered to escort Nazarian out of the “safe space.” The professor claimed that administrators have expressed “discomfort” with Breitbart’s presence on campus because of the “conservative nature” of the publication.
When a student began recording Nazarian, and Nazarian objected, she was told that “this is actually part of the protocol of maintaining community safety.” Nazarian then responded by pointing out that these same students were demanding that campus security remove their bullet proof vests as one of their 14 demands.
A double shooting that left a husband dead and his wife severely wounded near Occidental College in 2013 prompted an increase in the protective equipment available to campus security, which is unarmed. Campus police officers Jasmine Vasquez told Breitbart News on Wednesday that the bulletproof vests are the only defense they have against harm: “We don’t have any other protection to defend ourselves. If we don’t have our vests, all we have is our voice and our hands.”
Upon initially entering the occupied administration building, Nazarian had approached a professor who was sitting on a set of stairs conversing with a student. When asked if he would answer a few questions, he said he was not speaking with the media. Asked why, he said it was because the students asked him not to.
Nazarian left the building shortly after the brief exchange. An NPR reporter who had just conducted an interview was not asked to leave and remained in the “safe space” unscathed.
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