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with live streams of floor proceedings and hearings of the u.s. congress, white house events, the courts, campaigns and more from the world of stay current with the latest episodes of washington general and find scheduling information for tv networks and c-span radio podcasts. c-span now is availaat store an. scan the qr code to download for free today or visit c-span.org/c-span now. c-span now, you're on from -- your front row seat to washington, anytime, anywhere. >> james jacoby serves as a director of many documentaries. his latest one, crisis on campus, taking a look at the events of the last several months on college campuses. thank you for joining what prompted you to take a look at this? guest: we are working with

partners at a nonprofit news organization based out of new york. we decided after october 7, we thought immediately that there were student statements and reactions to student statements on campuses and thought that this would be an interesting story to follow. we started shooting this right in the wake of the october 7 hamas attack and as this war has developed and as these protests and as the movement has developed on campus, we had no idea that it would culminate because at the end of this school year with president's having to testify in front of congress, it has been quite a while story to follow. host: what do you think the increase is coming from? what is the main driver of these things increasing? guest: there are a number of factors here.

one is generational. this generation of students is activated about this war for lots of different reasons. social media plays a big role in that. one of the main factors we focus on in the film is about the convergence of outside forces that are looking to set the narrative, whether it be pro-israel or pro-palestinian forces or political forces orvis agendas, we have found that if everyone is looking to set the narrative and that has created this tempest that we have seen. host: who are those outside forces? who would peopleguest: we startt

on the evening of october 7 and we set the film at harvard university where you have student groups sign a statement there that essentially in the first line of the statement holds the israeli regime for all unfolding violence. we talked to the students that wrote it in this documentary what you immediately saw a reaction to that. jewish students and professors and other notable people on campus. immediately from the outset whether it was donor pressure, donors who wanted to see the school react, you also saw politicians on both sides of the aisle makepolitical activists like christopher russo come out and say that these types of statements were indicative of a larger problem on universities

with inclusion programs and what he sees to be the moral wrought that is happening on campuses. those forces converged almost within the first 24 hours and intensify over the months. host: if you want to ask him questions about this documentary, if you are a supporter of the protests that lays, (202) 748-8000. if you oppose, (202) 748-8001. student or administrator and you want to give your perspective, (202) 748-8002. mr. jacoby, you start the documentary taking a look at a very salient point. i want to show the folks at home a little bit of that and talk to you about it. [video clip] >> college protests reaching a boiling point.

>> april 20, 20 24, protesters condemning the war in gaza barricaded themselves in a building at columbia university. they demanded the school several ties -- sever ties with israel. >> protesters say on social media if columbia tries to remove them by force, the school will have blood >> on its hands. > less than 24 hour's leader, the police. >> it looks like a barricade vehicle coming down amsterdam right now. >> we see an officer approaching the window right now. the first officer has entered the window. on the street in response. >> i am now seeing the nypd.

>> [singing] >> the clashes at columbia that night work at the culmination of months of chaos sweeping across american college campuses. . host: is the high point. why start there? guest: as you can see with the body cam footage and with nypd, this unfold first at columbia and then various universities around the country, how did it get to this point and that is really the question that we are trying to answer in the documentary, obviously starting with the point of the most

visual tension that we have seen in years at universities and trying to understand in a sober way how did we get to this point where we are having clashes between the police and protesters, especially at our most elite universities. host: you talk about the different points. do you ever get a sense of any interest of coming together and understanding where each other was coming from? guest: there is a tremendous amount of division. there are people who have dug in their heels when it comes to this conflict. there seems to be a great deal of pressure on students to pick a side and stick to it.

certainly is a lot of nuance that is missing. a gray area. just extremes but in the environment that we live in especially due to social media, the extremes are always accentuated. there h1are pro-palestinian students that have nuanced views of this conflict and certainly jewish students who are more moderate.

that was surprising and a bit concerning for us. host: if you want to ask questions about the documentary, (202) 748-8000. if you support the protests, (202) 748-8001. and for college students administrators, (202) 748-8002. as always, you can send us a text. mr. jacoby, in producing this

documentary, tell us about the team involved, the deciding factor of who you are interviewed and ca elaborate a little bit more on -- report and their involvement? guest: i work with those coproducers at retro report and they really did the bulk of the work in terms of going out to schools and finding emblematic people to speak to who could be really articulate about what it is that they are doing. movements, also among jewish students, professors, and of course, -- at uc berkeley right think is in some ways anchoring like as a female president of a major university kind of ways in the point along the story line about her views having been an educator and administrator for so long.

and she makes a point in the film that you sort of asked about which is that in her tenure, and her time she's going to be stepping down as chancellor but in her time in that petition and that having run other schools in the past, that she is concerned about then these campuses whereas universities were always meant to be places where people with divergent viewpoints could hash it out and learn from one another. host: let's hear from michael in florida, one of these protests. -- a supporter of these es i think of these kids, despite what miss clinton said are the most educated. there are people who go to historical scholars and know the truth. the u.n. condemned us for being colonialists and going in there and they also see the movie "red dawn" and they can imagine if their grandparents were there.

and this is key. so that everyone knows the truth. this is where the root cause of this comes from. where these concepts and issues come from? the problems we have each other, we mis-the truth about light makes right and survival of the fittest. evolution is not cooperation and it does not optimize when our entire economic education capitalist system are based on a falsehood. post: so what we like our guest to answer specifically? caller: i'd like to ask specifically if you understand that the textbooks both in biology, because here's the question -- host: i believe it there. education, at least the building blocks of the students are getting has led to the events of what you're seeing? guest: i think that is an important factor here, which is

i think that from the postcolonial studies of intersectionality, which is something that the right makes a big deal out of in terms of what is being taught on campuses, how big a deal it is is very difficult to assess. but it does exist where there are these frameworks and kind of binaries to some extent of people looking at the world and having your world view of oppressor and oppressed. and if you apply that to the israel-palestine conflict were to race relations in the united states, or to any sort of worldview, applying that happening here in that it can sometimes flatten how you view

conflict. i would caution about saying in general asking if that is a pervasive worldview on these campuses, but it was certainly something to be looked at critically, to think about whether we can really apply this intersectional idea to complex conflict. host: if you are from seattle washington, this is scott on the pro line. caller: good morning. we had some pretty bad protests out there at the university of washington but i'm just surprised how many people -- i don'twhere they got the idea that they should be supporting hamas as much as they were. 6i think i would draw the line there. i don't know. yes, they had a hard time controlling these and this comes the reasons they don't want them causing problems in other neighboring arabic countries,

but i would just think that whatever happens, they can't really be trusted. i wouldn't trust them with a tablespoon of cement. this business of going out and dressing up in women's clothing or whatever and just fading into the crowd. they can't put a uniformfight. if they would just do something likehat, or even just negotiate in good faith. i think things would be better. guest: so i think what scott just said there is obviously a controversial statement about portraying all of these protesters as pro-hamas. it is a portrayal that is in some cases may be correct, but not necessarily a generalization i would make about the protests.

there is, of course, the question of whether these students are condemning hamas and whether they think that hamas is a legitimate resistance to israeli occupation or the situation in gaza pre-october 7. which is a big question that we grapple with in the dome. but again, i think the challenge of making a film like this is that on all sides, there's a lot of broad brushing and a lot of anything of different groups with broad brushes, and that is what we tried not to do in this film. host: mr. trump one of the players and what we saw play out over the last few weeks. members of congress themselves, talk about their roles. guest: across the political spectrum, most notably was for

hearings in congress that have taken place. the first hearing being september 5, 2023, when the house education committee run by virginia foxx, the north carolina republican, called before the committee■t■ the presidents of harvard, university of pennsylvania between at least fashion and a harvard graduate. the evidence of w kof went viral because of their inability. host: one of the fallouts we saw

because of that right after was claudine gay of harvard. guest: within weeks of that hearing the president of the university of pennsylvania resigned. christopher russo, who was a conservative who is leading this kindinclusion on cs and elsewhere, and he published a series of■ articles as plagiarism that claudiaplagiarir dissertation and in other instances surfaced under this cloud of controversy and she resigned. host: pamela is next up from miami, opposed to protest. caller: good morning. just a reminder to everybody that october 7, the murders,

israelis were murdered by palestinian terrorists. and right after that, harvard and other elite universities with pro-hamas students reporting this massacre of jews. this was before any idf responses. and as just mentioned, university presidents could not condemn the students screaming death to jews and using violence to prevent jewish students from going to classes. i think this is about the students for palestine and muslims are palestine organizations and many other anti-israel forces that organized this money that professionally expanded the protests.

these college campus campaigns were successful. within months, biden turned against israel and to this day still you can see in this administration an effort to stop israel from defeating or damaging thomas. host: any sense of that funding that she talked about, those groups that she mentioned? guest: i think a lot of reporting is yet to be done on the funding sources for some of these groups. that is not what we get into very deeply in this reporting. we touch upon what pamela brought up about what they actually said, what their motivations were. again, using the kind of pro-hamas label can be problematic in some cases. in some cases it is apt.

say that in terms of foreign policy, whether or not this has affected the u.s. stands in any substantive way is difficult to draw that length. heo the rafah invasion and whether or not the holding back of certain types u.s. missiles or bond and armames was related in some way, i think people have been drawing that as some sort of link.i'm not really sure there's evidence to support that. but i do think that it raises an interesting point about the politics. we are ian election year and people are sort of drawing parallels between now and 1968.

there is tco people in the pro-palestinian movement that will be a factor certainly for democrats. host: he's ther of the documentary "crisis on campus" which unveils today. where can people find it? guest: we will air tonight on pbs, subject your local listings. and then we will stream on frontline pbs sites and apps. host: let's hear from john. john in illinois. you are on with our guest, go ahead. caller: life doesn't usually throw us an easy test we should understand why they are protesting. they are protesting against genocide and apartheid and if you are against genocide and is movement. those in favor are continuing

the oppression of the palestinian people. this already 36,000 dead, 250 rescued hostages. everif you are for genocide, yu need to support the protesters. thank you. host: you talked about claudine gay but part of the acceleration documentary said people have reacted and how that initially kept accelerating the process. can you elaborate on that? guest: to your question, i think that is first the presidents were in an almost impossible position. they are answering for so many different constituencies.

and here comes this very complex problem, maybe the most complicated problem in history in some ways of this conflict in the middle east coming onto campuses. and with all this passion and trauma attached to it, they are having to navigate that on top of constituencies on-campus and off-campus. this is sort of like quicksand. er would make one move and then you would think further, and this is very difficult to navigate for them. in response to the caller's question, a law if not most of the protesters would agree that this is a black moral question about the war in gaza and what we are seeing every day. that is, i think, motivating a

lot of this protest movement, and i think what struck is thatk what are the demands of this movement? and a lot of these proteer are demanding the end of these university campuses, the end of the divestment from israel and cutting ties with israel. and questiisrael as a state. and i think that is wherxbthings get trickier in terms of the more pragmatic solutions to the problem at large. ofourse i don't think anyone is sitting back and happy to see what i happening in gaza right now, but it is a question as to what are the demands and how realistic are they? host: nick is in florida on the

opposed line. good morning. nick in florida, hello. caller: morning. host: go ahead, please. caller: i'm opposed to israel occupying palestine the way it is and using it as a chance to engineer freedom. every chance they have basically protest, they get mowed down, they get shot down. people in our country, america have family over there. we have family and other parts of the world. ukraine complained about sending them to die. you go to your legislatureing. as you know, they fought our country.

every member in congress has an issue. they have to answer to israel. but this is america. host: if i understand correly, you started this project on the tail end of a project taking a look at benjamin netanyahu, and it was something of one of the help you prepare for this. guest: in some way that informs my response to this previous caller. not this latest caller, but frontline has been reporting on benjamin netanyahu for many years. we released a film last year about netanyahu, america, and and it was really a look accords and understanding half of netanyahu rose to power and where his views were coming from. in some ways, coming into hn ope

process th's, and bill clinton efforts to bring people 8 toand on the other site, you hae thomas coming onto the or at that point with suicide bombings and terrorist acts and trying to spoil the peace process on their side. so that's of created this whole thing through. and it is in the process of reporting that he spoke to dennis ross, who has been chief envoy in one of the lead negotiators of the oslo accords trying to get these two sides together. and he said something to me that stuck with me and i've been thinking about as we've been making this film. basically said that getting twoo shake hands, in that moment what happened was that they turned what had been in existential

crisis into a political problem. his point was that existential solutions, whereas political problems he■4 solutions. when i was talking to dennis roth for number of months ago before we started in on reporting on this campus issue, he said that he looked at these protests and he looked at what was going on and he looked at everything since october 7 back that we were all of a seven hearing protesters and others talking about we want 48, meaning let's go back to what that region looked like before israel was created in 1948. and whatever you might make of israel actions, that is in some way saying ttstential crisis, we

people are questioning does israel have a right to exist? going back to kind of the original creation of the state of israel. and that is really■7 what -- i don't want to speak for him, but what he was essentially saying is that it is a dangerous place to be back in existential crisis. because if you make this a political problem, you can solve it. there's a two and i think he was worried that generation protesting on both sides, and you can of course i can for netanyahu's government and the fact that the party represents his all for a greater israel, and the palestinian people chanting from the river to the sea, palestine will be free. so here we are back to the extent of crisis, and that that is unfortunate because that sort

of wipes out some ideas that we could solve this problem and that there could eventually be some sort of solution might a two state solution, for instance. host: let's@p hear from david in arizona on the opposed line. caller: morning. ■yeah, i have for the innocent noncombatants in gaza who are experiencing all this trouble and the war but as far the protests are concerned, right after october 7, the people in were celebrating industry over what happened, not unlike when the twin towers came down and that is just wrong and i understand free speech and such, but they need to have the facts straight. so i opposed the protests against what israel has been doing in trying to squash hamas

and rescue the hostages, but the celebration really bothered me. celebrating a massacre. the protests in israel against the current government i think are valid because the government is not listening to the people of israel, and the ruling party needs to listen to their own people. the folks in gaza need to stop celebrating death and destruction by the hands of terrorists. that is really all i have to say. guest: i think that again, we should caution against painting anything with a broad brush. i think that sun celebrated the october 7 attacks, and that is just unconscionable, but i think that a lot of these protesters and previous callers say the

attack has been unconscionable. so when you have this complicated and loaded on all sides ofion against ignorance ol sides. of course there is extremism on all sides of this, but i think that we will look back on theprs righteous and in some ways as problematic and i think that that is just the reality of thini don't think you can labelt all as pro-hamas, certainly not. were a lot of these students treatments construed to be celebratory in some ways? yes. was that accurate? in some cases yes in some cases no. host: you talk a little bit about college presiden. also appearing before congress .

still surviving in a sense the tough criticism and the questioning from congress. what did she do differently that the others didn't? >> she's obviously seen that previous testimony and did not want to repeat that. irst hearing but she was out of the country at the time but they then called her in later. in her approach was very different. asked whether calling for the genocide of jews was a violation of the code of conduct she was very quick to say absolutely to a more nuanced answer to that question. so she has clearly learned from that first hearing. it was controversial, though.

she looks to be under pressure from other constituents on her campus to kind of crackdown on and in some ways, some faculty members have told that she kind of through the school under the bus in that she did not stand up to this line of questioning, he didn't question whether there is truly any anti-semitism on the campus. shmptions that were being made by the committee members, and she was quick to capitulate, which is not my word, but imported from folks we spoke to a columbia university who thought that she was quick to capitulate to the political as opposed to really standing up to them. in that testimony, kind of saying that they are coming down hard on protesters, they are not tolerating certain types of

speech,gf they are looking into various professors essentially taking them off of posts if they said something that is controversial. professors atu at columbia felt somewhat betrayed by her at that hearing. a number o still called for her resignation even though she get answered rather different from the ones the other presidents had given. host: mike is next in virginia, support life. -- support line. they want to stop the genocide, they want cease fire. ■aand let's not forget, netanyau worked with thomas to divide and conquer, and he allowed funneling of money from qatar to her boss.

stop■g■p all the bombing, suicie bombingbut the two state solutis expanding all the time. before october 7, occupation had been going on for 80 years, and many israeli leaders, this is what is happening over there. the mediator, i can remember the ukrainia, they covered him for half an hour. hundreds of soldiers were killed in gaza. they hardly had any coverage. maybe that's by the students don't trust the media. i used twatch msnbc 24/7. i thought they w