is not one more time when i=m$■s one more event of young children that i love and that love me. to get married in 1990 is an act of love, it's an act of faith, it's an act of hope, it's an act of idealism this the veto is an act of cynicism. i ask you to cut off this debate. how we're going to vote. let's override this veto and let me love my son. >> c-span, powered by cable. >> friday nights, watch c-span's 2024 campaign a weekly roundup of c-span's campaign coverage, providing a one-stop-shop to discoverhat country are saying to voters, along with poll numbers, fundraising data and campaign ads.

watch c-span's 2024 campaign trail, friday nights at p.m. eastern on c-span. online at c-span.org orow podca. our free mobile app or wherever you g podcasts. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. joining us again is js jacoby with pbs frontline, director of many documentaries his latest, crisis on campus taking a look at the last several months on college campuses. thanks for the joining us again. guest:for having me. host: what prompted you to take a look at we are working with partners at a nonprofit news organization right after october 7. /ewe really started shooting ths

in the wake of the october 7 hamas attack and then as this war is developed, and protest&& movement has developed on campus, we had no idea that it would culminate as it has with the end of the school year and crashes with police and schools, presidents having to testify in front of congress. it's been quite a wild story. host: if you had to take a look at it in retrospect, what do you think the increase is coming from? what do you think of the main driver? guest: i think there's a number of factors here. one is generational. i think the sixth -- this generation of students is activated about this war for lots of different reasons. ■4i think social media plays a g role in that. of the main factors we focus on in the film is the

convergence of outside forces that are looking to sort project a narrative here. whether it be pro-israel or pro-palestinian or political forces or political activists with various different agendas, we've found that in our reporting, with everyone looking to s t here, that has created this kind of tempest that we've seen in the past 7, 8 months. host: specifically, who would people recognize outside of the students themselves? guest: film right on the evening of october 7 and we set the film initially at harvard university where you have students sign a statement that essentially in the first line of the statement held the israeli regime entirely

for all unfolding violence and the statement did not mention hamas, and we talked to the students that wrote it in the documentary. so you immediately see a reaction to that. jewish students and professors and other notable people on and then immediately from the outside whether it was donor pressure and donors who are incensed about this and wanted to see this react. ■,you also saw politicians, of course on both sides of the i'll come out a make statements. these are activists like christopher russo come out and say that this type of statement that these students made was indicative of a larger problem on with diversity, equity and inclusion pro'xgrams and what he sees to be the sort of morthat is happened on campuses. almost within the first 24 hours and then of course intensified over

the month. ■

>>s to remove them by force the school will have blood on its hands. >> less than 24 hours later, columbia university called in the police. >> it looks like a military grade -- coming for them right now with protesters on both sides. >> we see an officer approaching a window right now. the first officer has entered the window, people are screaming on the street ine. >> the clashes at colunight witf

months of chaos sweeping across american college campuses. that is the high point, why start there? guest: as you can see, that body cam footage from the nypd, when country, how did it get to this point? 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've seen in years, trying to understand in a very and sober way how did we get to this point where we are having clashes between the police and proteste, especially at our

most elite universities? host: you talk about the clash, the different points. do you ever get a sense of talking to the student or the people that you interviewed any interest in understanding where each other was coming from? guest: that was the surprising thing about reporting the story. at least in the students that we spoke to, there's is a tremendous amount of division. there's people heels when it coo this conflict. ■ethey seems to be a great dealf pressure on studentso pick a side and stick to it. and there is certainly a lot of nuance that is missing in that, or gray area. of course it'extremists, but i e media environment that we live in, especially due to social media, the extremes are always accentuated. so of course there are pro-palestiniantudents that

have nuanced views of the conflict in certainly jewish students and others that are more moderate. but i think that what happens is that the extremists kind of tend to take hold and get the most attention. host:lk to students or the people that you interviewed, to what sense do nuance of the history that was going on in theto what sense di? guest: it's mixed, of course. there's plenty of students that are studying this conflict on campuses and seeking out professors and literature to teach them. but then surprisingly, what i found surprising was that you talk to and ask them where they are getting their information and how they are learning about this conflict, some of these universities have great scholars who have studied

this history and the history of this conflict and get answers of well, we don't trust the media and we don't trust our professors, so we do our own research. that was surprising in a bit concerning. if you want host: to ask questions about the documentary, (202) 748-8000. if you support the protests, 02) 748-8001. for college students and administrators, (202) 748-8002. as always, you can send us a text. tell us about the team involved. tell us a little bit more about the involvement. guest: i work with two producers

. did the bulk of finding emblematic people to -- both from the pro-palestinian movements. the chancellor uc in some ways anchoring the film. as somebody who is a female president of a major university ng the storyline about her views as an educator and administrator for so long, and she makes the point in the film that you ask about which is in her year and her ti- in her tenure, and she is going to having run other

schools in the past that she is concerned about the level of exist on campuses where universities were meant to be places where people with divergent viewpoints could hash it out and learn from one another. host: let's hear from james who is supportive. caller: they are able to go to historical scholars. the u.n. condemned us for being colonialists and they have seen the movie red dawn and can imagine what it woul like. we need to change the textbooks so that not everyone knows the truth, not just the kids. especially where the root causes come from. where do they come from and the each

-- misteach. our entire economic and educational capitalist systems are based on a falsehood. host: what would like to get caller: if he understands the textbooks both in biology. host: i will leave it there. is there a sense that the textbooks of the building box has led to the events of what you are seeing? guest: i think that is an important factor, which is i think that postcolonial studies and the of intersectionality, which is someing the right makes a big deal out of it in terms of what is being taught on campuses, how big a deal it is is difficult to assess in reality, but it does

exist where there are the frameworks and binaries to some extent of people looking at the world and having a worldview of the pressr and oppressed. if you apply that to israel-palestine or race relations in the united states or any sort of and applying that world view is a part of what is it can sometimes flatten how you view conflicts. i again would caution about generalizing that is a pervasive worldview on campuses butis be looked at critically to think about if we can apply this idea

to complex conflicts. host: is scott in seattle on our proposed line. caller: we have some bad protestswas surprised at how may people, i don't know where they got the idea they should be supporting hamas as much as they were. i am old enough to remember how yasser arafat had a hard time controlling them and their are don't want them in egypt and causing problems in neighboring arabic countries. i would think that whatever happens, they can't really be trusted. i wouldn't trust them with a tablespoon of cement. the business of going out and dressing in women's clothing and fading into the crowd and they

can't put a uniform on and fight . if they would just do something like that or in good faith, i think things would be better. guest: i think what scott just said there is obviously a controversial statement about portraying these protesters as pro-hamas portrayal that is in some cases may be correct but not cessarily a generalization i would make about the protest movement. there is the question of whether the students are condemning, and whether they tpnk that thomas is a legitimate resistance -- that hamas is a legitimate restance to the israelis.

this is a big question we grapple with in the film again i think what we challenged making a film like that is that on all sides there is a lot of broad brushing and painting of different groups with broad brushes and that is what we tried not to do in this film. host: one of the players, so to speak, in the last few weeks are members of congress themselves. talk about their role. guest:u we saw those in congress immediately weighing in on this and this is across the political spectrum. hearings and comments have taken place, the first hearing being december 5 education committee, run by virginia fox, called before the

committee the presidents of harvard university, pennsylvania and m.i.t. to testify. at that hearing there was the what can be called a famous exchange between a harvard graduate and the harvd ident in which she posed a hypothetical question to each of these of of which went viral because of their inability to answer in a clear fashion and they were trying to navigate to key didn't really answer it very clearly. host: one of the follow-up we saw because of that right after it was claudine gay of harvard. guest: that is correct. within weeks of that >> the house has been in recess back in session. we take you there live on c-span. h.r. 2964 a