State law prevents OSU from doing the thing the protesters are demanding

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
All right, here we go,Mark Blazer, with Josh c and station
A Ken from ABC six Fox twentyeight joining us in studio. I haven't
been able to talk to you,Stacia. I was off last week postop
and all that crap. But thethe night that all of that stuff was
going down on campus, the protest, Like I was watching that and I

(00:22):
was like, oh, I think, and you know, I'm not sure
how long before you guys were actuallyon camera, but I ended up turning
it before that, not because Iwas like I can't take this. It
was actually really good. I justI think of a debt or something.
But I remember thinking I didn't seethem the entire broadcast, You and Bob
and everybody was off camera because thefootage or it was live while you're there.

(00:48):
Who is the gal Dad gone Iteane, Stephanie Duprey, that's it.
Yeah, she did really good.Like I'm watching her going ooh oh,
and I'm like, you know,nobody does something stupid like throws do something.
You know. We were riveted watchingthis too. So we started.
So this was last Thursday, correct, and so I was here we go
in regular day, and there hadbeen protests on campus during the day and

(01:14):
things had been really peaceful and theydispersed everybody and then they called everybody back.
The protester said let's meet again tonight. And I think it was at
six o'clock that they planned to meet. It was five or six o'clock,
and then things just really escalated fromthere and they were given several warnings.
So at ten o'clock when we wentlive on Fox twenty eight, we were
planning to do a regular newscast checkin with Stephanie crapped, Yeah, check

(01:38):
in with Stephanie at the top ofthe show, and then do the rest
of the show as planned. Andthen we realized, as she said,
let me show you what's happening hereat the scene. She says, wait
a minute, and then we lookthe camera pans and there are these buses,
these vehicles, just police law enforcementare just streaming out of them making

(01:59):
their way over to the South Ovalin front of the Ohio Union. And
we thought, oh boy, okay, stay with it, stay with it,
and we just kept going. Andso we broadcast an hour and a
half straight, no commercials, Wow, and we did Bob and I were
Eventually we popped back up on camera. We had questions and things just as
we were going on. And thenwe also had some perspective also from retired

(02:23):
Delaware County sheriff for US Martin whoweighed in on what we're you see and
that was important perspective too, abouthow a law enforcement agency would even go
about dispersing a group like this becausethey were so tightly formed in that space.
Where do you begin, what's thegoal? How do you get everybody
to go where they're supposed to goat this hour on campus according to the

(02:46):
rules. So yeah, an hourand a half. It was a little
intense, but obviously the things playingout we couldn't look away either. It
was pretty shocking to see, andlast night was a lot calmer. In
fact, by ten o'clock there wasliterally no one on camera. So we
will see how things play out betweennow and graduation. I feel like my

(03:08):
gut says, we haven't heard thelast It's gonna be all summer. It's
gonna be all summer. It willbe. It will be interesting to see
how that plays out on the campusesversus at the State House where they would
be allowed to stay and protest.And I mean they do have summer semester
at Ohio State, but it isone, you know, it is poultry

(03:31):
compared to you know, during theduring the regular exactly. So I don't
know how I think they're going touse state institutions like I don't think you're
gonna be able to go down likeMiami University, which is private. I
think it's going to be more likeyou're going to have to if it's Ohio
State, if it's Bowling Green,if it is a state, they're going

(03:52):
to argue that that is public landand they have a right to exercise their
First Amendment on a public in apublic space. And I just I think
they're going to use the campuses asthe gathering point, as the rallying point.
It's a public space, but there'sstill laws that you said that,
But that's what I know, Iknow, I know. I'm just yea.

(04:13):
And what we've learned in this processis that what the protesters are calling
for, I'm sure you've heard,is for the university to divest from Israel,
and that's not even possible because there'sactually a state law and it covers
there's a state law in thirty sevenstates that is similar to the effect that
so it's it's ORC nine point sevensix. It was passed in twenty twenty

(04:33):
two. It prohibits state institutions fromdivesting from interests in Israel or Israeli controlled
territories, or adopting policies that acquireIsraeli associate associated divestment. So isn't it
sad? In an Ohio revised codehad to be made even for that right
and before all before all of thishappened, and so there's nothing the university

(04:56):
could do anyway to divest because it'sagainst state law. But as our reporters
have been on site speaking with theprotesters, that's not information, at least
with the protesters we've spoken with,that's not information that they are interested.
Why why would they be interested inthat? They're not interested in anything that's
truthful. Quite frankly, concerning thisentire thing. People were calling in with

(05:16):
their suggestions to us while we havebeen covering it all week and going,
why wouldn't you just set up videowhatever so they can watch October seventh,
you know, everything play out andthe atrocities that were happening, and just
show it to them. And I'mlike, they don't care about that.
They have their own agenda right now, and their agenda is is hollow at

(05:39):
best, whatever they're trying to andthen on top of all of that,
their demands it is laughable. Joshand I are laughing all weeks. Oh,
like the Cola demands like we needhot food and bagels, bagels was
trending, y'caritest thing speaking to UCLAthis morning. I was watching this live.

(06:00):
First of all, did you happen? I'm sure you saw it what
they had set up and thank godthat Yeah, we saw some stuff here
at OSU, but yeah, nothinglike what we were watching their UCLA.
They they have like had the betterpart of a week putting together a barricade.
And they weren't several layers of thisbarricade from that that barricade fencing to

(06:21):
three quarter inch plywood, enormous fourx eight plywood pieces that were they brought
in, drills and screws. Theywere literally assembling this this old barricade.
And they let them do that allweek. And now you're watching the police,
all law enforcement presence. There's threedifferent agencies that were involved in when

(06:42):
I was watching this morning. Unbelievable. They're literally destructing this, deconstructing this
a little bit out of time,and they started pulling people out and these
people are you know, they havethe flashing lights trying to blind them.
They are they were setting off thefire extinguisher. I mean, they were
doing all kinds of stuff to thepolice. I thought it was incredible restraint

(07:04):
being shown by Stone comes down andI'm watching that this morning. He comes
down getting ready and he goes,are they shooting them? Because they had
the rubber bullets, you know,they had the non lethal rounds they were
using. And I was like,no, buddy, those aren't lethal rounds.
Those aren't bullets. Those are rubberbullets. He's like, so they
don't like go in you like abull. I'm like, no, they

(07:25):
hurt. Be very confusing, youknow. And what we found with the
arrests that were made, seventy fivepercent of them at least on the Ohio
States campus were not even connected tothe university. And I'd be very curious
to see what kind of percentage thatlooks like for UCLA, for Columbia.
What are we talking about many peoplethat were of course, you know,

(07:46):
you just got to wonder with theway these encampments formed so quickly, and
I just feel like a lot ofit indicates people who they know what they're
doing when they're creating the professional protesters. These are folks who know what they're
doing. This is not a groupof college kids who have something to say.
These are people who were Yeah,it's a very different situation than I

(08:09):
think they want you to believe.On pay outside, they're called paid professional
agitators and they literally, depending onthe cause of the day, will travel
around the country to participate in thisstuff. These are the same people that
helped to organize the fiery but mostlypeaceful protest summer of twenty twenty. And

(08:30):
unfortunately, there's not much you cando right in the sense of they they
yes they're not students, but theycan still be on that public property,
which sure is what is the deal. But given the fact that their main
request is or their main demand howeveryou want to use, that lag cannot

(08:50):
happen. It cannot happen Ohio Stateand the majority of these universities because California
has a law like this on thebooks. New York has a lull like
this on the books. Texas.So think of all the major protests that
you have seen over the last weekthese states have a state law that prevents
universities state institutions from divesting. Soyou have to ask yourself, why do

(09:13):
these protests continue to happen on universities, these state institutions. Why is the
protest not happening down on the statehouse lawn where the same curfews and rules
would not apply and the requests ordemands for divestment would actually mean something on
the state House lawn because Ohio Statecannot just divest, that's not up to

(09:35):
them. Do these brainiacts even arethey even aware of that? We've,
like I said, We've tried toshare that or ask about that. Anchesters
we've talked with are not interested inthat information. It does not deter them
from their goal of the day wherethey are right now. You take your
facts and get out of here.That's probably where they're at. Just take
those facts and get out of here. That we don't want to hear anything

(09:56):
about that. Also, firearms compfiscated at student protests both University of South
Florida University of Texas at Austin overthe last couple of days. Yes,
firearms, I mean, think abouthow scary it is of your law enforcement
moving into that situation and you're going, I hope there's not one person that
is clearly they're crazy, but extracrazy in the middle of that, Who's

(10:18):
going to open fire on us?And then we'll have no recourse, but
it'll be a slaughter if something likethat happens, and you just keep playing
praying for that to not happen.Also, there were buckets of large rocks
and bricks, steel reinforced wood,planks, mallets, chains belonging to the
protesters. They found all of thatstuff as well. And yeah, they

(10:39):
were given a five pm deadline.This was yesterday and University of South Florida
de Santas. Don't play man.It was a five pm deadline and then
tear gas. They moved in startedmaking a rest and that was that.
That was like, because you know, we talk about the scariness of the
guns that you're talking about there thatwere found, and that is for sure
scary, but we can't ignore thethreat of a frozen water bottle, which

(11:03):
there's no law against carrying that anywhere. You can have a frozen water bottle
that can do a lot of damageto a person out there. We saw
what it do. We saw ithere. Yes and so I think for
you know, our law enforcement agencieswho are moving into these situations, they
have absolutely no idea what they maybe coming face to face with, or
not even face to face. Thingsflying through the air that they don't know

(11:26):
where they can do a lot ofdamage, and it's really really a scary
situation. Well to your point,what you brought up earlier, Ohio State
is they're stepping up security plans,graduation ceremonies set to go on Sunday,
Sinco de Mayo. And so thenyeah, there was this was from ABC
six. This was an article thatOhio State not considering canceling commencement at this

(11:48):
time. They're just adjusting staffing andthe public safety plans and all of that,
looking forward to celebrating. I mean, think about if you're somebody who
is getting ready to graduate from theOhio State University, Josh knows how this
feels. I mean, think abouthow hard the type of work that you
put in, and you're going,please don't screw this up. You're thinking

(12:09):
the families who are going to bethere. I want to you know,
they've they've even been invested in thisprocess or perhaps financially invested in this process
as well, and it's a bigdeal for so many people, and you
just hope that everyone can be heardat the appropriate time and place. I
know there are people out there whosay, well, there's never an inappropriate

(12:31):
time to be heard, and Ithink there's an argument for that, But
you just hope that for graduation thateverybody's allowed to do what we're there for,
which is graduate. There's going tobe I hope I'm wrong, but
I'll be shocked if it's something doesn'tsome sort of demonstration doesn't to be.
They will disrupt the graduation ceremony.It's it's a given. They're doing it

(12:54):
all over the country. And that'ssad because you're taking away from someone else's
hard work and achievement for your ownselfish narrative, which you can't even do
because you're such a dumb ass youdon't realize there's a state law preventing what
you're asking. Yeah, I mean, it's the cycle of insanity in this
whole situation is out of control.It is, it really is, and

(13:18):
it's and it's this, Uh,it feels like there's no there's no breaks
on this. Every time I lookup at the TV, it's like a
different campus. It's like whack amole. Right now, across the United
it is popping up everywhere. Ithink it's a that's a good way to
put it, because every it's everywhere, somewhere new every day, Like you
said, driving and