Columbia Univ. Professor on Eric Adams’ Claim of ‘Outside Agitators’: If Gavin McInnes Could Go Inside Campus, Who Else Could’ve Gotten In?

EXCERPT:

COBB: “You know, Gavin McInnes got on to the campus. He got on the campus when the campus was locked down and, you know, there was the Proud Boy event where they were rallying outside the gates of campus. And so there was a logic that held that if he could get on to the campus, as visible and known as he is, then who else has gotten onto the campus? And those tensions were exacerbated by some of the things that happened by the groups outside, one of which was, you know, a protester, counterprotester who had an Israeli flag, had it snatched out of his hands and set on fire. Then other people attempted to scale the gates, people who were outside attempted to scale the gates and get inside. And so there was a real concern — and I’m not taking any positions about the rightness or wrongness, I'm just giving context here. There was a real concern that, like, who are those people? And if people are capable of behaving like that on the outside, how might they behave if they were on the inside? So those were the questions. And last thing I’ll say — I don’t want to take up too much time — the last thing I’ll say is that there was a real concern that if someone got hurt, the criticism would have been the opposite, like, why did the university wait so long to do something? And so, I think those are calculations that people had to make at the time."