Examining the long history of the ‘outside agitator’ narrative
CNN
As university administrators and law enforcement crack down on campus protests over Israel’s war in Gaza, they’re invoking a familiar trope: the “outside agitator.”
As university administrators and law enforcement crack down on campus protests over Israel’s war in Gaza, they’re invoking a familiar trope: the “outside agitator.” On April 18, the New York Police Department arrested more than a hundred people in connection with pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, kicking off a wave of similar demonstrations at other US colleges and universities. Following the NYPD’s arrest of more than 130 protesters at New York University earlier this week, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said in a news conference that “outside agitators” were disrupting the city and throwing bottles and chairs at police officers. NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry suggested on Fox 5 New York that an outside entity was funding campus protests because of the similarities in tents used at student encampments, saying “there are professional agitators in there that are just looking for something to be agitated about.” Elsewhere, Emory University President Gregory Fenves referenced “highly organized, outside protesters” in a university-wide letter on Friday about the law enforcement response to demonstrations a day earlier. Videos captured police wrestling people, including at least one Emory professor, to the ground, and a CNN crew witnessed officers using pepper spray and pepper balls on the crowd. University officials said in another letter on Thursday that 20 of the 28 people arrested were Emory community members. In these instances, and others, authorities have not offered many specifics about who the “outside agitators” are, how significant their numbers are or how they differentiated outsiders from university-affiliated protesters. Large-scale social movements can certainly be vulnerable to groups who seek to capitalize on the chaos for their own ends, said Aldon Morris, a professor emeritus of sociology and African American studies at Northwestern University. But time and again, authorities have leveled the broad accusation of “outside agitators” to undermine or stifle protests, according to scholars who study social movements — and Morris is concerned that history is repeating itself.
The New Hampshire man convicted of murdering his 5-year-old daughter Harmony Montgomery was sentenced Thursday to 45 years to life in prison in a case that spurred an investigation into the actions of the child protective services system and rattled relations between Massachusetts and New Hampshire.