Power Elite vs. Protesters for Palestine

This is an image of Columbia University’s response to a student protest advocating for an end to the genocide in Gaza on April 18th, 2024. On the days immediately following this event, any additional context I provide will be overly repetitive for people who have been keeping up with the news. On April 19th, 2024, protesters hold their ground despite the arrest of 120 members of their effort. In the image, NYPD officers intercept a protester.

In The Power Elite, C. Wright Mills characterizes that group as those who find themselves at the intersection of military, economic, and political spheres of power, share a common psychology and lifestyle that unites them, see their desires reflected in intersecting institutional structures, and participate in some kind of collaborative effort to maintain the power they hold. The positioning of the power elite at the apex of power is not due to any moral or intellectual superiority they possess, but their positioning within an intersection of spheres of power. This causes moral problems when the desires and judgment of the power elite are able to be enacted while those of less powerful individuals struggle to be realized. An arbitrary distribution of power therefore determines the outcomes that shape our social world.

The above image is an example of a powerful entity exercising control over less powerful dissidents by taking advantage of its special access to the political, military, and economic spheres. Columbia University and its actors have leveraged their powerful position to enact their will over the will of these student protesters, despite the fact that student protests have been recognized as a vital tactic through which the less powerful masses express themselves and exert collective power over more powerful institutions. Having their control threatened, Columbia University called for military backup in the form of NYPD, who detained many protesters. It used its legal power to justify an act that misaligns with national values of free speech and dissent. Its economic power permits it to remain relatively unphased throughout the consequences and backlash that will follow, as it has a safety net of wealth with which to address its concerns.



Petersen, Kelsea. April 18, 2024. "Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, is arrested Thursday." From NBC News. Retrieved April 19, 2024 (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rep-ilhan-omars-daughter-students-suspended-barnard-college-refusing-l-rcna148445).