Danielle Sobkin, one of the organizers who invited Israeli lawyer Ran Bar Yoshafat, said the mob grabbed a sophomore who tried to attend the event, called him a “dirty Jew” and spit on him. She said that protesters also shoved a senior into the auditorium door as she tried to check in attendees, and that they grabbed a freshman by her neck.
This kind of behavior is particularly tricky to manage. While numerous social and political movements ( and even regime changes such as in Eastern Europe in 89 ) started with student protests, violence is, in my opinion, not the answer.
The power of students should come from their perspective outside of the current “box” (whichever system of social and political standards are the norm in a given area at a given time) which can educate the rest of the population. At the same time, I understand that at a certain point, people can feel so unheard, ignored, and suppressed by the norms that they see lashing out violently as their only option left.
So, it is very hard to strike a balance between enforcing the peace and preserving the existence of grassroots student movements. Doubly so in cases like this.
My only suggestion is to moderate yourself and those around you, lest we fall to radicalization.