Michael Moore Says Student Protestors Have ‘Right’ To ‘Take Over Buildings,’ Calls It Non-Violent Disruption

Filmmaker Michael Moore stated during the latest episode of his podcast that pro-Palestine student protesters have the “right” to “take over buildings,” claiming that it is a non-violent disruption.

In his latest episode on “Rumble with Michael Moore” released Monday as a part one to visiting New York City’s (NYC) “antiwar campus encampments,” Moore could be heard applauding students in the encampment for “taking a stand.” The American filmmaker defended the action of taking over school buildings by comparing the protests to the well-known Flint sit-down strike in December 1936, where General Motors workers at Fisher Body No. 1 wanted their union, United Auto Workers (UAW), recognized. (RELATED: Democrats, Liberal Media Suddenly Discover Soros & Co. Are Funding Radical Left Causes Dragging Biden Down)

“As I think this is just gonna continue across the country, I hope it continues. I applaud every student who’s taking a stand on their campus at graduation, whatever. This is the purpose of a democracy is to be able to address your grievances, to assemble, to have free speech, and to disrupt. Yes disrupt, non-violently disrupt,” Moore stated.

“And when I’m talking about non-violence I’m not talking about — you do have the right to take over the administration building. I’ll tell you, just speaking from Flint, we would have no UAW, no Auto Workers Union if back in the 30s the auto workers, including my uncle, had not taken over the factories. They broke windows, they locked all the doors. They kept all the police and the National Guard out for 44 straight days in the middle of winter, until they won the right to be recognized by General Motors and to be paid a living wage. That only happened because they took over the factories.”

Moore continued to reiterate that taking over buildings is not violence, before thanking two anonymous protesters who helped him and his media team into the encampments around NYC’s schools.

“Yes, you have to take over buildings. That is not violence. My thanks to Angie and Donald, a couple of anonymous people that I don’t want to say their names out loud because they were able to sneak into places on the campuses that I guess we weren’t supposed to be in because we’d be trespassing on publicly owned property, no less. But the students are all so cool. So wanting their story told and they know that they were just getting a raw deal from the media. And I’m telling you go in there and it’s all these Palestinian students, and all these Jewish students Jewish and Palestinian students working together to stop this war,” Moore stated.

Students at Columbia University sparked nationwide protesting across the U.S. after demanding on April 17 that their university divest from companies connected to Israel. However, after building encampments on the school clashes between authorities and activists escalated, leading to the protesters taking over of the school’s Hamilton Hall in the early morning of April 30.

Video footage posted online showed some activists in black masks breaking into the school’s door through the glass and flying an ‘Intifada’ flag outside of the building. By the late evening of April 30, Columbia administrators gave NYC police officials the green light to raid the building, with mass arrests seen and the school noting those inside who were students would be facing consequences.

By the first week of the protests, the university decided to switch their remaining classes to an online format, and subsequently announced the cancellation of their main stage graduation ceremony Monday as protesting has continued in the city.