In March, the pipeline company Energy Transfer won a massive civil suit against the environmental nonprofit Greenpeace. The case dates back to 2016, when as many as 10,000 activists traveled to North Dakota and joined Native American groups trying to stop construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Some of the protesters vandalized equipment, threatened workers, and blocked access roads. Energy Transfer, the pipeline’s owner, lodged a civil suit accusing Greenpeace of secretly directing and funding the most militant activists. The verdict obliges Greenpeace to pay damages of $667 million, a sum that could bankrupt the iconic NGO. But, more important the case shines a light on the long-hidden connections between seemingly mainstream nonprofits and radical protesters who are sowing violence across the country.
The North Dakota protests fit a pattern that has become increasingly common over the past two decades. In case after case, a small and often spontaneous protest movement attracts experienced activists who blend in with the nonviolent protesters and then nudge the demonstration toward lawlessness. We started seeing the pattern emerge in the 2011 Occupy Wall Street encampments and during the often-violent protests following the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. By 2020, this new form of protest exploded in the “fiery but mostly peaceful” Black Lives Matter uprisings across the country. And, following the October 7 attacks in 2023, the movement went collegiate as pro-Hamas “tentifadas” materialized almost overnight on university campuses.
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James B. Meigs is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a City Journal contributing editor.
Photo by JC MILHET/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images
