The University allowed, encouraged this to happen.
If I live on 50 acres and intentionally set fire to it myself, I expect that I should have to reimburse the local fire departments once they come and put it out.
If true, then no argument with your post.
I wasnt following too close this story. Only peripherally keeping track. I tend to think that lefty colleges are so stuck on stupid and naive about consequences that they could not have foreseen the outcome. So the question I have, using your analogy, is did the CCNY administrators start the fire, or did professional anarchist from outside create a crisis that had only bad outcomes to choose from?
If the latter then maybe you just have a 'being stupid' fine for the college and collect the rest as fines from those arrested criminal trespassers.