Since the morning of April 17, student protesters opposed to Israel’s attack on Gaza have camped out on the Columbia University campus lawn. The student protesters said they would occupy the lawn until the university divests from companies with ties to Israel.
Columbia University Apartheid Divest, which is a coalition of more than 100 student groups, says it is calling for the university to financially divest from companies and institutions that “profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide and occupation in Palestine,” according to their online statement.
“As a diverse group united by love and justice, we demand our voices be heard against the mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza,” the group stated.
On April 18, more than 100 protesters at Columbia University were arrested and an on-campus tent encampment was removed after the school’s president gave the New York Police Department the green light to clear the protesters. Many of the students who were arrested have been temporarily suspended by the university.
On April 22, more than 150 untenured faculty members submitted an open letter in support of student protesters and against the NYPD’s engagement with campus protests. “In the face of these events, we stand with you,” the letter read. “You should certainly not be worried about being sanctioned for your political views. You should not be made fearful because police line the gates, ready to flood onto our campus at the invitation of the administration.”
Though police had cleared out the protest encampment after the students were arrested, a new encampment on a different lawn was constructed. This encampment remains active.
Starting on Friday, students at campuses across the country held walkouts in solidarity with the Columbia students who were arrested. Students at Brown, Princeton and Northwestern held protests on Friday and over the weekend.
Across the country, student on-campus encampments against the Israel-Gaza war have continued to pop up at colleges and universities, including: New York University, Yale University, University of Michigan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tufts University, Emerson College and The New School, Cal Poly Humboldt, Barnard, UC Berkeley, University of Maryland, Rutgers, Vanderbilt, Washington, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, University of New Mexico, UNC Charlotte, UNC Chapel Hill, University of Colorado, Boulder, Michigan State, Rice University, Miami University, University of Houston, University of Alberta.
The campus of Cal Poly Humboldt, a public university in Arcata, California, has been shut down after a group of pro-Palestine protesters occupied a campus building and clashed with riot police late Monday.
Hundreds of students had gathered outside of Siemens Hall on Monday afternoon as part of a larger protest against Israel’s brutal military campaign in Gaza. Several protesters entered the administrative building, which houses the office of Academic Personnel Resources and Human Resources, and created a barricade, blocking doors with furniture, and setting up tents.
Around 8 p.m. there was a tense encounter between police and protesters. As police armed with shields, batons, and helmets walked into the building, protesters pushed back. One protester used a large plastic water bottle to beat a police officer’s helmet. The protesters were ultimately able to push the police back, and out the door of the building.
As students across the United States risk their freedom and education to take a stand for Palestine, their actions are absurdly denounced by University officials, poltiicians and mainstream media as ‘anti-semitic’. However it is the force with which Universities are responding to the protests that indicates their unrelenting racism and support for the genocidal Zionist entity.