Category Archives: US campus protests

Police arrest student protesters who occupied Stanford president’s office

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Police arrest 13 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who staged occupation of office while roughly 50 others linked arms outside

Police at Stanford University arrested a group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had barricaded themselves inside the campus president’s office on Wednesday morning to demand that the school divest from Israel.

A group of about a dozen students staged an occupation of the office of Richard Saller, Stanford’s president, while roughly 50 others linked arms outside, the Stanford Daily reported. The group entered the building around 6am on Wednesday, the final day of classes for the spring quarter, and said they intended to stay until the university met its demands.

The Associated Press contributed

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BDS founder hails campus protests for taking Israeli divestment mainstream

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Omar Barghouti, who attended Columbia University in 80s, says student solidarity with Palestine has educated the world

The student-led protests demanding universities cut financial and academic ties to Israel have led to unprecedented support for the Palestinian liberation struggle, and have propelled the divestment debate into the mainstream, according to the co-founder of the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Omar Barghouti, a Palestinian human rights defender who helped launch the BDS movement almost 20 years ago, said the students’ solidarity had helped educate the world about the Israeli occupation and “apartheid” while exposing the hypocrisy – and repressive tendencies – of some of the world’s most prestigious universities with investments in corporations which put “profit before people and the planet”.

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Students walk out of University of Chicago graduation over Israel policies

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Pro-Palestinian students staged the walkout as school withheld degrees of four seniors pending disciplinary review over protests

Dozens of students protesting Israel’s ongoing military strikes in Gaza walked out of the University of Chicago’s commencement on Saturday as the school withheld the diplomas of four seniors over their involvement with a pro-Palestinian encampment.

The disruption to the rainy two-hour outdoor ceremony was brief, with shouts, boos and calls to “stop genocide”. A crowd of students walked out in between speeches and a demonstration followed the official ceremony. Some chanted as they held Palestinian flags while others donned traditional keffiyehs, black-and-white checkered scarves that represent Palestinian solidarity, over their robes.

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House Republicans assail university head for negotiated end to Gaza protest

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Northwestern president becomes lightning rod in Republican-led committee hearing also featuring chiefs of Rutgers and UCLA

Members of a Republican-led congressional committee confronted another set of university heads on Thursday over their approach to pro-Palestinian protests in the latest hearings on Capitol Hill on a reported increase of campus antisemitism.

Republicans on the House of Representatives’ education and workforce committee repeatedly clashed fiercely with Michael Schill, president of Northwestern University in Illinois, over his decision to negotiate an end to a tented protest community rather than call in police, as has happened on other campuses.

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Academic workers at UC Santa Cruz strike over crackdown on Gaza protests

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Union says response of University of California to pro-Palestine demonstrations violates rights of advocates and workers

Academic workers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, took to the picket line on Monday morning as part of a rolling strike in protest against the university system’s response to pro-Palestine demonstrations.

The campus is the first in the University of California to do so as part of a systemwide protest against the public university, which union members argue violated the rights of pro-Palestinian advocates and workers.

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Police arrest six student protesters at University of Pennsylvania

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Pro-Palestinian students were attempting to take over a university hall to protest school’s refusal to negotiate in ‘good faith’

More than a dozen pro-Palestinian activists, including six students at the University of Pennsylvania, were arrested after attempting to occupy a hall on the university campus late Friday.

The protesters were arrested around 9pm after trying to take over Fisher-Bennett Hall but had been met with a response from university and Philadelphia police, according to reports. The Daily Pennsylvanian reported that protesters caused the evacuation of an alumni event at the Penn Museum.

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Sporadic pro-Palestinian protests staged during college commencements

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Small demonstrations held on Saturday, including at Virginia Commonwealth University and University of Wisconsin-Madison

Small pro-Palestinian protests popped up sporadically on Saturday as colleges and universities from North Carolina to California held commencement ceremonies, including dozens of graduating students at Virginia Commonwealth University who walked out on an address by Republican governor Glenn Youngkin.

While some of the estimated 100 students and family members who left during Youngkin’s speech showed support for Palestinians, others held signs signaling opposition to his policies on education, according to WRIC-TV.

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Police disband pro-Palestinian student encampments across the US

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Authorities moved in overnight to clear campuses from Arizona to Massachusetts of students demanding schools cut ties to Israel

Police moved in to disband several pro-Palestinian student encampments on US campuses on Friday morning as the foment over protests against academic ties with Israel over the war in Gaza continued to roil academia.

Tent encampments at the University of Pennsylvania, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Arizona, Tucson, were all dismantled in early morning raids that saw cordons of police sweep in and clear the makeshift protest settlements. In Tucson teargas was used, and demonstrators responded by throwing bottles at officers.

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Dozens reportedly arrested as police clear George Washington University encampment

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The school’s student paper reported arrests as hundreds of Washington DC police dismantled the impromptu tent village

Hundreds of Washington DC police, some deploying pepper spray, cleared a pro-Palestinian encampment at George Washington University early on Wednesday, in the latest clash between law enforcement and protesting students to sweep the US.

The GW Hatchet student paper reported that at least a dozen people had been arrested as the impromptu tent village was dismantled in University Yard. The Metropolitan police department said the arrests had been made for “assault of a police officer” and “unlawful entry”.

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Pro-Palestinian student protesters break through police fencing at MIT

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Students link arms around tents on campus and block local thoroughfare as they call for end to killings in Gaza

Pro-Palestinian protesters who had been blocked by police from accessing an encampment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Monday broke through fencing, linked arms and encircled tents that remained there, as Columbia University canceled its university-wide commencement ceremony following weeks of pro-Palestinian protests.

Sam Ihns, a graduate student at MIT studying mechanical engineering and a member of MIT Jews for a Ceasefire, said the group had been at the encampment for the past two weeks and that they were calling for an end to the killing of thousands of people in Gaza.

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UCLA creates campus safety role amid condemnation of response to mob attack

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University and police denounced as masked group marched on campus and attacked pro-Palestinian demonstrators last week

The University of California, Los Angeles, said that it would create a new office dedicated to campus safety following mounting criticism of authorities’ slow response to a brutal attack on pro-Palestinian protesters by a mob of “instigators”.

The school’s chancellor, Gene Block, said on Sunday that urgent changes were needed to “better protect our community moving forward” and announced that a new office of campus safety would oversee the university police department and the UCLA office of emergency management, “effective immediately”.

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Police dismantle Palestinian solidarity encampment at USC

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Officers in riot gear raid encampment at dawn as university warns demonstrators that failure to leave could lead to arrest

Police have dismantled the student-led Palestinian solidarity encampment at the University of Southern California.

About 4am on Saturday, as many as 100 Los Angeles police officers in riot gear raided the encampment at dawn as anti-war student demonstrators slept in the tents. In a series of tweets during the raid, the university warned demonstrators to leave the area, adding that “people who don’t leave could be arrested”.

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Democrats rally to Biden’s defense over response to pro-Palestinian student protests

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Republicans accuse president of weak response, but prominent Democrats claim he ‘has been very strong from the beginning’

Some Democrats rallied to the defense of Joe Biden on Sunday as the president came under increased criticism over his response to pro-Palestinian student protests and his handling of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Republicans have seized on Biden’s response to the protests, which have seen more than2,000 people arrested around the country, accusing him of a weak response. But prominent Democrats, including Biden re-election campaign co-chairperson Mitch Landrieu, the former mayor of New Orleans, claimed the president “has been very strong about this from the beginning”.

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‘There are people in tents writing dissertations’: UK reaches for scale of US campus protests

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Pro-Palestine protesters hope encampments at universities will contribute to an ‘international student revolt’

Students across Britain have said they hope pro-Palestine protests will reach the same scale as those seen on US campuses as they call for universities to divest from companies supplying arms to Israel.

Protests have spread across university campuses in Sheffield, Bristol and Leeds, after a crackdown in the US on protests, which led to mass arrests of students and staff.

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‘I was happy they still stand beside us’: Palestinians in Rafah on US campus protests

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Word of the demonstrations that have spread across the west has cheered some in Gaza’s southernmost city

In the tented camps and crowded streets of Rafah, the pro-Palestinian campus protests in the US have been followed closely.

“We hear a lot of news about students’ demonstrations in American universities … When I saw that, I was very happy that there are still those who stand beside us and in support of us,” said Nevin Abu Shahma, 39, who fled to Rafah from northern Gaza early in the war.

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NYPD issues arrest figures amid ‘outside agitator’ claim at Columbia Gaza protest

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New York police say about 29% of those detained ‘not affiliated’ with university as more are arrested at NYU and New School

New York’s police department has declared that approximately 29% of the people it arrested at pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University were “not affiliated” with the institution, as the city’s mayor continues to face scrutiny over his claims that the hardline police response was due to the actions of “outside agitators”.

The NYPD also said 60% of arrestees at City College of New York (CCNY) on Tuesday night were unaffiliated with the college, though a CCNY spokesperson confirmed to the Guardian that these arrest figures applied to protesters both on and off the college’s grounds.

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Israelis voice sadness and defiance over Gaza protests on US campuses

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People in Jerusalem express little sympathy with anti-war demonstrators, with some accusing them of hatred for Israel

At the Jerusalem theatre on Thursday night, concertgoers and staff expressed a mixture of anger, sadness and defiance as weeks of pro-Palestinian protests across dozens of US college campuses reached a tumultuous climax 6,000 miles away.

The noisy demonstrations have been closely followed in Israel, reported by major media and discussed by prominent public figures.

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Quebec premier says police should dismantle pro-Palestinian student camp

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François Legault advocates removal of week-long demonstration at Montreal’s McGill University: ‘The encampment is illegal’

Quebec’s premier has said police should begin dismantling an “illegal” week-long pro-Palestinian encampment at Montreal’s McGill University, as students at Canada’s largest universities ramp up demands that the schools sever relationships with groups linked to Israel.

“The encampment is illegal,” François Legault told reporters. “The law must be respected, so I expect the police to dismantle these illegal campsites, which is what McGill has requested.”

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Eric Adams under pressure to divulge details on ‘outside agitators’ at campus protests

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The New York City mayor has claimed police arrested protesters after non-student elements escalated the situation

The New York City mayor, Eric Adams, remains under pressure to divulge how many of the 282 people arrested at campus protests in Manhattan on Tuesday night were non-students after repeatedly claiming that “outside agitators” were responsible for escalations that prompted an overwhelming law enforcement crackdown.

Adams, a Democrat and former city police officer, was asked by local reporters on Thursday morning to give a breakdown of the arrest numbers. He repeatedly declined to provide details.

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More than 2,000 pro-Palestinian protesters arrested across US campuses

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Police arrest more than 200 students at UCLA as law enforcement clears camp at Dartmouth, arresting more than 90 students

More than 2,000 people have now been arrested during pro-Palestinian protests across dozens of US college campuses in recent weeks.

Police arrested more than 300 pro-Palestinian demonstrators on college campuses on Wednesday night into Thursday morning, pushing the total past 2,000, according to an Associated Press tally.

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