United States
Student Encampments for Gaza Spread Nationwide
University and college students have militantly set up encampments at campuses across the U.S. denouncing the U.S./Israeli genocide on the Palestinian people. They are following the lead of students at Columbia University in New York City, who began their Gaza Solidarity Encampment on April 17. As of April 25, students on at least 38 universities -- from Massachusetts to Florida, Michigan to Texas, Minnesota to Arizona and to California -- are in action to affirm their right to speak out in defence of the Palestinian people and denounce U.S./Israeli genocide; demand a ceasefire now and an end to U.S. funding and backing; and for their schools to break links with Israel. At Columbia and elsewhere students and faculty together are also demanding that police get off their campuses.
More than 100 students were arrested at Columbia University on April
18 for their protest actions after the New York Police were unjustly
called in by the university's president Minouche Shafik. More than 50
students were suspended, evicted from their dorms, denied access to
dining halls, medical
insurance and financial aid. Despite this and because of this, the
students are undeterred and continue to win public support.
A notable aspect of the many actions is the participation
of Jewish students who are prominently defying the attempt of the U.S.
administration and Zionists to equate being Jewish with being Zionist
and the claim that pro-Palestinian demonstrators all over the U.S. are
extremists, anti-Semitic and hate-mongers. At Columbia University on the
evening of April 19, the Jewish students held a Seder meal at the
encampment alongside many Muslim students. Nonetheless, various Zionist
organizations on and off campus continue to declare that pro-Palestinian
protests are anti-Semitic.
On April 24, the American Association of University Professors' (AAUP) chapter at Columbia University and Barnard College (which is part of the university) submitted a proposal to censure the Columbia University president to the University Senate, saying the decision to call in the police "violated the fundamental obligations of shared governance." The censure motion points out, "President Shafik's violation of the fundamental requirements of academic freedom and shared governance, and her unprecedented assault on students' rights, warrants unequivocal and emphatic condemnation." Shafik had claimed that the students posed a "clear and present danger" to university operations to justify calling in the police, which the New York Police Chief later admitted was false. Shafik and other university officials testified at a House of Representatives hearing the same day the encampment began, April 17, regarding protests in support of Palestine and claims of anti-Semitism on campus.
David Lurie, president of the Barnard and Columbia chapter of AAUP and professor of Asian humanities, was interviewed by the student newspaper the Columbia Spectator. The article explains:
"Lurie said one of the 'most sinister' things about Shafik's decision to allow the police on campus is her attempt to 'end-run around existing procedures and existing norms for disciplinary actions that the Senate is involved in.'
"Lurie explained, 'It's essentially eliminating the voice, not just of faculty, but also of students in how discipline takes place in the university.'
"Lurie added that the University Senate was created after the 1968 protests, when the NYPD used excessive force in detaining students who were occupying Hamilton Hall to protest the Vietnam War and the planned construction of a gymnasium in Morningside Park. Thursday [April 18] was the largest mass arrest on campus since 1968.
"'One of the major reasons that the Senate was created after 1968 was to try to avoid the kind of imperial University where the administration is separate from the faculty and the students and is making top-down decisions that affect the University community without most of that community having any voice in those decisions,' Lurie said."
The AAUP had earlier issued a statement April 19 that vehemently denounced the action of Columbia's administration. "We condemn in the strongest possible terms the Administration's suspension of students engaged in peaceful protest and their arrest by the New York City Police Department. These acts violate the letter and the spirit of the University Statutes, shared governance, students' rights, and the University's absolute obligation to defend students' freedom of speech and to ensure their safety. We demand that all Barnard College and Columbia University suspensions and charges be dismissed immediately and expunged from the students' records, and that all rights and privileges be restored to them immediately. Last, we demand that no disciplinary action be taken against any student protesters without due process, and that no police be permitted on campus without serious consultation with the Executive Committee of the University Senate."
In addition more than 1,400 academics have signed an open letter
supporting the demands of the Columbia students and condemning in the
strongest terms Columbia's decision to arrest and intimidate students
as an imitation of the military tactics used by "Israel" that have
destroyed every
university in Gaza. The open letter pledged to boycott activities "held
at or officially sponsored by Columbia University and Barnard College"
unless the university expunges the infractions from protesting
students' records, reinstates suspended groups Columbia Students for
Justice in Palestine and
Columbia Jewish Voices for Peace, and the presidents of both schools
step down.
At New York University, on April 22, hundreds gathered for a rally and faculty stood as a human barricade to protect the student encampment. Police went in and arrested 150 faculty and students. That same day, protesters blocked major thoroughfares for hours in cities such as New York, Chicago, Seattle and San Francisco to protest the U.S./Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Encampments are spreading nationwide. At Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, students set up a "Liberated Zone" encampment in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their counterparts at Columbia University, with banners that read "Stop Investing in Genocide," "Jews for Ceasefire Now," "Yale is Complicit," and "Stop the Genocide." Jewish student organizations held a Seder there on April 22. Students held banners that read, "Our Seder plates are empty stop starving Gaza" and "Another Jew for a free Palestine." References to suffering in Gaza and pro-Palestinian student activism were integrated into the meal. Police were later sent in and conducted mass arrests, detaining 47 people and breaking up the encampment for the time being.
At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, students set up an encampment on the school's campus in protest over MIT's ties to the Israel Defense Forces amid further bombing in Gaza. Harvard students have set up an encampment supporting Palestine and opposing the suspension of the school's Palestine Solidarity Committee, which organized a student walkout in support of the steadfast Columbia students. Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Boston University announced an emergency rally, and actions have occurred at Tufts and Emerson, all Boston-area campuses.
SJP at Ohio State University also announced an emergency protest supporting Gaza Solidarity Encampments. Miami University in Oxford, Ohio has an encampment.
Students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have an encampment and SJP there announced a rally for April 26. Students and faculty at the University of Texas-Austin held a rally for Palestine April 24 and contended with more than 50 arrests. Faculty there had been prohibited from discussing the U.S./Israeli genocide and joined students in standing with Palestine and their rights to speak and organize.
For its part, the U.S. Biden administration and Congresspeople resorted to base slanders of anti-Semitism and hatemongering against the students to divert from U.S. genocide and calls of the students for their universities to divest from Israel -- including breaking academic links and any research or financial links to Israeli apartheid or companies that support the occupation through war production or other means.
At the House hearing April 17, legislators made clear the aim was to justify more attacks on students and faculty who support Palestine and force university officials to comply by criminalizing students. They pushed the view that phrases such as "From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free" and "Long Live the Intifada" were calls for genocide against Jews and must be banned and students punished. This hearing follows a similar one in December that forced presidents at Harvard and University of Pennsylvania to resign, for not stopping student protests for Palestine.
On April 22, White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates released the Biden Administration's position in a statement accusing the Columbia students of issuing "calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community [which] are blatantly anti-Semitic" adding that they are "unconscionable, and dangerous -- they have absolutely no place on any college campus, or anywhere in the United States of America." He went further accusing the students of "echoing the rhetoric of terrorist organizations" saying it was "despicable. We condemn these statements in the strongest terms," he continued. Such threats are consistent with government efforts to charge students with "domestic terrorism" for supporting Palestine and to deny U.S./Israeli state terrorism. Claiming support for Palestine has no place "anywhere" in the U.S. is another attempt to intimidate and silence resistance.
Instead the determination of students across the country is increasing as they step up support for Palestine, demand an end to U.S. funding and complicity of universities in the U.S./Israeli genocide.
This article was published in
Volume 54 Number 28 - April 25, 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/MS54281.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca