Pro-Palestinian encampments set up at Columbia University spread, with arrests at Yale
NEW YORK
Police on Monday cleared an encampment set up at Yale University to protest the war in Gaza and arrested dozens of students, as demonstrators at New York University and The New School set up tents after a similar action at Columbia University led to the arrests of more than 100 protesters.
Yale students had set up a camp Friday in Beinecke Plaza, the central area on the school’s New Haven campus. Demonstrators called on the university administration to divest from Israel. Administrators said the students could stay through the weekend but would be evicted Monday.
When protesters refused to leave Monday morning, police moved in. New Haven police said they arrested an estimated 45 people and released all of them with summonses to appear in court. The protesters were all charged with misdemeanor trespassing
“With no warning of when they would come, police ambushed us at 6:40 am while students at the encampment were sleeping,” the student-led group Occupy Beinecke posted on Instagram.
“Yale, you have intimidated us, criminalized us, militarized our campus, and failed to accept our demands,” the students continued. “We will not stop, we will not rest until we have disclosure and divestment.”
A spokeswoman for
Yale did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
As of Monday at 6 a.m., about 50 NYU undergraduate and graduate students occupied Gould Plaza on W. 4th Street outside the Stern School of Business, according to the NYU Palestine Solidarity Coalition of student and faculty groups and university officials.
“Heeding the call from our comrades at Columbia, NYU students have brought the Gaza Solidarity Encampment to our campus,” the coalition said.
Like the Columbia protesters, NYU students are calling for the university to divest from
Israel and reverse all student and faculty disciplinary measures related to pro-Palestinian activism. Their demands include ending the university’s partnership with Tel Aviv University and closing NYU’s Tel Aviv campus.
A representative for NYU said the demonstration began without notice to the university.
“We are addressing this issue with urgency,” spokesman John Beckman said in a statement.
“Access to the plaza has been closed,” he continued. “Classes are carrying on. The University is committed to minimizing disruption to its academic mission; preventing escalation and violence; and precluding hate speech, harassment, or threats directed at any member of the NYU community.”
A half mile away, about a dozen students at The New School on Sunday erected a green-whiteand-blue encampment inside the university center building, writing on the tents with red marker: “liberated zone,” “free Palestine,” and “divest from death.”