Gaza war has US universities up in arms – Times of India
Harvard Yard was shut to the public. Nearby, at campuses including Tufts and Emerson, administrators weighed how to handle encampments that looked much like the one that police dismantled at Columbia last week – which protesters quickly resurrected. On the West Coast, a new encampment bubbled at the University of California, Berkeley. Less than a week after the arrests of over 100 protesters at Columbia, administrators at some of the country’s most influential universities were struggling to calm campuses torn by the conflict in the Gaza Strip and Israel.
During the turmoil Monday, which coincided with the start of Passover, protesters called on their universities to become less financially tied to Israel and its arms suppliers. Many Jewish students agonised anew over some protests and chants that veered into antisemitism, and feared again for their safety. Some faculty members denounced clampdowns on peaceful protests and warned that academia’s mission to promote open debate felt imperiled. Alumni and donors raged. And from Congress, there were calls for the resignation of Columbia’s prez from some of the same lawmakers Nemat Shafik tried to pacify last week with words that inflamed her own campus.
The menu of options for administrators handling protests seems to be quickly dwindling. It is all but certain that the demonstrations, in some form or another, will last on some campuses until the end of the academic year, and even then, graduation ceremonies may be bitterly contested gatherings. The University of Michigan is informing students of the rules for its ceremony: Banners and flags are not allowed. Protests are OK but in designated areas away from the cap-and-gown festivities. The University of Southern California cancelled a planned speech by the school’s Muslim valedictorian – and then “released” all its outside commencement speakers.
For now, the most significant protests were confined to a handful of campuses. Columbia prez Shafik said the West Asia conflict is terrible and she understands many are experiencing deep moral distress “But we cannot have one group dictate terms,” she said in a community message early Monday, four days after officers dressed in riot gear helped clear part of Columbia’s campus.
The events at Columbia rippled to Yale, where students gathered at Beinecke Plaza in New Haven, Connecticut, for days to demand that the university divest from arms manufacturers. Yale Prez Peter Salovey said Monday that university leaders had spent “many hours” in talks with protesters, but the talks proved unsuccessful. Authorities arrested 60 people Monday morning, including 47 students, Salovey said. The university said the decision to make arrests was made with “the safety and security of the entire Yale community in mind”. All were released on promises to appear in court later, he said.
At NYU, an encampment set up by students swelled to hundreds of protesters Monday. A New York police department spokesperson said 133 protesters were taken into custody at NYU, and that all of them had been released with summonses to appear in court on disorderly conduct charges. University spokesperson said NYU was carrying on with classes Tuesday.
The scene was less contentious in Massachusetts, where Harvard officials had moved to limit the possibility of protests by closing Harvard Yard. Elsewhere in Boston area, protesters had set up encampments at Emerson College, MIT and Tufts. But those protests, for now, appeared modest. At MIT, protesters have called for endof funding from Israeli defence ministry for university projects with military objectives.
