After defying an order to evacuate, student demonstrators at Columbia University, the epicenter of pro-Palestinian demonstrations that have swept college campuses across the country, began suspending them on Monday.
After about 100 demonstrators were initially detained at Columbia on April 18, the move comes after about two weeks of demonstrations against Israel’s occupation of Gaza that have swept through higher education institutions from coast to coast.
Authorities at the prestigious university in New York demanded that the protest encampment be cleared by 2 p.m. ( 1800 GMT ) in the most recent crackdown, or students would face disciplinary action.
” These disgusting fear strategies mean little compared to the murders of over 34, 000 Palestinians”, said a statement, read out by a student at a press conference after the date, referring to the death toll in Gaza.
” We will not proceed until Columbia meets our needs or… are moved by army”, said the scholar, who would not give his name.
As part of this second stage of our efforts to ensure protection on our campus, Columbia vice president of communications Ben Chang stated a few hours after that the school had “begun suspend suspending individuals.”
He said students had been warned they had become “placed on suspension, unsuitable to complete the semester or graduate, and will be restricted from all educational, residential, and fun spaces”.
Officers at the University of Texas at Austin on Monday made detention while dismantling an encampment, adding to the more than 350 people detained over the weekend across the country. They also used pepper spray in clashes with activists.
” No camps will remain allowed”, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on social media.
” Otherwise, arrests are being made”.
Paul Quinzi, of the Austin Lawyers Guild helping those detained, told AFP they estimated “at least 80 prosecutions, and they are still going”.
University administrators trying to balance free speech rights with complaints that the rallies have veered into anti-Semitism and love have been a problem due to protests against the Gaza conflict, which has its great Israeli human death toll.
Around the world, footage of police wearing mob products being used to break up rallies at several colleges has been viewed, bringing to mind the opposition movement that erupted during the Vietnam War.
Talks decline
In a statement released on Monday, Columbia University leader Minouche Shafik announced deals had broken out, saying “many of our Hebrew students, as well as other students, have found the atmosphere terrible in recent months.
” Several have left school, and that is a drama,” she said.
Anti-Semitic expressions and activities are intolerable, and calls for violence are just awful.
Protest organizers argue that their actions are directed at Israel’s state and its continued trial of the Gaza conflict. They also deny that there are any anti-Semitism allegations.
They also assert that some situations were the result of protestors outside the classroom.
Administrators stress the need to keep the environment attempt on school as the school year is wrapping up, especially as exams are being held.
” One party’s freedom to express their views cannot come at the expense of another team’s right to speak, teach and learn,” Shafik said.
One student student protester, who asked to remain identified just as” Z,” said:” It’s finals week, everyone is still working on their finals, I also have finals to perform.”
” But at the end of the day, school is temporary,” the protester told AFP.
President Joe Biden’s administration has also made an effort to walk a fine line between defending the right to protest and decrying alleged anti-Semitism.
Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated on Monday that” we understand that this is a painful time that Americans are dealing with, and free expression must be done within the law.”
However, Biden’s Republican opponents have seized on the issue, casting the protests as anti- Semitic and threatening to pull federal funding if they are n’t stopped.
What is going on at Columbia is a total disgrace. According to House Speaker Mike Johnson, who reiterated his call for Shafik to resign,” the campus is being overrun by anti-Semitic students and faculty alike.”
Additionally, there were suspensions in progress at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where president Martha Pollack claimed student protesters had been “disclost” by claiming that they had no intention of setting up a tented encampment on campus.
Over days of negotiations, students were offered multiple opportunities to move the encampment, or face sanctions.
” They declined,” Pollack wrote”. Therefore, more temporary suspensions… are forthcoming.”
An AFP count of Israeli official deaths on October 7th, a never-before-seen attack by Hamas militants against Israel that left roughly 1, 170 people dead, was the start of the Gaza war.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed almost 34, 500 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas- run territory’s health ministry.
