Since the administration of Columbia University in New York called in the police more than a week ago to clear a tent camp on campus, demonstrations and occupations have been organized at more than fifty universities. Broadly speaking, all students are demanding the same thing: that their university administrations sever all financial and academic ties with Israel and stop taking money from weapons manufacturers.
Most of the attention in the past 24 hours was focused on the tense situation at Columbia University, where students refused to break up the tent camp they set up two weeks ago. The administration there had threatened police intervention if the demonstrators had not left by Thursday. It would be the second time that the police would take action at Columbia.
The deadline passed without consequences and the university withdrew the threat on Friday night. ‘Progress has been made’ in discussions with the demonstrators, a spokesperson said. Negotiations continue.
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In Atlanta, students at Emory University not only took action to show their support for the Palestinian people, but also voiced their objections to a police training center to be built in the city. Clashes broke out on Thursday when, according to police, students tried to enter the area where the center is planned.
Police confirmed that officers used tear gas to disperse demonstrators after ‘objects’ were allegedly thrown from the crowd, but denied reports that rubber bullets had also been fired. 28 arrests were made, including against the chair of the philosophy faculty, Noëlle McAfee. She spoke to the BBC of a ‘peaceful protest’ that resulted in ‘chaos’ due to police intervention.
USC cancels end-of-year ceremony
The unrest that has been raging on the campus of the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles since Wednesday has led to the administration canceling the main graduation ceremony there. The ceremony was scheduled for May 10. 65 thousand students, their relatives and friends were expected.
“Given the new safety measures that have come into effect, we are not able to accommodate everyone on campus within the short time frame for the ceremony,” said a statement from the board. Everyone should be searched. The USC now wants to organize the graduation ceremony per faculty, between May 8 and 11.
USC was already controversial last month when the Executive Board decided to cancel the traditional farewell speech given during the graduation ceremony. The speech is given by the best student of that year. This year the honor went to Asna Tabassum, a Muslim student. She was not allowed to speak because of several threats, which were not specified by USC leadership.
Tabassum had come under fire from pro-Israel and Jewish groups for posting a link on Instagram to a website advocating the “complete abolition” of the state of Israel. The university strongly denied that the student’s previous statements had led to the deletion of the speech.
Earlier this week, the police cleared a tent camp that demonstrating students had set up on the USC grounds. Officers arrested 93 demonstrators. On Wednesday evening, the remaining demonstrators were pushed off the site by a large police force. The entrance gates to the campus were then closed.
Controversial deployment of National Guard
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, conservative Republican Mike Johnson, added fuel to the fire this week by calling on the White House to deploy the National Guard against the protesting students. Johnson visited Columbia University in New York on Wednesday
His words evoked memories among older Americans of protests 60 years ago, when students demanded an end to U.S. involvement in the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia. In May 1970, things escalated when the Ohio National Guard dispersed a student demonstration at Kent University. The guards opened fire on a crowd of about two to three hundred students. Four of them died and nine were injured. One of them was paralyzed for life.
The massacre at Kent University led to massive demonstrations at all universities in the United States, with more than four million students joining at its peak.
Conservative Republicans in the US accuse the students of anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism and support for Hamas, the militant Palestinian movement responsible for the massacre in Israel last October that led to the military operation in the Gaza Strip.
A 2020 report on the Kent University massacre, 50 years later.
