Good morning. It's Friday, April 26. Here's what you need to know to start your day.
What do student activists at pro-Palestinian encampments want?
The New York Police Department arrested more than 100 people last week at an encampment formed by student activists on Columbia University's main lawn in protest against the Israel-Hamas war. Since then, dozens of pro-Palestinian encampments and protests have sprouted up on campuses nationwide.
At UC Berkeley, students and faculty joined the UC Berkeley Divestment Coalition on Monday to establish a Free Palestine encampment on the steps where the 1960s free speech movement originated.
That evening, masked pro-Palestinian protesters occupied an administrative building at Cal Poly Humboldt and barricaded the entrance, prompting administrators to shut down the public university. Officials extended the campus' closure through the weekend.
On Thursday, several UCLA students pitched their tents in front of Royce Hall. A counter protest also erupted there.
A day prior, organizers at Harvard University set up an encampment at the heart of Harvard Yard, which was closed by administrators in anticipation of pro-Palestinian protests earlier this week.
Los Angeles Police Department officers arrested 93 people on trespassing charges at USC this week, too, clearing the solidarity encampment.
Police ordered student activists and protesters at other colleges — including Yale University, NYU, the University of Minnesota and the University of Texas at Austin — to disperse or face arrest.
The new wave of protest encampments has brought out law enforcement. But students say they are determined to remain at their encampments until their respective universities hear and meet their demands.
What do the student activists want?
The encampments and protests are students' attempt to focus attention on the Gaza Strip. After the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, in which 1,200 people were killed and 240 were taken hostage, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's retaliatory war, according to the Gaza health authorities.
"All student organizing efforts are rooted in the right of return and liberation, in centering Gaza," Bears for Palestine, a student organization at UC Berkeley, told The Times in an email.
Student activists across the country are asking for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza and an end to U.S. military aid to Israel. Many also say they want to ensure that free speech is upheld at their campuses and that their universities sign on to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
Bears for Palestine said that they will not move "until the university divests," and are demanding that the university "end the silence" by releasing a public statement calling for an immediate "end to the Gaza Genocide" and calling on U.S. officials to follow suit.
Here are some of their other demands:
- For the university to "divest all its funds from and end all partnerships with Israel by [selling and not repurchasing] any direct holdings."
- To "ensure the freedom of speech and academic freedom of Palestinian, Muslim, Arab and Pro-Palestinan scholars."
- Establish a "Palestine Studies program at UC Berkeley."
- Protect "students, faculty and staff from discrimination and retaliation for protesting and speaking out for Palestine."
- End "institutional partnerships, starting with study abroad programs in Israel."
Several student-led organizations across the country, such as Students for Justice in Palestine's Columbia University chapter, have listed similar demands on social media.
The protests have garnered both support and concerns on campuses. At Columbia, some Jewish students faced antisemitic taunts. At Yale, some Jewish students thought the protests turned hostile toward them.
There is much debate across American universities about whether Israeli divestiture is a good idea — and whether it can even be effective.
"It's extremely difficult to do with any fairness and accuracy," a former University of California official told the Wall Street Journal.
Some universities have strongly opposed divesting, saying it is wrong to target Israel.
There is a long history of student protest movements
"Student movements in the United States have been around as long as the modern public university," said Michael M. Cohen, an associate teaching professor in American studies and African American studies at UC Berkeley.
The current encampments and protests are "well within a deeply worn tradition of student activism on college campuses," said Cohen.
Cohen believes that the great accomplishments of the civil rights movement and other movements have come through "the risks [taken by] and the radicalism of student activists," and that history and politics have shown us that the youth activists have been proven right.
"Colleges and universities particularly and then these encampments become organizing spaces," Cohen said, adding that these spaces enable students to learn more about what is happening through teach-ins and the sharing of "information, stories and experiences."
Roderick A. Ferguson, a professor at Yale University and author of "We Demand: The University and Student Protests," said in an email that "we can objectively credit students with helping society preserve and widen democratic ideals and practices, not only in this country but globally."
However, Ferguson noted that university administrators have learned little from history and that the discourse from when "student activism was being criminalized by media establishments, academic leaders, and political forces in this society" — such as during the Jackson State and Kent State shootings — is being applied to "overwhelmingly peaceful protests at Yale."
"The people who you would expect to have historical memory around this (or at least access to it, namely administrators) seem content to abandon it entirely," Ferguson said. "And that's a recipe for disaster."
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