Police dismantled a pro-Palestinian encampment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Friday morning and moved to clear protesters from the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia, hours after police tear gassed protesters and toppled them. a camp at the University of Arizona.
In Cambridge, Massachusetts, video showed police roaming the MIT camp. Police in riot gear arrived around 4 a.m., surrounded the camp and gave protesters about 15 minutes to leave. Ten students who remained were arrested, the university president said. A crowd outside the field began to gather and chant pro-Palestine slogans, but was dispersed at around 6am.
At the University of Arizona in Tucson, campus police in riot gear fired tear gas Thursday night at protesters before breaking down an encampment that included wooden and plastic barriers on campus. In a statement, the University of Arizona said it made the decision because the camp violated school policy.
“A structure made of wooden pallets and other debris was erected on campus property after 5 p.m. in violation of policy,” the school said in a statement. “University officials issued notices to remove the camp and disperse. Warnings were ignored.”
The school also said police vehicles were punctured and rocks and water bottles were thrown at police officers and university staff.
On Friday, in Philadelphia, police detained people who had been in a camp set up at the University of Pennsylvania for more than two weeks. Police officers intervened after warning protesters to leave campus or face possible arrest.
Tensions have risen in standoffs with protesters on campuses across the United States and Europe. Some colleges cracked down immediately, while others tolerated the demonstrations. Some began to lose patience and call the police over concerns about disruptions to campus life and safety.
The protest movement began almost three weeks ago at Columbia University in New York. It has since swept college campuses across the country, with protesters often trying to draw attention to deaths in the war between Israel and Hamas or calling on their schools to stop doing business with Israel or companies that support its efforts. of war. More than 2,500 people were arrested.
The action at MIT comes several days after police first attempted to clear the camp, only to see protesters overrun barriers and restore the camp, which includes about a dozen tents in the heart of the Cambridge campus.
Before removing the camp, MIT earlier this week began suspending dozens of students involved in the camp, meaning they could not participate in academic or graduation activities.
The protesters insisted that the measure would not prevent them from demanding that MIT end all ties with the Israeli military. The camp had been operating for at least weeks and had especially angered Jewish students, who held counter-protests near the camp.
“This will only make us stronger. They can’t stop the movement,” said Quinn Perian, an MIT graduate student and MIT Jews for Ceasefire organizer. “We will continue and will not back down until MIT agrees to cut ties with the Israeli military. MIT would rather arrest and suspend some students than end its complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.”
The camp had been set up for at least two weeks and especially angered Jewish students, who staged counter-protests nearby. They covered a lawn with small Israeli flags and posted posters with some of the people kidnapped by the militants in the attack that triggered the war in Gaza.
MIT President Sally Kornbluth, working to strike a balance between recognition of the suffering in Gaza and concerns for “the safety of our community,” warned on Monday that the camp would have been removed.
In a letter acknowledging Friday’s arrests, she wrote that her responsibility is “to ensure that the campus is physically safe and functional for everyone… and that everyone feels free to express their opinions.” The camp, she wrote, “made it increasingly impossible to fulfill all of these obligations.”
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This story has been corrected to show that the MIT arrests occurred on Friday, not Tuesday.
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