Tension on American universities over Israel’s war in Gaza is increasing. At least 47 people, including several students, were arrested on Monday at the American university of Yale (Connecticut), where they had been camping for several days in protest against the war in Gaza and to demand from the center information about its investments in the arms industry. At New York University, police evicted and detained several pro-Palestinian students camped in another plaza. On the other hand, Columbia University (New York) announced that classes would be virtual after several Jewish student associations reported anti-Semitic comments from pro-Palestinian students demonstrating on campus.
A Yale spokesperson informed EFE on Monday that the center made the decision to arrest those people who did not leave the square “taking into account the safety of the entire Yale community and to allow everyone access to the university facilities.” members of the student community.
The Yale Police Department issued citations in total to 47 people, including Yale undergraduates, graduates and professionals, or people unaffiliated with the center. The students, the spokesperson said, will be referred to Yale for “disciplinary measures, including a variety of sanctions, such as reprimand, probation or suspension.”
Before taking this step, the spokesperson explained, the university had notified protesters on numerous occasions that if they continued to violate Yale policies and instructions regarding the occupation of outdoor spaces, they could face police and disciplinary action.
The arrests came after members of the Yale Police Department isolated the area and asked protesters to show identification. Some left voluntarily but others remained at the scene and were detained.
Yale Police Chief Anthony Campbell told the Yale Daily News – the nation’s oldest university newspaper, which has been financially and editorially independent since its founding in 1878 – that those arrested were charged with criminal trespassing, after They were asked on several occasions to vacate the area.
According to the newspaper, more than 250 protesters set up a camp on Sunday night, for the third consecutive time, in Beinecke Plaza, with about forty tents. Pro-Palestinian protesters call on Yale to disclose and divest its involvement in military weapons manufacturing.
University President Peter Salovey sent an email to the Yale community on Sunday and warned that disciplinary action would be taken in accordance with the school’s policies.
In New York, police officers cleared a crowd gathering at New York University shortly after dark, after hundreds of protesters for hours defied the university’s warnings that there would be consequences if they did not clear a plaza where they had gathered.
A video posted on social media shows police tearing down tents in the protesters’ camp as protesters chanted: “We will not stop, we will not rest. Let’s spread the word. Let’s divest.”
An NYPD spokesperson said the arrests were made after the university asked police to enforce trespassing violations, but did not provide the number of those detained.
On the other hand, Columbia University pointed out that the objective of teaching online classes on Monday – coinciding with the Jewish Passover holiday – is to keep people who do not live there away from the university complex after several days of protests that have broken out. resulting in a hundred students arrested and some suspended.
“Anti-Semitic language, like any other language used to hurt and frighten people, is unacceptable and appropriate measures will be taken,” the rector, Nemat “Minouche” Shafik, said in a statement. Shafik assured that in recent days the existing tension has been amplified “by individuals not affiliated with Columbia” who have attended the protest to “pursue their own agendas.”
This weekend, Columbia’s Jewish student residence, Chabad, claimed that some of the participants in the sit-in that has been taking place since last Wednesday incriminated Jewish students with phrases such as “go back to Europe”, “you have no culture” or ” “All you do is colonize.”
Added to this accusation are complaints from other Jewish student associations and even from the university’s rabbi, Elie Buechler, who called on the students of this religion to return home due to the alleged insecurity in the facilities.
The student organization Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, one of those present at the sit-in, distanced itself from the “inflammatory people” who promoted these comments and rejected “any form of hatred or fanaticism” that deviates from “solidarity” between students of all ethnicities and religions.
Shafik, who is in the spotlight after the congressional hearing in which he defended himself against accusations of anti-Semitism by Republican lawmakers, also said that members of the administration will meet in the coming days to find a solution to this “crisis”.
The students ask Columbia – one of the prestigious ‘Ivy League’ of universities in the United States – for greater transparency regarding the institutions it finances and to withdraw investment from weapons manufacturers who, according to them, collaborate with Israel’s war in Gaza The tension at the university reached its peak last Thursday, when the New York Police stormed the campus and arrested about a hundred students who were participating in the sit-in.
Tensions at many American universities have increased in recent weeks, as controversy grows over freedom of expression in educational centers. Academic authorities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brown University (Rhode Island), and New York University took similarly punitive measures against students involved in protests.
At the end of March, Vanderbilt University (Tennessee) suspended fifteen students and expelled three others, who occupied the rector’s office for several hours. Last week, the University of Southern California suspended Muslim student Asna Tabassum’s commencement speech due to tensions between students and faculty linked to the war in Gaza.
