Police with batons approach Israel-Hamas war protesters at UC Santa Cruz
SANTA CRUZ, California — Police approached demonstrators arm-in-arm at the University of California, Santa Cruz on Friday, a day after arrests at a pro-Palestinian encampment on a Detroit campus and a student strike at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s commencement.
Video showed a line of baton-wielding police standing feet away from protesters on campus in California. It was not immediately clear if there were any arrests or injuries. The university held classes remotely on Friday.
Pro-Palestinian protesters blocked the main entrance to the campus this week.
“We call on these protesters to immediately reopen full access to campus and return to protesting in a manner consistent with both our community values and our student code of conduct. Denying access to education is not freedom of speech,” university leaders said in a letter to the community on Thursday.
Graduate student workers are continuing the strike that began last week over the university system’s treatment of pro-Palestinian protesters.
Protest camps emerged this spring in the US and Europe as students demanded that their universities stop doing business with Israel or with companies they say support the war in Gaza. Organizers are seeking to strengthen calls to end Israel’s war with Hamas, which they describe as a genocide against Palestinians.
On Thursday, police in riot gear removed fencing and tore down tents that had been set up last week on the green space near the university library at Wayne State University in Detroit. At least twelve people were arrested.
President Kimberly Andrews Espy cited concerns about health and safety and disruptions to campus operations. Staff were encouraged to work remotely this week and in-person summer classes were suspended.
The camp, she said, “created an environment of exclusion — an environment in which some members of our campus community felt unwelcome and unable to fully participate in campus life.”
Another outdoor commencement ceremony was scheduled for Friday at MIT in Cambridge, near Boston, a day after some graduates walked out, disrupting the ceremony for 10 to 15 minutes. Wearing keffiyehs, the checked scarves that represent Palestinian solidarity, over their caps and jackets, they chanted “free, free Palestine” and held signs that read: “All eyes on Rafah.”
“There will be no business as usual as long as MIT has research projects with the Israeli Ministry of Defense,” said David Berkinsky, 27, who earned a doctorate in chemistry and walked away. “There are no graduates in Gaza. There are no more universities in Gaza because Israel bombed them all.”
Eesha Banerjee, a 20-year-old from Birmingham, Alabama, who got her bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering and physics and walked away, said she wants to push MIT to become a better place.
“While I am here, I want to take every opportunity to improve this institution,” she said. “I want MIT to be the institution it can be, and that can only be the case if it cuts its ties and its complicity.”
Some people at the event cursed at the protesters and shouted: “Good riddance to Hamas terror fans.” In early May, a pro-Palestinian encampment at MIT was cleared.