Students Occupy American Universities Demanding End to “Silence on Palestine and Genocide”

At Columbia University, the epicenter of the demonstrations that began in recent weeks, students say they will not stop until the school agrees to cut ties with Israeli academic institutions and to a “complete divestment” of funds linked to Israel.

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Last week, police officers – on orders from Nemat Shafik, president of Columbia University – entered the campus in riot gear. Then 108 students were arrested who had built a ‘Gaza Solidarity Camp’ on campus. Students indicated that the school administration had endangered them by allowing police to forcibly remove the protesting students. The New York police chief said afterward that the arrested students were “peaceful.”

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Get on

Despite the arrests, students continue to protest on campus. And they are now asking Shafik to resign because of the police actions. Also Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who held a conference in Colombia on Wednesday afternoon, has now asked Shafik to resign.

According to Johnson, “Columbia has failed to act to restore order on campus” and has “failed to protect Jewish students despite concerns about anti-Semitism on and around campus.”

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“Dangerous”

Johnson also called the protests “dangerous” on Wednesday: “We respect freedom of speech, we respect the diversity of ideas, but there is a way to do that in a legal way and this is not that. My message to the students in the camp is: go back to class and stop that nonsense.”

“My message to the students in the camp is: go back to class and stop that nonsense”

Mike Johnson

Chairman House

Although most protests are non-violent, some Jewish students are said to be concerned about their safety. “The anti-Semitic comments and activities are rampant,” Jessica Schwalb, a Jewish student at Columbia, told CNN. The university recently switched to hybrid classes for safety reasons, allowing students to take classes and final exams online.

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All over the country

Columbia is not the only university protesting. Nearly 100 protesters were arrested at the University of Southern California on Wednesday. The protesters have demands similar to those at Columbia University, namely an academic boycott of Israel, protection of freedom of expression on campus and an end to displacement in Gaza and Palestinian territories.

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In addition, they demand that there are no more police on campus and that an end is “to the silence about the genocide and Palestine.”

The students demand that there be no more police on campus and that an end be put to “the silence about the genocide and Palestine”

After tense resistance, the Texas Department of Public Safety said 34 arrests had been made by police on the University of Texas campus as of 9 p.m. Wednesday. A photographer from Fox 7 was also among those arrested, the news agency said.

The California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt campus will remain closed through the weekend as protesters, including “unidentified non-students,” continue to occupy two buildings.