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Campus Movement

The Threat Of Democracy On Campus At The University Of Massachusetts

Before arriving at UMass Amherst last fall, Chancellor Javier Reyes was already notorious for his cavalier approach to critics. But few foresaw what he did on May 7. Earlier that day, organizers from a coalition of campus solidarity groups had erected tents on a small section of the lawn by W.E.B. Du Bois Library. Like virtually all the recent encampments in this country, there was no hint of violence from the campers. It was the latest tactic in a seven-month campaign to end UMass’s complicity with the US-Israeli war on Gaza. The organizers had four demands: that UMass disclose its financial ties to weapons makers and corporations with links to Israel, that it divest from those corporations, that it end study abroad programs in Israel, and that it drop all charges and sanctions against the students arrested in a peaceful building occupation last October.

University Of California Student Workers Begin Historic Political Strike

On May 20, University of California (UC) student and postdoc workers at the Santa Cruz campus began a historic strike against the repression of the student movement. UAW 4811, which represents over 48,000 workers, voted last week to authorize a strike in response to intense repression unleashed against students and faculty protesting for Palestine. Administrators at several University of California campuses invited in the police, who violently arrested and injured students, faculty, and staff. Many workers and students across the UC system also face disciplinary action from their universities, including suspension.

The Billionaires And Establishment Officials Unleashing Violence

It has been weeks since the brutal state repression and right-wing violence unleashed against some of the most prominent Gaza Solidarity Encampments, including the encampments at the University of California – Los Angeles and Columbia University. Since then, independent reporting has uncovered disturbing links between extreme-right counterprotesters and billionaire donors, as well as collusion between city officials and police conducting violent repression. At UCLA, Zionist counterprotesters conducted several rounds of attacks against the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Student organizers reported counterprotesters releasing bags of mice injected with an unknown substance, as well as cockroaches.

Morehouse Students Show Solidarity With Gaza During Biden Speech

Advisers for U.S. President Biden reportedly saw Morehouse College, a historically Black men’s college in Atlanta where he gave the commencement address Sunday, as a school where the president was unlikely to face protests over his continued support for Israel’s assault on Gaza, which has been the subject of mass demonstrations led by students at universities across the country over the past month. But students and faculty made clear at the ceremony that many of them, like others in higher education, are intent on sending Biden a strong message of disapproval over his Israel policy. A number of faculty members and students wore keffiyehs, the traditional scarves worn in parts of the Middle East including Palestine, and by some supporters of Palestinian rights to show solidarity with civilians in Gaza.

Twenty Police Departments Dismantle UCI Palestine Solidarity Encampment

Irvine, CA – At least 20 police departments besieged the University of California, Irvine Gaza solidarity encampment on May 15, as student protesters marked the anniversary of the 1948 Nakba. Earlier that morning, protesters reclaimed UCI Physical Sciences Lecture Hall and renamed it in honor of Alex Odeh, a Palestinian American activist who was assassinated in Santa Ana, California in 1985 by three members of the Jewish Defense League. Shortly after students draped banners on Alex Odeh Hall, 20 Orange County police departments swarmed the campus parking lots as UCI administration put out a call for “mutual aid.”

UPenn Students Arrested At Palestine Demo After Building Occupation

Philadelphia, PA – Nearly twenty University of Pennsylvania students and supporters were arrested after briefly occupying Fisher-Bennett Hall along 34th Street Friday night. Officers including UPenn’s Emergency Response Teams worked to shove hundreds of pro-Palestine demonstrators away from what they renamed Refaat Alareer Hall. (Alareer was a prominent Gaza professor killed by Israel late last year.) UPenn has also been a site of rallies against Ghost Robotics, an incubator spinoff company that has fast become a key world supplier of military robots including for Israel. We heard that the action was an extension of the UPenn protest encampment organizing that was swept by police action a week earlier, and was aimed at forcing UPenn to divest from companies that do business with Israel.

Columbia Students Vs The State

Hundreds of college student encampments across the country against the U.S.-Israeli genocide in Gaza have now spread to Europe, South America and the world. The acts of mass solidarity have seized the frontpages of mainstream tabloids for almost a month now. It all started on Wednesday March 17th at my alma mater, Columbia University, thanks to the leadership and solidarity of hundreds of student and faculty leaders. Mayor Eric Adam’s impressive squandering of our taxpayer money to harass and repress peaceful student protests will not soon be forgotten by voters. I was one of the alumni and professors arrested for opposing this disgraceful holocaust of human life in Gaza.

Morehouse Will Stop Commencement If Students Protest Biden Speech

When President Joe Biden gives the commencement speech at Morehouse College this weekend, it might be a short one. Administrators at the historically black college have warned the event will be stopped if there are protests over Gaza. When President Joe Biden gives the commencement speech at Morehouse College this weekend, it might be a short one. Administrators at the historically black college have warned students that the event will be stopped if any “disruptive” behavior occurs. Recent events suggest that there’s a good chance we’ll see some, as community members have consistently protested the administration’s support for Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza.

‘The People’s Graduation’ Celebrates Dozens In Denver

Denver, CO — On Sunday afternoon, more than 100 people gathered on the Tivoli Quad at the Auraria Campus to witness and celebrate the dozens of graduates and student activists who participated in “The People’s Graduation” organized by the campus’ pro-Palestine solidarity encampment that’s been ongoing since April 25, 2024. The commencement ceremony honored “both the people who have been offered degrees by the institutions here as well as the students who made this camp possible,” according to Z Williams with Bread and Roses Legal Center, who kicked off Sunday’s event.

The Student Movement That Forced Ireland’s Trinity College To Divest

Right after Dublin native Ben turned 16, he spent his summer vacations working at event companies that organized concerts and comedy shows. Little did he know that three years later, that experience would help him organize — with nearly a hundred of his peers — a major protest of Trinity College Dublin’s ties with Israel. After five nights in tents on the grassy patch in front of the highly-visited Book of Kells Museum, Trinity acceded to the protesters’ demands and went down in history as one of the first universities to agree to divest from Israeli companies. “I always wanted to partake in effecting change, and this was an opportunity,” the philosophy and politics student said five days after the encampment ended.

University Of California Workers Vote To Authorize A Strike

On May 15, United Auto Workers Local 4811, which represents 48,000 student workers across the University of California campuses, voted to authorize a strike following police and administrative repression of pro-Palestine students staging Gaza Solidarity Encampments.  Strike authorization votes took place from May 13 to May 15. Workers voted in favor of striking by a landslide of 79%. There is currently no fixed date for a strike, but the vote empowers the union’s executive board to call a strike at any time.  Were Local 4811 to strike, it would be the first strike in history to be called for Palestinian liberation.

Columbia Faculty Group Passes No-Confidence Measure On President

Columbia University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences approved a vote of no confidence Thursday against university President Minouche Shafik over her handling of the recent pro-Palestinian protests on campus. The vote, organized by the school’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), won with a 65 percent majority, though it has no real power against Shafik. The AAUP chapter released a statement highlighting the frustrations the group has with Shafik such as agreeing during a recent congressional hearing to fire a particular faculty member and ultimately bringing in the police to clear student protesters.

Carrying On Kent State’s Legacy Of Antiwar Organizing

If you grew up in Ohio, one of the first things that comes to mind when you hear “Kent State” is the saying “Kent Read, Kent Write, Kent State.” If you grew up outside of Ohio, the first thing you think of when hearing “Kent State” is the shootings on May 4, 1970. And if you were present for the protest on May 4, 2024, you heard, “Kent Read, Kent Write, Kent stop funding genocide.” As graduate students (one local, the other out of state), we grew up with different perceptions of Kent State. What united us is the decision to pursue our graduate studies at Kent State due to its long history of activism and the School of Peace and Conflict Studies — founded as a “living memorial” to the students who died on May 4, 1970.

Unions Support Student Protestors Against Administrators And Police

As campus protests—and violent police repression—continue to roll across the country, some unions are getting involved. More than 2,700 protesters have been arrested on 64 college campuses since the initial arrests at Columbia University in New York on April 18. Encampments have appeared at 184 campuses worldwide. The protesting students are calling for full disclosure of their universities’ finances and divestment from all financial ties to weapons manufacturers and Israel’s war on Gaza. Unionized academic workers are demanding decision-making power over their work and what it’s used for. For instance, academic workers in the astronomy department of the University of California Santa Cruz have organized to refuse to apply for or accept funding from the U.S. Department of Defense, weapons manufacturers, and military contractors.

Divest Now! A Revolutionary Demand

Why have student encampments for Palestine ignited such an uproar of brutal repression, vicious police attacks, mass arrests, overwhelming condemnation in the corporate media and a new level of reactionary legislation in Congress? The demand to divest, raised at almost every encampment, exposes the insidious inroads of the military-industrial complex into the heart of almost all higher education institutions in the U.S. today. This demand to “divest” has revolutionary implications. Divestment is not just a threat to university boards, administrators and their alumni funders. It is a threat to the established capitalist order.
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