At least 55 students arrested in police raid on Gaza solidarity camp accused of flouting code of conduct and threatened with sanctions
"The threats come as university administrations and law enforcement officials across the US continue to crack down on student demonstrators who set up encampments in the past two months calling for their institutions to divest from military-weapons-production companies and firms supporting Israel’s attacks on Gaza. New York University recently faced backlash for requiring student protesters to write an apologetic “reflection paper” as punishment.
UCLA, one of the nation’s most prominent public universities, has faced particularly intense scrutiny after counter-protesters physically attacked pro-Palestinian protesters in the solidarity encampment on the night of 30 April. Police stood by for hours as the attacks escalated.
Later that week, police cleared the encampment and arrested members and organizers. The militarized response sparked criticism from faculty across the campus, some calling for the chancellor’s resignation. This week, UCLA graduate student workers also went on strike in protest of the university’s response to protests.
Doehr said he believed the administration’s response not to be grounded in concerns over student safety, but in a desire to discourage pro-Palestinian activism. “The university wants to silence students speaking about a genocide,” he said.
..targeted students felt a “sense of abandonment”. She said: “It’s the same abandonment that students felt when the camp was being attacked by counter-protesters and then police."
“Even when their physical safety is under threat, when they are being arrested and subjected to code-of-conduct meetings, they continue to not center themselves and to recenter Gaza – to insist that the most and only important things is the end to genocide and that the university not be complicit in the Israeli occupation.”