Late this Monday afternoon (29), Columbia University, in New York, USA, announced that it had officially started processes to suspend students who were still occupying the institution’s spaces with tents and posters in protest against Israel.
The university’s spokesperson, Ben Chang, was the one who informed about the resolution of the disciplinary actions that will be applied against those who disobeyed the deadline for ending the occupation established by the institution.
“We have begun suspending students as part of the next phase of our efforts to ensure the safety of our campus,” Chang said.
Last week, the university had established an ultimatum for radical students to leave the occupied site by 3pm (Brasília time) this Monday.
The students, however, decided, through a vote, to continue with the occupation, which they claim is a “protest” against the university’s connection with companies that have ties to Israel.
In a statement, the university’s president, Minouche Shafik, declared that it would not meet Israel’s demands for financial and academic decoupling. Amid reports of anti-Semitic attitudes and discrimination against Jewish students during the protests at Columbia, Shafik reinforced that the university “condemns hate” and that anti-Semitic actions are unacceptable.”
Columbia was the epicenter of demonstrations at US universities against Israel.
Also this Monday, 40 students were arrested at the University of Texas, in Austin, USA. State police troops and security officials at the institution – equipped with riot gear – arrested members of an occupation taking place inside the institution in protest against Israel. They did not want to voluntarily leave the space and tried to resist detention. Some were throwing themselves on the ground to avoid being taken away.
“Camps will not be allowed” at educational institutions, declared Texas Governor Greg Abbott, from the Republican Party, in a statement released this Monday shortly after the arrests began at the university.
According to information from the The New York Timesmembers of the University of Texas administration said that the groups of protesters who were occupying the institution this Monday were more “threatening” than those who had been protesting there during the past week.
Brian Davis, university spokesman, mentioned that the organizers of this new protest even made virtual threats over the weekend against the institution’s authorities.
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