2024-05-04 08:32:05
Pro-Palestinian protests demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and divestment from Israel-linked companies have spread to a number of American universities over the past two weeks since Columbia University officials called police to remove an encampment on the university’s New York City campus.
Below is a chronology of important events in the largest wave of student activism in the United States since the anti-racism protests of 2020.
* April 17 – Columbia University students hold a Gaza solidarity camp on the university’s Manhattan campus on the same day that the university’s president told the US Congress that she would protect Jewish students from a “moral crisis” related to anti-Semitism.
* April 18 – More than 100 pro-Palestinian protesters are arrested in Columbia after university president Nemat Shafik asks the New York Police to evacuate the camp.
* April 22 – Police arrest hundreds of people at pro-Palestinian protests at Yale University in Connecticut and New York University in Manhattan after Columbia University suspended classes amid tensions.
* April 24 – Riot police confront pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Texas and arrest 57 people for trespassing. The level of strength, unprecedented until then, was later seen at other universities. All charges were later dropped due to lack of possible justification.
* April 25 – In his remarks at Columbia University, US House Speaker Mike Johnson described the campus as out of control and suggested sending US military reserve forces to restore order.
* April 27 – Arrest numbers rise above 1,000 on college campuses as officials call in police to clear camps on college campuses from Massachusetts to Arizona.
* April 28 – Clashes between pro-Palestinian protesters and pro-Israel protesters at the University of California-Los Angeles after an Israeli-American pro-Israel group organized a counter-protest near the pro-Palestinian camp.
* April 29 – Clashes erupt between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel protests at the University of California-Los Angeles after a Jewish student activist records that he was prevented from entering areas of the campus by pro-Palestinian protesters. UC authorities declare the protest camp illegal. Colombia begins suspending studies of pro-Palestinian activists.
* April 30 – Brown University students agree to remove the camp in exchange for a vote by university trustees to divest from companies that support Israel, in the first agreement of its kind for the protest movement. Pro-Israel protesters attack a Gaza solidarity camp at the University of California-Los Angeles, resulting in a number of injuries, including four university student journalists. Police arrest dozens of people at California Polytechnic University in Humboldt while evacuating buildings where pro-Palestinian protesters had barricaded themselves.
* May 1 – New York City police arrest dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters who were barricading themselves in an academic building on the Columbia University campus. Police clear protest camp.
* May 2 – Police evacuate an encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of California-Los Angeles.
Last updated: May 3, 2024 – 18:44
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2024-05-04 08:32:05