Editor’s note: This is a developing story. Read the latest here.
The “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” has grown, despite the university’s warning on Tuesday that protesters will be considered trespassing if they do not leave the Academic Quad. Now, almost 50 tents and a makeshift barrier built from tables, chairs and other items surround the encampment’s “Apartheid Wall.” Since April 7, student protesters have vowed to remain on the quad and have continuously demanded the university heed calls for Israeli divestment.
Organizers met with University President Sunil Kumar on Wednesday, but little is known about the outcome of negotiations. Patrick Collins, Tufts’ executive director of public relations, wrote to the Daily only that “We’re continuing to explore every path possible for a peaceful and voluntary resolution of the protest, and all options are currently on the table.” Neither Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine nor the Coalition for Palestinian Liberation, two of the camp’s organizing groups, have publicly commented on recent talks.
The encampment “must end,” Kumar and other administrators wrote in an email Sunday, so that preparations for the Commencement ceremony, scheduled for May 19, may begin. On Tuesday, officials cited “safety concerns” regarding the presence of non-university affiliated individuals on campus and protesters’ alleged “desire to escalate the situation” as reasons for the no trespass order. Student representatives previously declined to relocate or deconstruct the camp in exchange for a meeting with Tufts’ chief investment officer and members of the Board of Trustees, officials wrote.
Protesters at universities across the country have erected similar encampments in recent weeks, with many encounters with police resulting in student arrests. On Tuesday night, the New York Police Department arrested almost 300 protesters at both Columbia University and the City College of New York. At UCLA, over 200 people were arrested Wednesday in a police sweep of a similar encampment after counter-protests sparked violence.
At Brown University, however, student protesters took down their encampment on Tuesday after the university’s highest governing body agreed to formally vote on divestment this October. Students at Rutgers University, the University of Minnesota and Northwestern University have all agreed to deconstruct or reduce their encampments after reaching deals.
The university’s goal of preserving Commencement, now just weeks away, is coming under criticism from some members of the graduating class. As of Wednesday, over 300 members of the Class of 2024 have pledged via an open letter to boycott the graduation ceremony if the encampment is forcibly removed.
Emily Childs, a Tufts Community Union senator, signed the letter. Childs, who is Jewish, graduated high school from a parking lot because of the COVID-19 pandemic but said she is willing to forgo yet another formal milestone.
“I was completely crushed,” she said. “But times weren’t normal then, and they’re not normal now. … I don’t need to graduate on the Academic Quad. I’ll survive, but people in Israel and Palestine are not being afforded the same luxury.”
Childs also juxtaposed what she had been taught at Tufts about conflict resolution with the potential use of police force to remove the encampment.
“I feel like if the university opts to use force instead of continuing to negotiate and listen to its students’ wants in the name of my graduation, it fundamentally goes against the exact thing it [Tufts] taught me,” she said.
