In a statement released on Friday morning, University of Chicago President Paul Alivisatos announced that the pro-Palestinian encampment installed on the University’s Main Quad “cannot continue.” The message comes after what he calls “systematic disruption of campus.”
University of Chicago United for Palestine set up the encampment on Monday in a strategy echoing that of students nationwide. The group is demanding that the University cut its financial ties with Israel.
Israel-Hamas war demonstrations across dozens of university campuses have now resulted in more than 2,100 arrests and have led to clashes with law enforcement, most notably at Columbia and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
At University of Chicago, police are being diverted away from neighborhood patrol duty to provide a 24-hour presence at the encampment which has “grown each day,” according to Alivisatos.
“Clear violations of policies have only increased. Our students have issued a torrent of reports of disrupted classroom learning. Other disruptions include repeated destruction of an approved installation of Israeli flags, shouting down speakers they disagree with, vandalism and graffiti on historic buildings, incorporating walkways into the encampment, and co-opting the University flagpole to fly the Palestinian flag,” said Alivisatos.
Earlier this week, senior administrators “met with the group designated by the protesters to listen to their demands and to search for a way to end the encampment grounded in dialogue.” They found no “common ground.”
In a previous statement made hours after the students installed the encampment, Alivisatos remarked, “Given the importance of the expressive rights of our students, we may allow an encampment to remain for a short time despite the obvious violations of policy.
“We only will intervene when what might have been an exercise of free expression blocks the learning or expression of others or that meaningfully disrupts the functioning or safety of the University.”
Now, Alivisatos has declared that “without an agreement to end the encampment, we have reached that point.”
More to follow.
Read President Alivisatos’s statement in full here.
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Author: Shubh Malde
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