With the spring semester winding down, pro-Palestinian encampment protests are popping up on university campuses across the U.S. In California, there are now encampment demonstrations at UC Berkeley and Cal Poly Humboldt.
The encampments at various universities started over the past two weeks, with students at Columbia University being among the first to protest. Columbia asked police to disperse the encampment and 113 people were arrested, according to NBC News. The arrests, however, were not successful in getting Columbia students to disband their encampments. After the arrests, students rebuilt the encampment and made it even bigger, according to the New York Times.
“If administrations [arrest their students], they’re feeding fuel to the fire,” said Nitya Kashyap, a second-year transfer student majoring in computer science. “They’re bringing more attention to it, which is exactly what the students want … If they’re going about it peacefully, I don’t see a problem there.”
Krupa, a 2021 USC alumna who declined to give her last name due to privacy concerns, said Generation Z is “not pleased” with the world they are inheriting. While protesting in support of Black Lives Matter in 2020, she said she was shot by a police officer’s rubber bullet.
“I think police departments are notoriously extremely violent,” Krupa said. “To call them on your own student body is pathetic. And I think they’re not being subtle about who they actually work for, these institutions are not for the student. They don’t want to protect the students.”
The pro-Palestinian encampments have rapidly spread to other college campuses. Students at UC Berkeley, New York University, and Cal Poly Humboldt have held impassioned protests in support of both Palestinian rights and those who have been arrested for protesting, according to Time.
There have been numerous protests at USC since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, but no encampments so far. The campus hasn’t been without controversy though, as many protests have been held to protest the University’s decision to cancel 2024 Valedictorian Asna Tabassum’s commencement speech. The decision, announced via a campus-wide letter by Provost Andrew Guzman April 15, made international headlines.
In the letter, Provost Guzman cited security threats as the sole factor behind the decision and doubled down on that stance in a meeting with the Academic Senate Wednesday. Tabassum, who has given numerous interviews to news outlets, told CNN that “they did not tell me about any specific threats.” Many believe that this decision resulted from Tabassum’s pro-Palestinian activism in combination with backlash from pro-Israel groups at USC.
Trojans for Palestine and USC Graduate Students for Palestine, alongside four other accounts, issued a joint statement in support of the Columbia encampments and the arrested students on Instagram Sunday.
“While witnessing the violence Columbia students are enduring in their just cause, we at USC are fighting our university’s unprecedented decision to revoke Class of 2024 Valedictorian Asna Tabassum’s commencement speech,” their post reads.
Krupa commented on the Instagram post and said that just releasing a statement in solidarity with Columbia’s students is not enough, and that Trojans need to start an encampment on campus as well.
“I think more west coast schools need to [make encampments],” Krupa said. “USC is notoriously a school that is shrouded in scandal and wrapped up in always being on the wrong side of things … I don’t think they’re not going to do it, it’s a matter of when.”