United States | News & Politics

Students protesting against the Israel-Gaza war continued to be met by police on Monday night, as a New York University encampment was cleared by the NYPD and students barricaded themselves inside a building at California State Polytechnic University at Humboldt, following dozens of arrests at Yale University.

University campuses across the country have seen an uptick in antiwar demonstrations in past days, including students moving into tents in protest encampments. Some of these, including at Columbia on Thursday and NYU on Monday night, were cleared by police called in at the request of the institutions.

College leaders are facing intense scrutiny over whether they are doing enough to protect students, faculty and staff against alleged antisemitism and other bias since the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attack and subsequent conflict — even as they confront scathing criticism from those who say they’re denying students’ right to speak out and censoring political protests.

At California State Polytechnic University at Humboldt, the campus will be closed through Wednesday after student protesters barricaded themselves inside a building, Siemens Hall, the university said late Monday. The university urged people to stay away from the “dangerous and volatile situation” at the hall, and said it was “deeply concerned about the safety of the protesters,” urging them to “listen to directives from law enforcement … and to peacefully leave the building.”

In a Facebook post, the university added that in-person classes and activities would be “transitioning to remote where possible.”

A photo posted by National Students for Justice in Palestine showed the entry blocked with piled-up furniture.

Humboldt for Palestine, an activist group, posted on social media that students had “taken” the campus’s Siemens Hall, listing demands including that the university divest from any ties to Israel. It posted video of police appearing to push against the barricaded students and a statement that there had been arrests. When called late Monday, the University Police Department said it would answer questions “when the situation has de-escalated.”

In New York, the NYPD cleared a protest encampment centered at New York University’s Gould Plaza on Monday night at the request of the university, the NYPD and an NYU spokesperson said. Faculty were arrested as well as students, according to NYU Faculty for Justice in Palestine.

New York City Police Department Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry said late Monday that the university had asked the police department to “clear Gould Plaza of individuals who were refusing to comply with repeated requests to disperse,” saying they had been described as “interfering with the safety and security of our community.”

“There is a pattern of behavior occurring on campuses across our nation, in which individuals attempt to occupy a space in defiance of school policy,” he added.

Videos on social media showed dozens of officers in tense confrontations with protesters. Some officers tossed tents, and others grappled with demonstrators. Videos also showed police loading people, whose hands were zip-tied behind their backs, onto correctional buses.

NYU spokesman John Beckman said that the university blocked access to the plaza where about 50 protesters were demonstrating “without authorization” Monday morning.

The barriers were breached early in the afternoon by additional protesters, “many of whom we believe were not affiliated with NYU,” who exhibited “disorderly, disruptive, and antagonizing behavior,” and refused to leave when told the protests would be disbanded, he said. The university then requested assistance from the NYPD, he said, adding there were “several antisemitic incidents reported.”

At Columbia University, where the latest wave of campus unrest began, the university sent out an email to staff and students on Monday requiring many classes at its Morningside main campus to be hybrid where possible for the rest of the semester. “Safety is our highest priority as we strive to support our students’ learning and all the required academic operations,” the university added in the email, seen by The Washington Post.

More than 100 demonstrators were arrested at Columbia when the university called in the NYPD to clear a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on Thursday, sparking solidarity demonstrations on other campuses.

Yale said 47 students were arrested at Beinecke Plaza on Monday and will be referred for disciplinary action, potentially including suspension. The school said it made repeated efforts over the weekend to talk to protesters, offered them meetings with trustees and warned of arrests before the Monday morning action. Police released the detained protesters.

“I was deeply saddened that the call for civil discourse and peaceful protest I issued was not heeded,” Yale President Peter Salovey said in a message to the campus community. Salovey noted that members of the Jewish, Muslim, Israeli, Arab, and Palestinian communities had “reported that the campus environment had become increasingly difficult.”

Tacey Hutten, a student protester at Yale who was arrested Monday, said in an interview: “Not only are we not deterred, we may even be more engaged now … we’re resolute. I’ve been involved in this struggle for a couple of months now and plan to be for the rest of my life.”

Meanwhile, other campuses also are contending with increasingly aggressive campus activism. A group of student protesters at Pomona College in California was arrested earlier this month after storming the president’s office. At the University of California at Berkeley in February, protesters broke windows and a door while disrupting a talk given by an Israeli lawyer.

Party of personal freedom everybody.

Dumbass

A Palestinian teacher describes being targeted by Zionist groups with doxing and public harassment. He urges the New York City Chancellor of Education to take action before it turns violent.

On January 31, 2024, a billboard truck, a box truck covered in LED screens that publicly advertise or display information, drove around downtown New York City defaming me as part of a Zionist rally. On February 14, a billboard truck harassed teachers and the overall school community at an elementary school in Brooklyn for their pro-Palestinian views. Similar trucks have been used to harass students and staff at Columbia, Harvard, University of California at Berkley, and various City University of New York campuses where students have spoken out against the “Israeli” genocide of Palestinians (in using quotes when discussing “Israel” I reject the premise of the entity – the a settler-colonial project invented through the forced displacement, dispossession, ethnic cleansing, and incremental genocide of the native Palestinians – and instead recognize the entirety of the region as my homeland, Palestine).

On February 28, I was harassed at the school where I teach by a billboard truck. The truck drove around our school building for hours, defaming me as “New York City’s Leading Anti-Semite,” disrupting education and intimidating the community. Later that day, my family and I were harassed at our home by that same truck and menaced by a camera crew pretending to be journalists.

Billboard trucks have been weaponized as tools for harassment and doxing on college campuses, at schools, accompanying rallies, and for menacing in general public spaces. This isn’t the first time I’d been doxed by Zionists, but it was the first time it occurred in person. It was the first time they terrorized me at my home. Make no mistake, I was targeted because of my identity and convictions; I was doxed because I am a Muslim Palestinian. I am not the first person to fall victim to these serial abusers, and I won’t be the last.

In their campaign to terrorize, silence, and kill the opposition, Zionists have added doxing to their arsenal. No one is safe from this public attack. It is so easy to look up a person’s private information with the intent to terrorize them virtually and in public. Bad actors have used doxing to harass people for years now. These people have gotten better at public harassment in ways that avoid accountability in recent years. They are better at terrorizing others and getting away with it. Their doxing to harass has extended to the abuse of students, public school teachers, and school community members. I am a New York City Public Schools (NYCPS) teacher. In New York City, Chancellor David Banks has done nothing to protect the NYCPS staff and community from public doxing and retaliation by Zionist staff members and their external affiliates other than offer hollow platitudes and engage in viewpoint discrimination. His inaction has compromised the safety and security of NYCPS staff and community members who are targeted by Zionists.

read more: https://mondoweiss.net/2024/04/zionists-have-tried-to-silence-me-through-doxing-and-intimidation-they-wont-succeed/

Jackson, Mississippi, residents will now have a formal seat in negotiations that could determine the future of clean water access.

The change comes from a “motion to intervene” in the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) case against the city of Jackson. Filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of the Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign and the People’s Advocacy Institute, it marks the first time in decades that Jackson residents will have a voice in the rehabilitation of the water infrastructure.

“This is a very significant win for us,” said Danyelle Holmes, an organizer with the Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign and a resident of Jackson. “This is what we have been long fighting for — a voice at the table and being able to be a part of the governance process as it relates to the water and sewer infrastructure here in the city of Jackson.”

For years, the water infrastructure in the capital city of 150,000 residents has failed against extreme weather, such as flooding and freezing temperatures. Worsening climate events are emerging pressures on the water system. Still, advocates say the reasons Jacksonians lack access to reliable, safe water are reflective of a deeper pattern of anti-Black city planning, sub-par infrastructure funding, and a failed promise from the federal government to invest in “environmental justice” communities.

“Residents have been left in the dark when it comes to public health,” said Jessica Vosburgh, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Intervenor status might change that.

read more: https://truthout.org/articles/residents-finally-get-to-participate-in-negotiations-over-jacksons-water-crisis/

*Campaigners have issued a “red alert” over language included in the 2024 Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act that could pave the way toward banning student loan cancellation.

The current draft of the routine bill bars executive branch officials from cancelling or forgiving student loans taken out to pursue flight training or education at the undergraduate level, the Debt Collective warned on Wednesday.

“They’re trying to make relief illegal,” the group posted on social media.

Buried 1,000 pages in, the language flagged by the Debt Collective comes under the heading, “Prohibition on mass cancellation of eligible undergraduate flight education and training programs loans.”

“The secretary, the secretary of the treasury, or the attorney general may not take any action to cancel or forgive the outstanding balances, or portion of balances, on any federal direct unsubsidized Stafford loan, or otherwise modify the terms or conditions of a federal direct unsubsidized Stafford loan, made to an eligible student, except as authorized by an act of Congress,” the text reads.

read more: https://truthout.org/articles/new-bill-could-pave-the-way-toward-banning-student-debt-cancellation/

The layoffs were prompted by a diversity, equity, and inclusion ban that went into effect in January.

The University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin) announced on Tuesday that it was firing dozens of people who used to work in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs at the university. At least 60 total staff members were laid off — 40 of whom worked in the Division of Campus and Community Engagement, which is closing.

In a joint letter, Texas NAACP and the Texas Conference of American Association of University Professors (AAUP) said that none of the staff who were fired currently work in DEI. The letter also says that the organizations see the layoffs as “potential attacks on First Amendment freedoms” and as clear retaliation that shows that “racial and ethnic discrimination was the clear purpose of this action.”

Professors at UT-Austin saw the firings as a “purge” that disproportionately affected staff from marginalized backgrounds.

“I can’t help but see this as a purge of any staff who have training in DEI — literally like a McCarthy-era purge — because none of the staff who’ve been fired have any DEI in their portfolio right now,” said Karma Chávez, the chair of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies. “All they had is a history of being in a DEI-related position.”

read more: https://truthout.org/articles/university-of-texas-at-austin-fires-60-staff-focused-on-diversity-and-inclusion/

Navarro is due to report Tuesday to a federal prison for a four-month sentence, after being found guilty of misdemeanor charges for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/13129195

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/politics@lemmy.ml/t/894692

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