亲巴勒斯坦校园抗议者与大学官员之间的紧张关系加剧
【中美创新时报2024 年 5 月 1 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）周二（4月30日），抗议以色列加沙战争的学生与大学管理人员之间的紧张关系在一些校园加剧，包括占领了哥伦比亚大学的一栋校舍，但随着示威者最近建立的营地基本和平驱散，其他几所校园的紧张关系有所缓和。《波士顿环球报》记者John Hilliard、John R. Ellement 和 Lila Hempel-Edgers 对此作了下述详细报道。
在曼哈顿，警方周二晚上逮捕了当天早些时候将自己困在哥伦比亚一栋大楼内并在窗户上展开巴勒斯坦国旗的示威者。距离周一下午离开营地或停职的最后期限已过去近 12 个小时，示威者才采取行动。哥伦比亚大学表示，将寻求驱逐占领该大楼的学生。
最近几天与警方发生冲突后，至少 8 个州的校园内有 1000 多名抗议者被捕，其中包括艾默生学院和马萨诸塞州的东北大学。
在波士顿地区，示威者与麻省理工学院管理人员之间的紧张对峙仍在继续，几天前学校校长萨莉·科恩布鲁斯表示抗议营地“需要尽快结束”。一群同情麻省理工学院的教师周二警告抗议者，他们相信学校会采取行动反对他们。
塔夫茨大学告诉抗议的学生，它将很快寻求禁止侵入令。在全国其他校园，警方在驱散营地的过程中拘留了数十名抗议者。
但在普罗维登斯布朗大学和马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校这两个地区的校园，营地周二被拆除。布朗大学官员同意听取示威者从以色列撤军的要求，而麻省大学的学生则被告知，如果他们拆除营地，他们可以继续抗议。
周二最引人注目的事态发展发生在哥伦比亚大学，两周前该校逮捕了 100 多名示威者，引发许多其他校园的学生设立抗议营地。在那里，一小群学生无视学校停课的最后期限，占领了汉密尔顿大厅。
哥伦比亚大学表示，在学生“破坏和封锁”汉密尔顿大楼后，“我们别无选择”，只能授权警方清理汉密尔顿大楼。在警察介入之前的几个小时，纽约市市长埃里克·亚当斯对示威者说：“现在就摆脱这种情况，并通过其他方式继续进行宣传…… 这一切现在必须结束。”
学校表示，占领该大楼的学生将面临开除，而那些在周一截止日期前未离开营地的学生将被停学。
全国各地校园的学生抗议者要求他们的学校（其中许多拥有大量捐赠基金）出售以色列公司或与该国开展业务的公司的股票，或者以其他方式放弃与该国的任何财务联系。
在塔夫茨，营地内的管理人员和示威者均表示，双方的谈判陷入僵局。
“谈判失败了。塔夫茨大学巴勒斯坦正义学生组织的 Facebook 群组发帖称，该大学表示，他们将“采取严厉手段”强行拆除营地。该群组称，校园警察已封锁附近的校舍。
“加入我们的营地。我们需要身体。我们保证我们的安全，”塔夫茨大学的学生说。
塔夫茨大学官员在一份声明中表示，由于谈判陷入僵局，学校将向抗议者发布禁止侵入令。 那些不离开的学生可能会面临“停学或其他制裁”。
学校官员表示，抗议者采取的行动“表明他们希望使局势升级”，包括引入与塔夫茨无关的示威者、骚扰工作人员，以及拒绝搬迁营地以便学校为 5 月 18 日毕业典礼做准备的建议。
声明称：“我们将继续在合理范围内采取一切措施，避免在其他大学发生冲突。” “但是营地需要结束，毕业典礼的准备工作需要开始。”
在麻省理工学院，忧思教师联盟的成员向麻省理工学院校长莎莉·科恩布鲁斯发布了一系列未签名的信件，呼吁政府与抗议者继续进行谈判。
“如果政府想要结束营地，我们敦促他们满足学生的要求，这些要求是谦虚的、经过充分研究的，并且在道德和伦理上符合麻省理工学院的价值观，”教职人员团体表示。
麻省理工学院发言人金伯利·艾伦表示，示威活动“得到了领导层的充分关注”，管理人员将继续与抗议者会面和交谈。
她说：“麻省理工学院仍然致力于确保校园的人身安全和功能齐全，同时努力取得积极成果。”
校园抗议活动持续发生之际，以色列总理本杰明·内塔尼亚胡承诺入侵加沙南部的拉法，那里有数十万巴勒斯坦难民庇护。美国国务卿安东尼·布林肯预计本周将推进停战谈判；内塔尼亚胡承诺“无论是否达成协议”都会发动袭击。
战争始于哈马斯 10 月 7 日对以色列的袭击，武装分子在袭击中杀害了约 1,200 人，并劫持了约 250 名人质； 过去七个月里，超过 34,000 名巴勒斯坦人被杀害，加沙 230 万人中的大多数人现在无家可归。
与此同时，哈佛校园周二仍然对没有学生证的任何人关闭。根据哈佛“走出被占领的巴勒斯坦”组织周二下午的一份声明，哈佛的示威者表示，他们在营地面临骚扰。
该组织表示，该大学“已试图关闭”营地的所有外部通道和可见度。该组织表示，政府已对近 40 人采取纪律处分。
该抗议组织表示，周一，一名示威者遭到辱骂和吐口水，而反抗议者“每天继续通过侵入性和威胁性的近距离摄影和摄像来骚扰学生抗议者、支持者和旁观者。”
哈佛大学发言人乔纳森·帕伦博表示，营地的继续存在违反了大学政策。
“我们的首要任务仍然是整个社区的安全和福祉。哈佛大学多次表示，参与不符合政策的活动将受到纪律处分。然而，我们不会讨论个别学生的具体情况，”帕伦博在声明中说。
与此同时，艾默生学院(Emerson College)的一群学生家长呼吁校长杰伊·伯恩哈特(Jay Bernhardt)辞职。上周，艾默生学院警方强行将100多名抗议者赶出了校园。
家长们在社交媒体上流传的一封信中表示，“让那些非暴力行使言论和集会自由权的学生受到伤害，是对领导力的公然废除。”
在美国其他地方，警察和抗议者周一夜间在加州州立理工大学洪堡分校和里士满弗吉尼亚联邦大学发生冲突。康涅狄格大学警方在抗议者拒绝拆除帐篷后逮捕了他们；在北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校，警察在清理营地后拘留了一些人。据美联社报道，周二上午，当局还清理了耶鲁大学的一个营地，但没有逮捕的报告。
在围绕抗议活动的高涨情绪中，布朗大学和麻省大学阿默斯特分校也出现了妥协的迹象。
周二下午，在布朗大学校长克里斯蒂娜·帕克森同意在布朗大学公司十月份会议上投票表决一项撤资决议后，布朗大学的学生抗议者开始拆除帐篷，结束了为期一周的“加沙营地”。
组织者阿曼·迪恩达尔 (Arman Deendar) 表示，这一结果是“历史性的胜利”。
“这是我们第一次让克里斯蒂娜帕克森采取撤资行动，”迪恩达尔说。“我们认为这是一个巨大的胜利，因为公司实际上将对以色列占领下的撤资进行投票，他们将对我们作为学生时制作的重要撤资报告进行投票。”
在麻州大学，校长哈维尔·雷耶斯在周二早上的一封电子邮件中告诉校园社区，抗议营地违反了学校政策，并迫使取消打算使用该地点的活动。周一，示威者被要求拆除营地，不遵守规定的人将被视为非法侵入。根据周一向社区发出的一份大学声明，包括帐篷在内的未经授权的建筑的存在“不属于受保护的言论”。
“我们告诉他们，如果他们不遵守大学程序，我们将采取行动，并且需要拆除营地，”麻省大学阿默斯特分校发言人爱德华·布拉古斯泽斯基 (Edward Blaguszewski) 在接受电话采访时说。 “他们选择拆除它。”
学生示威者表示，他们早在周二早上 6 点就看到警察包围了营地。据抗议者称，估计有 20 至 30 名警察在场。
布拉古谢夫斯基表示，没有人被捕。
雷耶斯在声明中表示，营地拆除后，学生们聚集在一起继续抗议，没有发生任何事件。
《波士顿环球报》记者索菲亚·巴内特和格蕾丝·李对此报道做出了贡献。
题图：4 月 30 日，哈佛大学哈佛庭院大门后的亲巴勒斯坦抗议营地。ANDREW BURKE-STEVENSON FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE
附原英文报道：
Tensions between pro-Palestinian campus protesters, college officials ratchets up
By John Hilliard, John R. Ellement and Lila Hempel-Edgers Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent,Updated May 1, 2024
A pro-Palestinian protest encampment behind a gate of Harvard Yard at Harvard University on April 30.Tensions between students protesting Israel’s war in Gaza and college administrators intensified on some campuses Tuesday, including the seizure of a school building at Columbia University, but eased on several others with largely peaceful dispersals of encampments that demonstrators had recently set up.
In Manhattan, police Tuesday night arrested demonstrators who had barricaded themselves in a Columbia building earlier in the day and had unfurled a Palestinian flag in a window. Demonstrators took it over nearly 12 hours after a Monday afternoon deadline to leave their encampment or be suspended. Columbia said it would seek to expel the students who had taken over the building.
More than 1,000 protesters have been arrested on campuses in at least eight states, including at Emerson College and Northeastern University in Massachusetts, following confrontations with police in recent days.
In the Boston area, a tense standoff between demonstrators and administrators at MIT continued, days after school president Sally Kornbluth said the protest encampment “needs to end soon.” A group of sympathetic MIT faculty warned the protesters Tuesday that they believed the school would move against them.
And Tufts University told its protesting students it would soon seek a no-trespass order. At other campuses across the country, police detained dozens of protesters in the course of breaking up encampments.
But at two area campuses, Brown University in Providence and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, encampments were dismantled Tuesday. Brown officials agreed to hear the demands of demonstrators to divest from Israel, while students at UMass were told they could continue protesting if they took down their encampment.
The most dramatic development Tuesday occurred at Columbia, where the arrest of more than 100 demonstrators two weeks ago triggered students at numerous other campuses to set up protest encampments. There, a smaller group of students occupied Hamilton Hall in defiance of the school’s deadline to stand down.
Columbia said “we were left with no choice” but to authorize police to clear Hamilton Hall after the students had “vandalized and blockaded” the building. In the hours before the officers moved in, New York City Mayor Eric Adams told demonstrators: “Walk away from this situation now and continue your advocacy through other means. . . . This must end now.”
The school said students who had occupied the building face expulsion, and those who did not leave the encampment by the Monday deadline were being suspended.
Student protesters at campuses across the country are demanding their schools, many with sizable endowments, sell off stock in companies from Israel or that do business with the country, or otherwise to drop any financial ties to the country.
At Tufts, administrators and demonstrators inside the encampment each said talks between the sides are at an impasse.
“Negotiations have failed. The university has said that they will forcibly remove the encampment with a ‘heavy hand,’ ” according to a posting by the Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine Facebook group, which said the campus police were locking down nearby school buildings.
“Join our encampment. We need bodies. We keep us safe,” the Tufts students said.
Tufts officials said in a statement that with talks stalled, the school will issue a no-trespass order to protesters. Those students who don’t vacate could face “suspension or other sanctions.”
Protesters have engaged in actions that “indicated their desire to escalate the situation,” including bringing in demonstrators unaffiliated with Tufts, harassing staff, and rejecting a suggestion to move the encampment to allow the school to prepare for the May 18 commencement, school officials said.
“We continue to do everything within reason to avoid the confrontations seen at other universities,” the statement said. “But the encampment needs to end, and Commencement setup needs to begin.”
At MIT, members of the Alliance of Concerned Faculty group posted a series of unsigned letters to MIT university president Sally Kornbluth that called for continuing negotiations between the administration and protesters.
“If the administration wants to end the encampment, we urge them to meet students’ demands which are modest, well-researched, and morally and ethically consistent with MIT values,” the faculty group said.
MIT spokesperson Kimberly Allen said that the demonstration “has the full attention of leadership,” and that administrators continue to meet and talk with protesters.
“MIT remains focused on ensuring the campus is physically safe and fully functioning while working toward a positive outcome,” she said.
The continued campus protests came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to launch an incursion into Rafah in southern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees are sheltering. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was expected to advance truce talks this week; Netanyahu promised to launch the attack “with or without a deal.”
The war began with Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which militants killed about 1,200 people, and took about 250 hostages; over the past seven months, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed, and most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are now homeless.
Meanwhile, Harvard Yard remained closed to anyone without a student ID Tuesday. Demonstrators at Harvard said they faced harassment at their encampment, according to a statement from the Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine group Tuesday afternoon.
The group said the university “has sought to shut off” all outside access and visibility to the encampment. The administration has initiated disciplinary action against nearly 40 people , the group said.
The protest group said one demonstrator was verbally abused and spat on Monday, while counterprotesters “continue to harass student protesters, supporters, and onlookers on a daily basis through intrusive and threatening close-quarters photography and videography.”
Jonathan Palumbo, a Harvard spokesperson, said the encampment continued in violation of university policies.
”Our priority remains the safety and well-being of our entire community. Harvard College has repeatedly communicated that participation in activities that do not comply with policies will result in disciplinary measures. However, we do not discuss the details of individual students’ circumstances,” Palumbo said in statement.
Meanwhile, a group of parents of students at Emerson College, where police forcibly removed more than 100 protesters from the campus last week, called for the resignation of president Jay Bernhardt.
“Putting those students who were non-violently exercising their rights of free expression and assembly in harm’s way is a gross abrogation of leadership,” the parents said in a letter circulated on social media.
Elsewhere in the United States, police and protesters clashed at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, and Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond overnight Monday. Police at the University of Connecticut arrested protesters after they refused to remove tents; at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, police detained people after clearing an encampment. At Yale University, authorities also cleared an encampment Tuesday morning, though there were no reports of arrests, the AP reported.
Amid the surging emotions surrounding the protests, there were also signs of compromise at Brown and UMass Amherst.
Student protesters at Brown began taking down their tents Tuesday afternoon, ending their week-long “Encampment for Gaza” after president Christina Paxson agreed to put a divestment resolution up for vote at the Corporation of Brown University’s October meeting.
Organizer Arman Deendar said the outcome was “a historic win.”
“This is the first time that we’ve gotten Christina Paxson to move on divestment,” Deendar said. “We’re taking this as a huge win because the Corporation is actually going to vote on divestment from Israeli occupation and they’re going to vote on the critical divestment report that we produced as students.”
And at UMass, chancellor Javier Reyes told the campus community in an email Tuesday morning that the protest encampment violated school policy, and forced a cancellation of an event that intended to use that location. On Monday, demonstrators were asked to dismantle their encampment, and those who did not comply would be trespassing. The presence of unauthorized structures, including tents, “is not protected speech,” according to a university statement sent out to the community Monday.
“We told them that if they did not follow university procedures, that we would take action [and] the encampment needed to be dismantled,” said Edward Blaguszewski, a UMass Amherst spokesperson, in a phone interview. “They chose to dismantle it.”
Student demonstrators said they saw officers surrounding the encampment as early as 6 a.m. Tuesday. An estimated 20 to 30 police officers were present, according to protesters.
Blaguszewski said there were no arrests.
Reyes, in his statement, said that after the encampment came down, students gathered and continued their protest without incident.
Globe correspondents Sofia Barnett and Grace Lee contributed to this report.
