Students in the US maintain their defiance in protests against war in Gaza

Hundreds of students at dozens of universities in the United States continue to challenge Joe Biden’s Government and the authorities of educational centers in the United States this Monday. war protests in Gaza.

The demonstrations have in common the rejection of US policy towards Israel and the request that educational centers break relations with the Government and the Israeli private sector.

This Monday, protesters at Columbia University in New York and the University of Texas (UT) in Austin refused to comply with eviction orders issued by the institutions’ leadership.

Dozens of Texas State Police riot officers entered the UT campus on Monday and forcibly broke up the encampment.

In videos shared on social networks by students and local media, you can see how the agents carried away several students, even dragging some across the grass. The agents also removed tents and tables that the protesters had set up in one of the university’s green areas.

According to local media, at least 50 students were arrested after the police intervention.

This is the second time law enforcement has clashed with UT students since last Wednesday, when officers dispersed the camp and arrested 57 people. Among those detained was a photojournalist from the Fox network, Carlos Sánchez, who faces federal charges for “attack” to a police officer, according to local media.

In the prestigious Columbia University In New York, university protesters also refused to dismantle the camp they have maintained on campus for two weeks, despite the educational center’s ultimatum that they will lose the semester of studies.

One of the spokespersons for the demonstration in charge of negotiations with the university said in a press conference from the campus that, despite the fact that the negotiations were on the right track, “the administration interrupted them under threat of suspensions”.

This Monday the university sent a document to the students giving them a deadline, until 2:00 p.m. local time (6:00 p.m. GMT), to leave the camp under penalty of being suspended and not being able to finish the academic year.

According to the students, these threats mean that students who decide to stay “they would be provisionally suspended, they would lose access to their housing, they would lose access to campus, they would lose access to health care on campus” and even to their visas, if they are foreigners.

The police, for the moment, remain outside the campus, but in recent days they arrested a hundred people. The university students, who had been negotiating with the administration for five days, had several demands, the main one, which was denied on Monday, that Columbia University stop investing in companies with interests in Israel, at least while the war lasts.

However, the president of the institution, the Egyptian Minouche Shafik, stated that this will not happen.

The White House, for its part, noted that although President Joe Biden supports the right to “peaceful protest” is also against “any violent rhetoric, hate threats (…) and anti-Semitism”.

“It is important to say that there is no place for anti-Semitism on campuses or anywhere else in the US.”, stressed the spokesperson for the Biden Government, Karine Jean-Pierre at a press conference in Washington.

The spokesperson also noted that the Government considers that the “Universities are responsible for making their own decisions” and refused to comment on the institutions’ decision to forcibly evict the protesters.