2024 USC pro-Palestinian campus occupation | |
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Part of the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses | |
Date | April 24 – May 5, 2024 (1 week and 4 days) |
Location | Los Angeles, California, United States |
Casualties | |
Arrested | 93 |
On April 24, 2024 an occupation protest began at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles, California. The protest was a part of pro-Palestine protests on university campuses campaigning for divestment from Israel. [1] USC cancelled their main commencement ceremony over safety concerns about protests. [2] The encampment was cleared by the Los Angeles Police Department on the morning of May 5. [3]
On April 17 protesters at Columbia University had begun an occupation protest on its campus to protest the university's investments in Israel amid the Israel–Hamas war. The protest, as well as the police response, sparked nationwide protests at university campuses. [4]
On April 15 USC announced they would cancel the upcoming commencement speech by pro-Palestinian valedictorian Asna Tabassum, citing security concerns. Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Andrew T. Guzman stated the decision came after debate over Tabassum being chosen to give the speech took on an "alarming tenor", saying it would have posed a security risk. The Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the speech's cancellation. [5] Days later the school also cancelled the planned commencement speech by director Jon M. Chu, as well as the planned granting of honorary degrees to Billie Jean King, Maria Rosario Jackson, and Marcia McNutt. [6]
The encampment was set up at Alumni Park on April 24. Officers from the USC Police and the Los Angeles Police Department arrested 93 people on the first night of the protest. In addition, USC closed off campus to the general public. [7] [8]
USC announced they would cancel their main graduation ceremony. [9] The university later announced they would hold a "Trojan Family" event for graduates at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The event was set for May 9, a day before when the graduation was scheduled. [10]
Around a hundred LAPD officers raided and cleared the encampment at approximately 4:00 a.m. on Sunday, May 5. [11] [12] No arrests were made. [13]
The University of Southern California is a private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert Maclay Widney, it is the oldest private research university in California, with an enrollment of more than 49,000 students.
The Diag is a large open space in the middle of the University of Michigan's Central Campus. Originally known as the Diagonal Green, the Diag derives its name from the many sidewalks running near or through it in diagonal directions. Many of the University's most frequented buildings are situated around the Diag, including West Hall, Randall Lab, the Shapiro Undergraduate Library, the Hatcher Graduate Library, and Angell, Mason, Haven, and Tisch Halls, among others.
Carol Lynn Folt is an American academic administrator who is the 12th president of the University of Southern California. She is also the first female president in the university’s 142-year history. She assumed her duties on July 1, 2019. She was previously the 11th chancellor, and the 29th chief executive, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, being the first woman to hold the post. Prior to that, she was provost and interim president of Dartmouth College. On January 14, 2019, she announced her resignation as UNC chancellor.
Protests, including rallies, demonstrations, campaigns, and vigils, relating to the Israel–Hamas war have occurred nationwide across the United States since the conflict's start on October 7, 2023, occurring as part of a broader phenomenon of the Israel–Hamas war protests around the world.
The year 2024, a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, involved and is expected to involve several major events in California.
A series of occupation protests by pro-Palestinian students occurred at Columbia University in New York City from April to June 2024, in the context of the broader Israel–Hamas war related protests in the United States. The protests began on April 17, 2024, when pro-Palestinian students established an encampment of approximately 50 tents on the university campus, calling it the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, and demanded the university divest from Israel.
Pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses started in 2023 and escalated in April 2024, spreading in the United States and other countries, as part of wider Israel–Hamas war protests. The escalation began after mass arrests at the Columbia University campus occupation, led by anti-Zionist groups, in which protesters demanded the university's disinvestment from Israel over its alleged genocide of Palestinians. In the U.S. over 3,100 protesters have been arrested, including faculty members and professors, on over 60 campuses. On May 7, protests spread across Europe with mass arrests in the Netherlands. By May 12, twenty encampments had been established in the United Kingdom, and across universities in Australia and Canada. The protests largely ended as universities closed for the summer.
On April 25, 2024, a student protest began at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to protest the administration's investments in Israel. The occupation, self-titled as the 'Palestine Solidarity Encampment', was a part of pro-Palestine protests on university campuses campaigning for divestment from Israel. The encampment was attacked multiple times by counter protestors, leading to clashes. On May 2, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) raided and dismantled the encampment, arresting the protestors and ending the occupation.
In May 2024, pro-Palestinian student protesters at the University of Virginia demonstrated on the campus. The protesters organized an occupation on university grounds in support of Palestinian nationalism in the context of the Israel–Hamas war.
The McGill University pro-Palestinian encampment was an occupation protest which took place on the downtown campus of McGill University, in Montreal, from 27 April to 10 July 2024. It was the first notable Canadian demonstration in the 2024 movement of pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses, which call for universities to cut ties with Israel amid the country's assault on Gaza in the Israel–Hamas war. Like many of its predecessors, the protest at McGill took the form of an encampment, a group of tents occupied day and night by protesters.
On May 6, 2024 University of Amsterdam (UvA) students established a pro-Palestinian protest occupation on the Roeterseiland campus to support Palestinians in Gaza and demand action from administrators. This became the first in a series of pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses throughout the Netherlands. On May 7, 169 people were detained when the police used a bulldozer to break down the barricades after the protesters refused to leave.
The pro-Palestinian campus occupations at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands were a series of occupation protests, as part of the broader protests against the Israel–Hamas war. On 13 May 2024 protesters created an encampment, similar to other campus protests in the Netherlands, the United States and other countries. On 20 May a second encampment was established next to the universities' administrative building. On 5 June after the occupation of another university building, police cleared the encampment. The protesters demanded that the university board divest from Israel over its alleged genocide of Palestinians and invasion of the Gaza Strip, and to support Palestinian students and universities. The protests included walkouts, daily marches, temporary occupations, as well as vandalism.
On May 15, 2024, a crackdown on a pro-Palestine encampment at University of California, Irvine resulted in an occupation of the UC Irvine Science Building by the protesters. UCI police put out a mutual aid call and received a response from at least 16 law enforcement agencies from around Orange County. Hundreds of officers responded and forty-seven protesters, including students, UCI employees and others were arrested. Student participants were suspended for up to 14 days.
On April 25th, students at University of Pennsylvania began an encampment to protest the ongoing Israel–Hamas war and to call for divestment from Israel. The occupation, named the "Gaza Solidarity Encampment," was part of a series of 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses. On May 10th, the encampment was raided and protesters were arrested, ending the occupation.
The pro-Palestinian campus occupations at the University of Oxford are ongoing occupation protests in Oxford, England, organised by Oxford Action for Palestine (OA4P). The occupations started on 6 May 2024 on the Museum of Natural History's lawn, in front of the Pitt Rivers Museum. Escalating the protests, a second encampment was established on 19 May outside the Radcliffe Camera. Protests have taken elsewhere in the city, including on Wellington Square, where 17 students were arrested after occupying the Vice-Chancellor's office on 23 May. Protesters demands include disclosure of investments and divestment from Israeli companies, among others. The university refused to negotiate with protesters until responding to an email to arrange discussion on 5 June. The protests have been supported by over 500 members of staff, and criticised by the university as intimidating.
A series of protests at Ohio State University by pro-Palestinian demonstrators occurred on-campus in response to the Israel-Palestine conflict beginning on October 7, 2023. A solidarity encampment was constructed on OSU's South Oval on April 25, 2024, during which there were 36 confirmed arrests. About 40 protesters have been arrested across multiple non-violent protests, making for the largest en masse arrests on campus since the 1969–1970 Vietnam War protests.
Pro-Palestinian protests at the University of Texas at Austin began on April 24, 2024, organized by the Palestinian Solidarity Committee in response to the ongoing Israel-Hamas War. The protests have included sit-ins, marches, and encampments on campus, calling for the university to divest from companies linked to Israel's actions in Gaza. The demonstrations escalated when university officials, with support from local and state law enforcement, intervened to disperse protestors, leading to multiple arrests and sparking criticism over the suppression of free speech on campus. Despite arrests and clashes with police, the protests have continued, drawing significant attention and raising debates about civil liberties and the role of university administration in managing campus protests.