Over 100 protesters rallied near the pro-Palestinian encampment outside the Paulson Center on Tuesday, before marching toward encampments at The New School, the Fashion Institute of Technology, Columbia University and the City College of New York. The demonstration, during which protesters displayed large signs reading “free Palestine” and “from Gaza to Jenin, revolution until victory,” took place on the encampment’s fifth day on campus.
The pro-Palestinian advocacy group Within Our Lifetime organized the march, which came after protesters at Columbia occupied the university’s Hamilton Hall early Tuesday morning. That same night, the building was swept by hundreds of police officers, leading to dozens of protester arrests.
At the protest, protesters continued to demand that NYU divest from companies with ties to Israel, close its Tel Aviv site, remove police presence on campus and forgive disciplinary action taken against pro-Palestinian student activists. The university has previously told WSN it would not consider divestment from Israel, and has also repeatedly rejected student demands to shut down its study away site in Tel Aviv.
During the demonstration, WOL organizers and members of NYU’s Students for Justice in Palestine chanted, “disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest” and “if we don’t get it, shut it down” as around six Campus Safety officers guarded the entrance to the Paulson encampment. New York City Police Department officers were not present at the protest, but around a dozen NYPD motorcycles were seen around Washington Square Park.
“We are gonna make sure that we constantly have a presence, because they are waiting for us to turn our backs, waiting for us to walk away,” WOL organizer Nerdeen Kiswani said in a speech to the protesters. “We all have to work together to make sure that that does not happen.”
In an Instagram story posted on Tuesday, NYU said university leadership is “aware of the events that are unfolding on other college campuses” and that it is “deeply committed to the safety and security of the community.”
“We appreciate that the vast majority of our students are ending their semester and working hard to complete their coursework,” the statement read. “We hope that our community will find ways to come together in this difficult time.”
An NYU spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Contact Krish Dev at [email protected].