With just a few weeks left in the semester, college students nationwide, including in Massachusetts, are standing their ground, and protesting the war in Gaza.
Protests calling for peace continue to pop up across campuses despite local and national leaders calling for their protests to end.
The tents are cleaned up at Emerson College and the encampment is gone. But now more than 100 protestors – many of them Emerson students — are set to go before a judge this week to face charges for not leaving that encampment.
Emerson administrators said no matter the college’s position on the Israel-Hamas conflict, they have and will continue to support their students by posting bail, adjusting class schedules, encouraging the district attorney to not pursue charges and assuring students they will not face disciplinary action at school.
Meanwhile, over at Tufts University, administrators are urging students to peacefully end the encampment there so it can prepare for commencement.
They said Student Life staff will be reaching out to protestors Monday morning to plan for the end of the encampment in the next few days but did not give a hard and fast deadline for removal.
And at MIT, the president says the encampment needs to shutdown to avoid the arrests that happened at Emerson and Northeastern University.
She said police are monitoring them 24/7 and the tents need to be taken down “soon” but she also did not give a specific timeline.
“Out of respect for the principles of free expression, we have not interfered with the encampment, but it is creating a potential magnet for disruptive outside protesters. It is commandeering space that was properly reserved by other members of our community. And keeping the encampments safe and secure for this set of students is diverting hundreds of staff hours around the clock away from other essential duties,” said MIT President Sally Kornbluth.
Meanwhile, Emerson will be holding a town hall meeting at 10 a.m. Monday to discuss how the removal of the encampment was handled.