PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Classes at Drexel University will be virtual Monday as dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters set up an encampment on campus, the university president said Sunday.
University President John Fry calls for an end to the corona crisis pro-Palestinian encampment, which was set up on the school’s Korman Quad on Saturday evening. Fry said 40 to 60 people are participating in the protest as of Sunday evening.
Fry said the protest, which was initially peaceful, has turned into a safety issue for students and staff. Attempts to occupy “learning and work spaces” led leaders to lock down campus buildings, he said.
The demonstration “has proven intolerably disruptive to normal university activities and has raised serious concerns about the behavior of some participants, including disturbing reports and images of protesters subjecting passers-by to anti-Semitic slurs, gestures and chants,” Fry said in a letter which was shared with the school. community Sunday.
He added that the university is “working with local officials and the Philadelphia Police Department to ensure the safety” of the community and to allow the school to continue operating.
One student said the lockdown was ‘very difficult’.
“There is a Baiada center, a center where companies run by students can have a space there, and I have a space there and I wasn’t allowed to go there this morning because they are locked. I have things I need to do and from there I can I can’t continue. Very annoying,” said second-year Eli Galdieri.
Protesters call for an immediate ceasefire. In a statement, the Drexel Palestine Coalition, which is participating in the protest, said demands include “the divestment of genocide and the redistribution of funds to investments in Palestine, disclosure of material and financial expenditures and profits, defense against repression and censorship and an explicit declaration that we are witnessing a genocide.”
Drexel’s president said the university has opened a line of communication with the protesters in hopes of convincing them to leave.
The university is warning students involved in the protest that they could face disciplinary action and has also warned non-students that they are engaging in unlawful conduct.
As of Sunday afternoon, the protest was peaceful. No arrests have been made.
The encampment at Drexel comes after 19 pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania On Friday, groups attempted to occupy a building on campus.
