Princeton University in talks with pro-Palestinian student protesters to leave campus green

Pro-Palestinian student protesters at Princeton were in talks Tuesday with university officials about moving out of a large, central lawn on campus called Cannon Green that they have occupied for the past few weeks. A small group met informally with a university official Tuesday morning after an email from university President Christopher Eisgruber on Monday night asked them to clear out.The continued sit-in on campus would be a "significant and impermissible disruption of University activities," Eisgruber said, asserting that protesters are “free to express their views in many other permissible, non-disruptive ways.” He did not specify a timeline.

The university put up a digital billboard Tuesday in front of the green that flashed the message, "This space is closed in prep for events," signaling that protesters needed to move out. Some were packing things up Tuesday afternoon, though several, numbering around 25 to 35, were still sitting or milling on the green.

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Class Day and Baccalaureate, both pre-commencement events for students and families, are scheduled for May 26 and 27 and usually held on Cannon Green.

Protesters were talking to an administrator at around noon in soft voices in a polite conversation. At one point the administrator said he wasn’t trying to say the students needed to clear out immediately, or even on Tuesday. The students asked him if they could talk later in the afternoon.

One student told the administrator that the email from Eisgruber was "vague." The atmosphere was peaceful, with some police in the area.

Princeton’s move to clear them out comes on the heels of an agreement between an encampment and Harvard that resulted in the university's agreeing to meet with student representatives regarding divestment.

Eisgruber met with the pro-Palestinian student organizers earlier this month, breaking a two-week standoff between him and a larger collective of protesters amassed on a lawn a short distance from the campus entrance on Nassau Street.

But the students said that meeting was unproductive, calling it "a scrap of air we refuse to accept" in a press release that criticized the university, Eisgruber and his handling of the protests.

In late April, 13 people were arrested at Princeton as they took over an administration building to pressure school officials to listen to their demands for divestment from companies linked to Israel’s military campaigns.

The protesters entered administrative offices in Clio Hall, put up barricades and called for university officials to meet with them. During their takeover and sit-in, hundreds of students rallied outside the building, chanting “Up, up with liberation, down, down with occupation.”

Princeton’s Public Safety Department and the Princeton Police Department responded and cleared Clio Hall of protesters at about 6 p.m. Protesters then surrounded the bus carrying the arrested students until they were released.

"Eisgruber gave us nothing," the students wrote. They have committed to continuing protests over Israel's military action in Gaza, saying the university "denied" them the right to free expression by "arresting and disciplining our friends."

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Princeton U. in talks with student protesters to leave green