University Of Minnesota Reaches Initial Agreement With Pro-Palestine Demonstrators
The University of Minnesota reached an initial agreement with pro-Palestine protesters late Wednesday to end their encampment on campus.
Hundreds of students at colleges nationwide, from Columbia University in New York to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), to Northwestern University in Illinois and Brown University in Rhode Island, held demonstrations in recent weeks to demand that their universities divest from companies that are in business with Israel, and publicly called for a cease-fire.
Students at the University of Minnesota joined the national mobilization and set up an encampment that lasted 10 days to protest Israel’s ongoing attacks in Gaza, which has killed over 34,000 people, displaced most of the population and caused famine. Israel’s offensive began after a surprise attack on Oct. 7 from the militant group Hamas, which killed 1,200 people and took hundreds hostage.
Eight students and one faculty member were arrested at the encampment Tuesday, but the university agreed to not pursue disciplinary action and urged campus police not to charge anyone involved in the demonstrations over the past week with criminal offense, CBS News reported.
On Thursday morning, interim President Jeff Ettinger sent an email to students and faculty outlining the agreement that was reached the night before at a meeting with members of the UMN Divest Coalition to discuss their demands.
“We regret that this meeting did not happen sooner, and have committed to regular meetings moving forward to continue to discuss this coalition’s concerns,” Ettinger said in the email.
The agreement states that the college will disclose its holdings with public companies on May 7, but that “other investments are protected by non-disclosure agreements or other legal constraints.” Coalition representatives have also been invited to address their divestment demands with the Board of Regents at a meeting on May 10.
In return, students agreed to disband the encampments and tents that they had set up on campus, and to not disrupt finals or the university’s commencement ceremony later this month.
Beyond divestments and transparency on Israel ties, University of Minnesota’s student protesters had a total of six demands, including amnesty for arrested students, an academic divestment from Israeli universities, and a statement of support for Palestinian students and their right to self-determination.
“While we take these concessions as a win for the movement as a whole, we know that the fight for divestment is not over and are committed to continue fighting for divestment from apartheid Israel until it is won and Palestine is free. When we fight, we win!” the UMN Divest Coalition wrote in a social media post on Thursday.
The University of Minnesota joins at least two other colleges that have reached agreements with pro-Palestine student protesters. Many other colleges have either refused or ignored student protesters’ demands.
The protests have escalated with police intervention at certain schools, leading to graphic scenes of unrest and violence. On Tuesday, New York Police Department officers arrived at Columbia University wearing riot gear to sweep through student encampments and remove protesters from an academic building they had occupied, resulting in hundreds of arrests. Similar events occurred this week at UCLA and CUNY College.
