Pro-Palestinian demonstrations at colleges across the D.C. region intensified over the weekend and into Monday, including the arrest of dozens of students on Virginia campuses.
Virginia Tech in Blacksburg reported that campus police arrested more than 80 people late Sunday and into the morning. Of those, 53 were current students. The university said in a statement that the demonstration was not compliant with policy on the use of campus facilities.
The university originally reported a larger number of arrests but later updated the totals.
Multiple arrests were made Monday night in connection with a demonstration at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, a school spokesman said. No other details were immediately available.
In a statement posted late Monday on social media that cited public safety officials, Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R) said the VCU encampment is being dismantled and protesters are being dispersed. She said that people who were not part of the student body were among the arrested and that “significant numbers of non-students were in the crowd.”
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End of carouselOn Saturday, 12 people, including nine students, were arrested in connection with a protest at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, according to the university.
Virginia Tech, Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Mary Washington are all public universities.
Meanwhile, other demonstrations have taken place across the region. A sit-in was planned at the University of Maryland in College Park. Hundreds of protesters at George Washington University expanded their encampment. And students at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland announced Monday afternoon that they would form an encampment.
The demonstrations join others around the country in recent days as campus officials have faced off with protesters calling for an end to Israel’s war in Gaza. The war began on Oct. 7, when Hamas militants and other fighters killed about 1,200 people and took more than 200 hostages. Israel’s subsequent military operation to eradicate Hamas has killed tens of thousands of people in the Gaza Strip, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Students and faculty have demonstrated in support of Palestinian rights and have demanded their schools disclose or cease investment in companies doing business with Israel, among other topics. The protests have ranged from peaceful sit-ins to confrontations with police or counterprotesters. Over the past two weeks, more than 1,000 arrests have been made on campuses around the country, according to tracking by The Washington Post. Along with Virginia Tech on Monday, arrests were also made at the University of Georgia, among other campuses.
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At Columbia University, where campus demonstrations first drew national attention earlier this month, student encampment leaders and school officials have failed to reach agreement on ending the protest, school President Minouche Shafik announced Monday. The university ordered student protesters to leave the encampment by 2 p.m. Monday, warning that those who do not would be suspended and would no longer be allowed on campus facilities.
At Virginia Tech on Monday afternoon, pro-Palestinian protesters remained camped out in front of the school’s Graduate Life Center, where the protest began on Friday morning.
“They can arrest as many students as they want to,” said Molleigh Judd, a senior at Virginia Tech. “We’re not going to stop speaking up until they divest, until they actually meet our demands, until they actually start caring.”
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Bikrum Gill, an assistant professor in Virginia Tech’s political science department, was one of several faculty members who participated in the demonstration to “stand with their students” and were arrested alongside them on Sunday night. “Students and faculty are deeply disappointed and refuse to go along with the complicity of our university,” Gill said.
By Monday afternoon, there was no police presence. Those who observed the demonstration on Sunday said that before the arrests, the mood was peaceful with people dancing and sharing food and water.
“I think that it is our constitutional right to be able to protest,” junior Asha Cooper said. “I understand the logistics of the policy, but then where are we supposed to go to protest?”
In a statement, Virginia Tech President Tim Sands said he has met with various groups of students groups and tried to engage in discussion with protesters since Oct. 7. He said Virginia Tech values free speech, but it cannot “interfere with the rights of others, violate our policies, the Code of Virginia, or federal laws and/or create a threat to safety for others.”
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“While I am grateful the incident was resolved peacefully by Virginia Tech Police, I was saddened by the way our officers were treated. I am also deeply disappointed to see members of our community choose uncivil and unlawful behavior over purposeful engagement in difficult conversations and robust debate that should be part of the Virginia Tech experience,” Sands said.
On Monday, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) said in a statement that he applauded the actions of law enforcement and school leadership “for removing disruptive and unauthorized encampments and individuals on Virginia’s public university campuses. The student and non-student participants were given multiple opportunities to leave after being notified they were out of compliance with college policies and would not disperse.”
George Washington University in Washington said Monday that about 200 protesters from an encampment near the school’s property “breached and dismantled the barriers used to secure” University Yard, a central gathering space on campus less than a mile west of the White House.
The protesters — who the school said included “professional organizers, activists, and university students” — joined an encampment on the Yard, which was first set up on Thursday, the school said.
“This is an egregious violation of community trust and goes far beyond the boundaries of free expression and the right to protest,” the school said in a statement, adding that it would “use every avenue available to ensure those involved are held accountable for their actions.”
GW clarified that reports of an attempted arrest tied to the protest were “false” and said “a GW student jumped over the barricade to University Yard and was being escorted out” by campus police “when the breach occurred.”
Emily Hemphill contributed to this report from Blacksburg, Va. She is a reporter at the Daily Progress.
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