World News
The pro-Palestinian camp on Denver’s Auraria Campus empties 23 days later
The anti-war encampment at Denver’s Auraria Campus is now empty after pro-Palestinian protests first began 23 days ago.
The removal of the encampment by protesters began around 8 p.m. Friday and most of it was gone by Saturday morning, Auraria spokesperson Devra Ashby said. “The encampment was dispersed in a relatively peaceful manner, apart from the blocking of Speer and Auraria last night,” she added.
The Auraria Campus announced the dispersal of the Tivoli Quad camp on Saturday around 1 p.m., citing that the cleanup will begin today. However, access to campus buildings remains limited to “critical personnel and operations,” with Tivoli Quad and other green spaces also closed for repairs, according to a statement from the campus.
“Leaders have worked hard to find a peaceful solution,” the statement said. “We hope this will put an end to more than three weeks of unauthorized occupation that has increasingly escalated into dangerous activities, which has taken significant time, resources and dialogue with student protesters to resolve, and has pulled us away from our academic mission and objectives.”
Protesters first pitched their tents on April 25, aiming to pressure the University of Colorado system to cut ties with Israel, including by divesting companies in the Middle East and to discontinue study programs abroad.
Ashby did not immediately respond to a question about whether university officials agreed to any of these demands.
On Friday, the University of Colorado Denver told students that classes would take place online “until further notice” because of the encampment, and that events at the Auraria Campus were canceled through next week.
Similar protests continue to take place on college campuses nationwide. The latest related developments include a University of Chicago campus building occupied on Friday, the arrest of 19 demonstrators who attempted a University of Pennsylvania building on Friday and reached an agreement between protesters and Sonoma State University Administration Tuesday in California.
This is a developing story and may be updated.
