Police clash with protesters at MIT, a day after student suspensions

For more than two weeks, pro-Palestinian protesters at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology managed to avoid clashes with police seen on campuses in Boston and across the country. That ended Thursday afternoon, when dozens of officers confronted students blocking a campus building and arrested several, handcuffing them and hauled them out of the crowd.

Protesters had started the day quietly, near their encampment on the Kresge Lawn. A midday rally raised the volume, and students marched, chanting and carrying signs and large Palestinian flags, to MIT's Stata Center.

That's where campus police and Cambridge police moved in. Officers blocked off Vassar Street in Cambridge and lined up to keep protesters from blocking the building. By 3 p.m., there were about 60 officers on the scene, including state police, in a tense standoff with shouting protesters.

The confrontation came a day after MIT began issuing "dozens" of suspensions to students who've taken part in the encampment. MIT says "fewer than 10" people were arrested; they will be booked by Cambridge Police.

Daniel Shen, an MIT graduate student at the protest Thursday, said he is among those who've received suspension notices. He said the group was protesting at the Stata Center because it houses departments that do research collaborations with the Israeli military.

"We felt it necessary to come to this building and demonstrate to the MIT administration that we know where this research is happening and we want it to stop," Shen said.

"This is a time with universities around the country, and MIT included, really clamping down on students speaking — being a moral voice," Shen said. "We need to keep showing up for the movement, demand that these institutions reverse their arbitrary and unjust suspensions for peaceful protest — and entirely disproportionate response."

Mixed in with outcry against the war in Gaza and the university's ties to Israel, students also shouted chants against the police.

Isa Liggins, a third-year student studying computer science and electrical engineering, said he feels it's important for students to be able to put the ideals of fighting for justice into practice.

"When you have people willing to speak out for something good in a peaceful manner, that means at least don't repeat history and start repressing or attacking them," he said.

An MIT staff member said he was there to show support and solidarity with the students who’ve been suspended, and who, as a result, have had to leave their housing and lost access to meals on campus.

"I think it’s important for staff, faculty, grad students, undergrads, as well as community members … to be there to witness what happens," said the staff member, Tony. WBUR is using only his first name because he said he fears he could be fired for attending the protests.

An MIT spokeswoman declined to comment Thursday, referring reporters to the school's emergency management website.

At the height of the standoff, officers required reporters to move away from the immediate area, to a spot cordoned off by police tape. An Israeli student who'd stayed out of the fray, Yuval Jacobi, said he was glad MIT was acting against the protesters.

"They took up one of the main lawns in our campus for the past two weeks, shunning away our people from there," he said. "I’m brave and loud and I’ll be there in their face. But it’s plenty others, quiet students, that won’t talk to you, that are shunned away from there, because they are Israelis, because they are Jews, and because they are Zionists."

By about 4 p.m., police herded protesters away from the area, and many returned to the encampment.

On Wednesday, police arrested more than 130 protesters on the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus. In recent weeks, police have arrested more than 200 protesters at Northeastern University and Emerson College in Boston.

Students have been protesting the war at colleges across the country. In some cases, commencement ceremonies have been cancelled or scaled back, and some graduation speakers have cancelled their appearances.

Novelist Colson Whitehead announced Thursday that he would not appear as UMass Amherst's commencement speaker due to its treatment of protestors.

"Calling the cops on peaceful protesters is a shameful act," he said on social media.

This story has been updated to reflect the end of the protest and comments from people there.