Harvard ratchets up pressure on the last pro-Palestinian campus encampment in Greater Boston

Now that police dismantled the encampment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the immediate Boston area's last pro-Palestinian camp sits in Harvard Yard. How long it will last remains to be seen, as the school's administration turns up the pressure on the ensconced students to leave.

Administrators say the encamped students rejected a request to put an end to an encampment at the college on Friday. A Harvard spokesperson said interim President Alan Garber's interaction with students was a conversation and "not a negotiation of protesters' demands."

Overnight the group "Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine" said Garber rejected a counterproposal to end the protest and continue future negotiations.

On Friday morning, one of the protest groups, Harvxrd Palestine Solidarity Committee, posted on social media that suspension notices have been sent out to some students. The university also said in a statement, "disciplinary procedures and administrative referrals for placing protesters on involuntary leave continue to move forward.”

Garber has said students who remain in the encampments face suspension and would not be able to finish their exams or remain in Harvard housing.

MIT and Cambridge police cleared out the remaining encampment on the institute's Kresge Quad in the wee hours of Friday morning. By the time the police came through, there were around 10 protesters remaining among the tents, signs, clothing and cookery on the green.

Police were also called to clear out encampments at Northeastern University, Emerson College and UMass Amherst. In those cases, university administrators cited safety concerns, threats and harassment coming from the camps, though none have provided any detail of those reported acts of belligerence.

Student protesters voluntarily ended an encampment at Tufts.

All told, more than 300 students have been arrested in Massachusetts in connection to the encampments, leading to criticism that the police and schools were violating the free speech rights of nonviolent protesters. Novelist Colson Whitehead withdrew as UMass Amherst's commencement speaker following this week's raid and arrests at that school.

"I'm a believer that at this very tenuous and challenging moment, we have to be about listening to one another," U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern told New England Public Media. "We have to be about letting people in rather than shutting people out. But it also means that you don't arrest peaceful protesters."

Others have defended the school's actions and administrators, including UMass board member Marty Meehan, Gov. Maura Healey and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu.

"I know that world events, global events are incredibly painful and emotional for our community," Wu said. "We cannot let that destabilize the safety and well-being of our residents here in Boston."

This is a developing story.