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Students at Emerson, MIT set up pro-Palestinian encampments

Emerson College students occupy 2B Alley, in support of Palestine.Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff

Students at Emerson College established an encampment off Boylston Street on Sunday night, in what two students and a faculty member described as an act of solidarity with pro-Palestinian protesters arrested at Columbia University last week, while a similar camp arose at MIT.

An estimated 100 demonstrators at Emerson called for college officials to support a ceasefire in Gaza and to divest from companies and institutions that support Israel, according to Anna Feder, a member of the group Emerson Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine and the college’s head of film exhibitions and festival programs.

Emerson students Owen Buxton, 22, and Dylan Young, 21, said they helped organize the demonstration and that seven tents had been set up as of about 10:30 p.m. in the Boylston Place alley across from Boston Common.

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“We are going to stay here and occupy this alley until our demands are met,” Buxton said.

An Emerson spokesperson said that “students from the nonaffiliated student organization Students for Justice in Palestine began protesting in the Boylston Place alley” Sunday evening.

“Emerson officials are on site and are working with the Boston Police Department to closely monitor the situation, ensure safe passage through the alley, maintain campus operations, and support all members of the Emerson community,” the spokesperson, Michelle Gaseau, said in an email.

Boston police were called to the area around 7:15 p.m. Sunday and were monitoring the protest, according to Sergeant Detective John Boyle, the chief spokesperson for the Boston Police Department. No arrests were reported as of late Sunday.

Young and Buxton said they brought a projector and planned to show educational films about the Palestinian people.

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“We’re doing what we need to to keep our people safe and to continue to hold down this territory that we hope to continue to be liberated for as long as possible,” Young said. “We’re keeping things pretty peaceful, de-escalatory.”

Feder said Emerson was one of several other universities in the Boston area that were setting up encampments this weekend.

Francesca Riccio-Ackerman, a doctoral student at MIT, posted a statement on social media Sunday night that said students and workers there had established an encampment on Kresge Lawn. The statement, which was attributed to six pro-Palestinian organizations, said MIT has held “an explicit role in providing scientific and technological support” for Israel’s military forces.

Since Hamas’s Oct. 7 raid on Israel, which killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and included the capture of about 250 hostages, Israeli forces have bombarded Gaza, where the death toll climbed to more than 34,000 over the weekend, at least two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Inquiries sent to MIT and other area universities were not immediately answered.

The MIT Israel Alliance issued a statement Sunday calling for MIT administrators to clear the encampment on Kresge Lawn, enhance campus security, discipline students involved in the encampment, and offer remote learning options to students who fear for their safety because of the “anti-Jewish tent encampment that has been set up on campus.”

“This development has caused significant fear among the Jewish student community, especially given the recent incidents of violence and terror support at similar encampments at Yale and Columbia University this weekend,” said the statement, which was attributed to Talia Khan and Eitan Moore, graduate student president and undergraduate president of the MIT Israel Alliance.

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“As Passover begins [Monday], many Jewish students had planned to visit the Hillel building, which is adjacent to the anti-Israel encampment, to celebrate the holiday,” the statement said. “However, due to the proximity of the encampment, many students now fear for their safety and have already fled their dorms to stay with relatives or friends off-campus.”

The protest at Emerson comes after 13 people, including a dozen Emerson students, were arrested in March during a pro-Palestinian demonstration outside college President Jay Bernhardt’s inauguration ceremony.

Buxton said he was one of the students arrested in March. He and the 11 other students met with Bernhardt on Tuesday, he said, and repeated their calls for the university’s support of a ceasefire and divestment from what he described as “Zionist investments.” The college on Sunday did not answer questions relating to Bernhardt’s meeting with the students.

Buxton said they are also calling for Emerson officials to condemn Columbia University’s handling of the encampment and protests there, where more than 100 demonstrators were arrested Thursday. Most of them were charged with trespassing at the Ivy League institution.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.


Nick Stoico can be reached at nick.stoico@globe.com.

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