Photo: Courtesy of a Harvard Student
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — The last Pro-Palestinian encampment in the Boston area is no more.
The encampment set up by Harvard students in Harvard Yard nearly four weeks ago has been shut down and cleared out after an apparent deal between the protestors and the school. This comes shortly after Harvard Police officers entered the encampment and took pictures of students.
In a statement, the group behind the encampment, known as Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine, said the encampment was just a step in a larger plan for divestment.
"Here at Harvard, we believe the utility of this tactic has passed," the statement reads. "We have decided to re-group and carry out this protracted struggle through other means."
HOOP said in a statement the administration will retract any suspensions handed down to students now that the encampment is over. The school will also hold disclosure and divestment meetings with members of the group, along with conversations about creating a Center for Palestine Studies at Harvard.
A Harvard spokesperson said in a statement, "As President Garber said in his community message, both the disciplinary and the involuntary leave processes are the responsibility of Harvard’s schools. President Garber will ask the schools to adjudicate disciplinary matters promptly under existing practices and precedents. He will similarly ask the Schools to process reinstatement requests expeditiously in light of the changed circumstances that have abated the risk to the academic environment."
Involuntary leave notices had previously been delivered to students due to the encampment disrupting "the educational environment," and this caused students to be ineligible to remain in Harvard housing or be present on campus until they were reinstated.
One of the main focuses of not just the Harvard encampment, but the majority of student demonstrations seen around the world, was to call for schools to disclose and divest their investments in Israel and Israeli companies. HOOP said, however, they do not view these meetings as win and instead call them "side deals" meant to "pacify us away from full disclosure and divestment."
Read More: Police Clear Pro-Palestinian Encampment On MIT Campus Friday Morning
Harvard was just one of several schools in the Greater Boston Area to set up Pro-Palestinian encampment, but one of only two that without police involvement. Demonstrators at Tufts shut down their encampment on their own, but over 200 students were arrested when police cleared out encampments at Emerson, Northeastern, and MIT.
WBZ NewsRadio's James Rojas (@JamesRojasMMJ) reports.
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