Students at the University of Connecticut aren’t backing down from their demands as the Israel-Hamas war continues. Protestors say they made sure there was no one outside the university disrupting their message.
Calls for divestment continued at UConn Thursday. A student group says the university still needs to divest from companies connected to Israel and the wider military in response to civilian deaths in Gaza.
The camp on the Storrs campus was dismantled with arrests Tuesday morning, but frustration and anger remain over the police response.
“We were peacefully protesting, and they did tell us multiple times that us being was okay,” an unnamed UConn student with family in Gaza said.
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He says the camp was inclusive and peaceful.
“Everyone is there for one reason. We have Jewish people. We have Muslim people. We have Christian people. We have people from all religions and ethnicities all for this one cause,” he said.
The student said hateful speech was not tolerated.
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“We made sure that there was not hateful rhetoric towards anybody. No Islamophobia. No antisemitism,” he said.
Justin Theodra, a UConn teaching assistant, says steps were taken to ensure there were only UConn and local community members vouched for by students in the camp.
“There were massive steps taken to ensure that outside agitators did not plan or participate in this encampment,” he said.
That’s in contrast to protests at UCLA and Columbia, where police say a number of people taken into custody were not affiliated with the university. But back here at UConn, the school says most of the 25 arrests on Tuesday were current students.
Theodra says vetting at the camp allowed them to remain peaceful.
“The primary impetus was given by undergraduate student organizers and there were no outside agitators involved,” he said.
We did reach out to UConn Hillel for comment on the current protests. We got an automatic reply saying their priority is on the wellbeing of UConn Jewish students and would have a delay in responding.
