An encampment of student, faculty, and community protesters at SUNY New Paltz’s Parker Quad was up for about two days before State Police arrived Thursday night with batons, dogs, and a helicopter to break it up. More than 130 people were arrested, including Theo Ertz, a STEM student from Sullivan County.
"It was incredibly difficult, upsetting, and traumatizing to watch the people who I had — just a few hours earlier — had a meal with, hugged, painted signs with, read books with, just being absolutely brutalized," they note.
Ertz says the protesters were calling on SUNY New Paltz to completely divest from companies tied to Israel — specifically the technology company Siemens — in response to the country’s continued bombing in Gaza. When police arrived, much of the group decided to sit down and lock arms, but Ertz volunteered to walk around the quad and bring any protesters who might become injured to the group’s self-appointed “EMTs.” If anyone was injured, though, they didn’t receive a hand from Ertz — Ertz was arrested early on.
"I was just praying that everyone would be OK by the end of this," they add.
Ertz says they were charged with trespassing.
In the run-up to the arrests, SUNY New Paltz said the use of overnight tents on campus without authorization is a violation of the Student Handbook, and that administrators repeatedly tried to de-escalate the situation by speaking with protesters. In a statement Friday, President Darrell Wheeler called the decision to bring in law enforcement “among the most difficult I have had to make at any point in my career.”
Evan Holland-Shepler, Democratic chairman for the village of New Paltz, was also arrested Thursday.
"What did this accomplish?" he asks. "I guarantee you [students] are going to feel less faith in their university. To me, it expended so much time, so many resources, and traumatized so many young people in a formative time for nothing."
Since October, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s bombing, according to Gaza health officials. Israel says the offense is necessary to root out Hamas terrorists, who killed more than 1,200 Israeli citizens on October 7, but Pro-Palestine demonstrators in the U.S. have equated the bombing to genocide. Encampments in solidarity with Gaza have sprung up at colleges across the country in recent weeks, demanding that administrators effectively join the “boycott, divestment, and sanctions” movement by disclosing and cutting financial ties with Israel. Last week, dozens of protesters at Columbia University were arrested after a group took over the campus’ Hamilton Hall.
As police broke up the encampment in New Paltz, officers also responded to a similar protest at Purchase College in Westchester County. There, about 70 students and faculty were arrested just hours after starting an encampment. Another attempt at an encampment was broken down Sunday morning, with the college announcing the creation of a “protest zone” on campus for students to use between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. Purchase has cited the campus’ quiet hours as a reason to take down the encampments.
In a statement to WAMC, Purchase President Milagros Peña says, "We will be having what I hope will be the first of multiple productive meetings with student and faculty representatives, shared governance leaders, and administrators to discuss the concerns of the protestors. I look forward to having the chance to finding common ground and moving forward as a campus community."
Numerous officials, including New York Governor Kathy Hochul, have voiced support for efforts to clear encampments, saying they are restricting campus functions and infringing on the rights of other students. Last week, Alison Esposito, a Republican candidate in New York’s 18th Congressional District, called for an encampment at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie to come down.
“While we embrace peaceful protests, we cannot allow rules to be broken or crimes to be committed," she said in a video posted from outside the Vassar entrance. "No violence against Jews, no violence against the students, no stopping of graduation ceremonies, none of that should be allowed to happen."
On Saturday, student protesters at Vassar announced that they were taking down their encampment after reaching an agreement with college President Elizabeth Bradley and other administrators. In a statement on Instagram, the group says it does not view the agreement as a victory, but as “the most strategic decision we can make in order to further our efforts for divestment and Palestinian liberation.”
According to a copy of the agreement posted online, the private college plans to “create more transparency” around its independent contractors, including potentially publishing a list of its major contractors online. Furthermore, Vassar has agreed to allow four students to meet with its Executive Committee and present a proposal for divestment from some military-focused contractors, with an eventual vote by the Trustee Investor Responsibility Committee and the Board of Trustees either later this month or in October.
In a statement Monday, Vassar College confirmed students had taken down their tents after a “thoughtful discussion,” adding quote: “Students are now focusing on ending the year, including final exams and papers, senior theses and projects, and welcoming seniors’ family members for commencement. Any occurrences of discriminatory harassment will be addressed according to the college's policies. Vassar has a long history of protest. Ultimately, we all learn and gain a deeper understanding of varied perspectives."
Back at SUNY New Paltz, Ertz says the past week’s events have shattered their sense of community on campus. They say they will be back next year — that they can’t afford to transfer — but getting arrested has put a damper on their college experience.
“I’ve talked to a few of my other classmates, who just say that they can feel it in the air that something terrible has happened here," says Ertz. "And I don’t think it’ll ever be the same.”
By way of disclosure, Vassar College is home to WAMC’s Hudson Valley News bureau.
