Saturday, the area outside the University chapel was invaded by police who were tasked with clearing the encampment for Gaza which was deemed to be an “unlawful assembly.” There were many heavily armed police officers. There was pepper spray which was wielded against demonstrators. There were riot police who marched in tandem, first against people within the Gaza encampment and then against a crowd of onlookers. It was a chaotic and deeply disturbing scene. But this violent chaos was not inevitable, nor was it started by student protesters. Rather, it arose as a direct result of University and police action.
Across the nation, at universities such as Columbia and UCLA, scenes of police brutality against non-violent demonstrators have sparked outrage. But while many have expressed dismay, some have also sought to co-opt these scenes as a way to further a systematic campaign against institutions of higher education, academic freedom and what some conservatives perceive to be a woke culture of indoctrination. Not only does such co-optation sensationalize peaceful protests, it also problematically lays the blame for escalation at the feet of demonstrators. Such narratives, which are now being applied to universities across Virginia, are patently misleading and seek to depict college campuses as hotbeds of chaos and anarchy. We, as University students, cannot let external forces co-opt the story of Saturday for their own political agendas.
Tuesday, a peaceful encampment entitled “Liberated Zone 4 Gaza'' was established near the University Chapel by a hodge-podge collection of University students, faculty and Charlottesville community members. They were told by University representatives from Student Affairs and the University Police Department that they could remain in this space provided that no tents were erected and no megaphones were employed, an order which the encampment complied with for multiple days. Three nights later, in preparation for impending rain, tents were erected and a megaphone was employed at a nighttime vigil for the more than 34,000 Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza. The University, understanding the weather conditions, permitted these actions until Saturday morning.
However, Saturday morning, the University Police Department issued a series of final warnings to the 25 or so people in the encampment — telling them that their tents and megaphones violated University policies and that, unless removed, the demonstration would constitute an “unlawful assembly.” This warning was ignored, and the scene which ensued was exceptionally chaotic and violent, a brutal reminder of police power and its ability to escalate even the smallest and most peaceful of protests.
Before the arrival of such a large police presence Saturday, the encampment itself was minimally disruptive. At its peak Wednesday, there were perhaps 100 demonstrators present at the encampment, with more pro-Palestinian protestors gathering on the Lawn for a separate May Day protest. And by Saturday morning, this number had dwindled to approximately 25 demonstrators. This group was comprised of students, faculty and community members who were chanting, singing and holding space for the thousands of individuals who have been killed in Gaza.
It was the police presence which undeniably escalated the situation. For example, it was only once the encampment was encircled by local police that students from the onlooking crowd began to run towards the encampment. And it was only once the encampment had been violently cleared with pepper spray and arrests that a large and vocal demonstration formed in front of the police line. In short, the chaos seen in the videos on social media was not something which initiated police presence. Rather, the chaos emerged as a direct response to a disproportionately violent reaction to a peaceful encampment.
To be sure, the encampment crossed the red line that the University had drawn. While we can and should quibble with the oddly specific and arbitrary nature of this red line, what is more disappointing is that the University had weeks to learn from failed responses elsewhere and was still unable to come up with a solution that was proportional to the reality before them. After Columbia, after UCLA and so many other campuses, is the violent dispersal of peaceful demonstrators really the best that any university can aspire to?
In fact, violent dispersal is just the tip of the metaphoric iceberg. Police also detained at least 25 demonstrators, some of whom have been charged with trespassing. For charged students, this means that they cannot step foot on Grounds — neither to return to their housing nor to take their finals — until the charges have been litigated. Not only do these charges represent an abuse of state power, they also highlight the fundamentally flawed nature of the University’s attempts to ensure the “physical safety of our community.” The demonstrators posed no plausible threat to anyone on Grounds, and yet, the University seems to be committed to supporting the prosecution of students for the onslaught of violence that police initiated.
At this university, the story of our encampment begins with a peaceful group that violated arbitrary University guidelines and ends with a violent police response that transformed a stable situation into sheer chaos. This is a story similar to other universities, one the media simplifies over and over again until there seems to be a presumed narrative arc from point A to point B — from student protests to campus unrest. This is not an accurate or constructive narrative arc because it neglects the true nature of many protests in favor of sensationalizing them. As students who lived a complicated version of this narrative, we all have the power to reframe it and to tell a more accurate version that holds the University and the Commonwealth accountable for the violence that unfolded on Grounds over the weekend.
Saturday, the state, not students nor protesters, brought violence to this campus. Therefore, in keeping with the imperative for a more accurate narrative of Saturday’s events, we join other students in demanding that all charges brought against detained student demonstrators be dropped.
Nathan Onibudo is the Editor-in-Chief of The Cavalier Daily, and Naima Sawaya is the Executive Editor. They can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.
The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of The Cavalier Daily. Columns represent the views of the authors alone.
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