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The arrests came as pro-Palestinian student encampments are being set up on multiple university campuses nationwide. Various pro-Palestinian Princeton groups shared footage to social media.
Fewer than 100 people gathered on Princeton's campus, and a small number began erecting about a half-dozen tents, which is a violation of University policy, said Jennifer Morrill, media relations director at Princeton.
After repeated warnings from the Department of Public Safety to cease the activity and leave the area, two Princeton graduate students were arrested for trespassing, Morrill said. All tents were then voluntarily taken down by protestors, she said.
More than 100 people were arrested at Emerson College early Thursday where Boston police moved to clear a pro-Palestinian encampment. Protestors demanded the university divest from Israel and that Israel end its campaign on Gaza.
The two Princeton graduate students have been immediately barred from campus, pending a disciplinary process, Morrill said.
Their names had not been released.
In a Thursday editorial in The Princetonian, Princeton President Christopher L. Eisgruber said the Ivy League school’s policy “may reasonably regulate the time, place, and manner of expression to ensure that it does not disrupt the ordinary activities of the University."
Eisgruber said encampments are prone to confrontation: “Columbia University moved classes online because of concerns about the safety of its students,” he wrote.
Princeton Vice President of Campus Life Rochelle Calhoun sent a message Wednesday, April 24 warning students they could be arrested and expelled if they are involved in an encampment.
“Any individual involved in an encampment, occupation, or other unlawful disruptive conduct who refuses to stop after a warning will be arrested and immediately barred from campus,” Calhoun wrote. “For students, such exclusion from campus would jeopardize their ability to complete the semester.”
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