Web Analytics

Dozens of Brown University Students Arrested After Protest

Officers arrested 41 students at Brown University during a protest Monday night, the second in recent weeks that called on the school’s leadership to commit to a list of demands related to the Israel-Hamas war.

The students once again staged a sit-in at one of Brown’s main campus buildings, University Hall, and “refused to leave” after operating hours, even after school officials issued “multiple trespassing warnings,” according to Brown spokesman Brian Clark.

At 6 p.m., the students were arrested by Brown’s Department of Public Safety on the charge of “willful trespass within school buildings.”

“Given that this is the second prominent incident in recent weeks of students trespassing in a secure, non-residential building after operating hours, the university fully expects to recommend more significant criminal misdemeanor charges for any future incidents after the Dec. 11 sit-in,” Clark told the Globe in a statement Monday night.

“Students continue to have the ability to hold protests and demonstrations, provided they abide by the University’s codes of conduct,” he added.

The sit-in was organized by the Brown Divest Coalition, which has repeatedly called on the university to divest “from companies that facilitate the genocide in Gaza.”

On Nov. 8, about 20 Brown University students were arrested after staging a sit-in at University Hall and refusing to leave when the building closed to the public at the end of the business day. The students, who said they were Jewish and part of newly formed campus group, BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now, demanded that Paxson call for a ceasefire in Gaza and divest the university’s endowment of weapons manufacturers that was engaged in “Israeli military occupation.”

The students were expected to be arraigned in late November, but the university dropped its charges after a Brown University student, Hisham Awartani, and two of his childhood friends were shot near the University of Vermont campus in Burlington, Vermont. All three students are of Palestinian descent.

It is unclear whether protesters on Monday were part of the November sit-in.