Detroit college suspends classroom instruction due to pro-Palestinian camp

DETROIT – Wayne State University in Detroit suspended in-person classes on Tuesday and asked employees to work from home to avoid potential problems with a pro-Palestinian camp that sprung up last week.

“All on-campus events are canceled until further notice. Critical infrastructure workers are expected to report to campus,” the school said in a statement around 5:30 a.m.

Matt Lockwood, spokesman for Wayne State, said there were “public safety concerns,” particularly regarding access to certain areas.

On Tuesday, two dozen tents were set up on a grassy area near the student library. Participants crowded in as police and private security guards watched nearby. Two portable toilets were full and unusable.

Democrat Rashida Tlaib (US Representative from Michigan) was on hand to offer her support.

“We have asked the organizers several times to clear the camp, but they have refused to do so,” Lockwood said.

Wayne State has 16,000 students, although the number is fewer during the summer semester.

Protest camps have sprung up in the US and Europe, with students demanding that their universities stop doing business with Israel or with companies that support the war in Gaza. Organizers want to amplify calls for an end to Israel’s war against Hamas, which they describe as genocide against the Palestinians.

In California, about 100 pro-Palestinian protesters blocked the entrances to the campus of the University of California, Santa Cruz, on Tuesday and prevented traffic for several hours.

The action came as student assistants continued a strike that began last week over the university system’s handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrators during weeks of campus protests this month.

The student workers say the university has violated students’ right to free speech and are demanding amnesty for anyone facing disciplinary action for protesting. Striking staff and others were among the protesters who blocked access to campus on Tuesday.

Protesters said Tuesday’s blockade was intended to draw attention to an Israeli attack in the southern Gaza city of Rafa that local authorities said killed at least 45 people.

Late in the afternoon, Wayne State in Detroit said students had declined a meeting with President Kimberly Andrews Espy and two other officials on Tuesday, the second offer this week.

A video Monday showed Vice President Patrick Lindsey demanding the dissolution of the camp in exchange for a meeting, with one protester calling the offer a “joke.”

Lindsey said Wayne State’s investment policy would be publicly discussed at a meeting of the university’s board of trustees on June 26.

The University of Michigan disbanded a similar camp on May 21 after 30 days.

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Associated Press journalist Martha Mendoza in Santa Cruz, California, contributed.