HANOVER, N.H. (WCAX) – The Dartmouth College campus Thursday continued to reel from the arrest of around 90 students Wednesday night taking part in a pro-Palestinian encampment on the college green.
Dozens of faculty members at Dartmouth walked out of their classrooms Thursday afternoon with a unified voice- saying the college went too far.
“I was shocked and horrified. I really didn’t expect it,” said Ainsley Morse, a professor of East European, Eurasian, and Russian Studies.
Hanover Police arrested around 90 people Wednesday night after they refused to remove tents on the green. The arrests included both students and non-students. At least one of those arrested was a faculty member.
Those who gathered on Thursday called out the Ivy League school’s decisive action to bring in police. Faculty are petitioning for an emergency meeting with the administration, to among other things, demand all charges be dropped.
“I am extremely disappointed, however, I am aware that the current administration at Dartmouth has been responding in this egregious way to peaceful protest since last fall when they arrested two students,” Morse said.
“It’s absolutely uncalled for. I mean, the level of brutality shown by police last night. We saw dozens of riot cops,” said Calvin George, a Dartmouth senior who was at the protests but was not taken into custody.
Dartmouth President Sian Beilock in a statement Thursday morning addressed the arrests, saying that while the college welcomes nonviolent protests, there are clear guidelines that limit what the college will allow. “They prohibit encampments or the occupation of buildings that interfere with the academic mission or increase safety risks to members of our community,” she said. “When policies like these have been ignored on other campuses, hate and violence have thrived—events, like commencement, are canceled, instruction is forced to go remote, and, worst of all, abhorrent antisemitism and Islamophobia reign.”
Dartmouth has seen more than 15 protests over the last several months about the ongoing war in Gaza. Students say that despite the recent arrests, the protests will continue. “Definitely, there are rules on campus but oftentimes the way in which those rules are applied and enforced is completely unjust and unfair,” George said.
“We have very clear examples of other similar institutions that are responding to peaceful student protests in a peaceful way,” Morse said.
Among those arrested Wednesday night were two journalists with the college’s student-run newspaper. All of those arrested are scheduled to appear in court later this summer.