The dispute was renewed yesterday, Tuesday, over an attack that occurred last April on pro-Palestine student activists who were holding a protest camp at the University of California, Los Angeles, after academics organized a strike on campus to protest the university’s response to the violence.
Unionized academic researchers, graduate teaching assistants and postdoctoral scholars at UCLA have gone on strike over what they see as biased practices in the university’s handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations over the past few weeks, organizers said.
Joined by fellow academics at two California campuses, the strikers are demanding amnesty for graduate students and academics who were arrested or subjected to disciplinary measures for participating in demonstrations in support of Palestine.
Union leaders also confirmed that the demonstrations were peaceful, while anti-movement demonstrators and instigators were allowed to work to stir up unrest and were not attacked.
The growing wave of strikes represents the first protest supported by unions in solidarity with a series of student-led demonstrations at dozens of American universities to protest the Israeli aggression on Gaza.
Student protests continue to cast a shadow over American universities despite the end of the academic year. During the graduation ceremony of students from Princeton University in New Jersey, students raised banners supporting the Palestinian cause and denouncing the ongoing Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.
The students – who hold master’s and doctoral degrees – called for an end to the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, denounced the Israeli military operation in the city of Rafah, and demanded an end to providing American weapons to Israel.