Over 70 SUNY Purchase students, faculty arrested at pro-Palestinian encampment

Students at SUNY Purchase were dazed and frightened Friday morning, hours after police broke up a peaceful demonstration on the campus quad and arrested about 70 students and faculty members, leading them away in handcuffs.

"I saw a kid get body-slammed. He was taken down by about four police officers, and he didn't resist," said John Delorenzo, 20, a political science major who said he watched the whole thing unfold. "A few peers of mine were violently arrested."

Students began setting up a pro-Palestinian encampment at about 5 p.m. Thursday on a grassy quad between several dorms. Police from several departments began gathering near the quad a few hours later, witnesses said. At about 10:15 p.m., with a police helicopter overhead, police began moving in and arresting protestors who refused requests to disperse.

Students had been told they would have to leave when quiet hours began at 10 p.m. At that time, protesters were told to peacefully disperse more than 10 times by officers on the scene but did not move, according to Betsy Aldredge, assistant director of public relations for the college.

"Students were allowed to protest peacefully, which they did for several hours, as long as they followed SUNY’s rules for the maintenance of order and the student code of conduct," Aldredge said in a statement Friday morning.

Purchase College President Milagros Peña, in an email to students Friday morning, said the 10 p.m. deadline for protesters to disperse was "not arbitrary."

"Quiet hours are especially important during the lead up to the end of the semester when students need time to sleep, study, and complete final projects and go to dorm rooms without fear or concern for personal safety. We received numerous complaints that this did not happen last night due to the fire alarms being repeatedly pulled by students in protest."

Later Friday, the college's faculty, in a letter to Peña, condemned the "violent and disproportionate actions" against students and faculty and called on all charges against those arrested to be dropped. The letter, sent to the community by Andrew Solomon, faculty presiding officer, also called for an independent investigation of the incident and the "resignations of those culpable for the infringement of student and faculty civil liberties and rights."

"This represents a catastrophic failure by the administration to uphold the fundamental pillars of justice, academic freedom, and the democratic principles our institution is supposed to embody and impart," the letter said. "Rather than fostering an inclusive environment supporting a range of ideas, the leadership has chosen a path of alienation, vilification, and unjust criminalization of responsible free expression."

A student group organizing the encampment, called Raise the Consciousness, is calling on SUNY Purchase to “divest from companies with ties to the Zionist entity,” boycott Israeli academic institutions, fully acknowledge “the genocide taking place in Gaza," and more.

Professor recounts his arrest

Among those arrested was Shaka McGlotten, a professor of media studies and anthropology. He said Friday that several professors had been watching to make sure students were safe, but that things became chaotic when police moved in.

"Police first asked me to intervene, to ask students to leave, but I didn't feel it was appropriate," McGlotten said. "Quiet hours begin at 10 o'clock, but quiet hours don't stop people from quietly being together."

He said several students got behind the faculty members, who were taking video of the scene. When one faculty member got arrested, "I continued recording and I got arrested." He was charged with trespassing even though, McGlotten noted, "I live and work on campus."

McGlotten, who has taught at SUNY Purchase since 2006, said he could not understand why students were not allowed to assemble and protest peacefully.

"Cracking down will only lead to what the college says they don't want, which is acrimony and a lack of safety," he said.

Aldredge's statement said that about 70 students and faculty members were arrested for trespass violations, "most without incident."

"Protestors were brought to local precincts for processing as the University Police Department couldn’t hold that many individuals," she said. "Students will also be going through the student code of conduct process. As the investigation continues, a few individuals may face additional charges."

Among the students arrested was Sabrina Thompson, media coordinator for Raise the Consciousness, which organized the protest. She ran a livestream of the arrests before she was detained.

She said protesters were asked by University Police to disperse by 10 p.m. but collectively voted to stay.

"We locked arms as a safety precaution, we went silent and just prayed for the best," Thompson said. "We hoped that through our strong show of solidarity and silence, UPD would back down."

She said she encouraged protesters to stay strong despite the forcible removal of students from the quad.

“The arrests were extremely violent,” Thompson said. “So many people were thrown to the ground and on tables. There was absolutely no care for student safety."

She said one female student was sent to the hospital and was "throwing up blood."

Purchase president: College will have commencement

Peña, in her email to students, said the college is "committed to upholding the right to free expression and also the right to safety on campus for all who dwell, work, and learn at Purchase. That tension has been at the forefront of many conversations over the past several months."

Peña said the college plans to move forward with planned activities for the remainder of the semester, including commencement. Other campuses across the country, such as Columbia University and USC, have cancelled their commencement ceremonies due to protests at encampments.

A statement from the State University of New York on Friday said: “Student safety on our campuses is paramount, and SUNY is committed to ensuring that our campuses are safe, inclusive, and enable students to express themselves responsibly.” It said that SUNY Chancellor John King “has made it absolutely clear since the horrific Hamas attack of October 7th that SUNY stands with Israel in the face of terrorism and that there is no place for antisemitism at SUNY.”

State University Police, Westchester County Police and New York State Police were all on the scene, and students said they saw officers from local departments, as well. State University Police deferred comment to the college's public relations department.

Westchester County sent officers from its Department of Public Safety to help campus police after the college requested mutual aid Thursday night, county officials said in a short statement on Friday. County officers provided support by "implementing the decisions made by the College dealing with the protest encampment," the statement read, directing all questions to the college.

SUNY Purchase students describe a surreal night

All was quiet on the SUNY Purchase campus Friday morning, but students walking through the quad looked stunned and exhausted. Several said that alarms rang through the night, making it impossible to sleep. Most said they could not believe the scene they had witnessed.

"It's insane to think it escalated this far on this campus," said Jordan Moore, 21, a senior. "This campus is smaller than the others (where police have arrested protesters)."

Moore said that students had had smaller pro-Palestinian "sit ins" in recent weeks, with no incidents. "It's been in the air, a lot of stuff, but peaceful," she said.

SUNY Purchase, which often refers to itself as Purchase College, is a small liberal arts college of about 3,300 students with a nationally known performing arts program.

Isaiah Smith, 20, a sophomore, said watching police break up the encampment was "a surreal experience."

"The police came in and just started dragging people out," he said. "The students were really peaceful."

Rachel Garrison, 21, a senior, summed up the feelings of many students: "It's just really, really messed up."

One Jewish student said she spent parts of the day and night at the campus office of Hillels of Westchester, which serves students at several Westchester colleges. She said students were concerned about antisemitism expressed at other colleges with pro-Palestinian encampments. At one point Thursday, the student said, Peña came to the Hillel office to assure Jewish students they would be safe.

Social justice group sends out incomplete statement on students' behalf

The WESPAC Foundation, a longtime self-proclaimed social justice organization based in Westchester, sent out a statement Thursday evening announcing the encampment at Purchase College.

The statement said that student groups and individual students had taken this step as an “escalation in response to the college administration’s refusal to listen to students’ concerns about the state school’s financial ties to and complicity in the Israeli occupation, apartheid and genocide.”

The statement, sent by WESPAC Foundation Director Nada Khader and listing Thompson as the media contact, cited Peña’s “public political support for Israel” and the college’s silence about pension investment and financial contracts “profiting off of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.”

The WESPAC Foundation said that student protesters were to be joined by community members at the encampment and included a quotation from a Purchase College alum predicting that “the media may spin us as outsiders and agitators.”

The last paragraph of their statement omitted the name of the protest and included a quotation that appears to be have been written to be attributed to a protester.

It read: “While similar encampments have arisen at over 100 universities around the country, including at least 5 in New York City, this is the fist (sic) student encampment in Westchester county. Many of the student encampments around the country have been met with brutal police violence instigated by university administrators, but the organizers and participants of the “WHATEVER YOU’RE GONNA CALL IT” said they were undeterred and unafraid. “We are tired of being ignored, slandered, and unjustly punished by the administration of SUNY Purchase and college President Millagros (sic) Peña,” said SOMEONE, “we’re united with a clear message: Disclose. Divest. We will not stop. We will not rest.”

Khader and Thompson were contacted Friday morning about the source of their news release and its writer. Khader replied to a message, but deferred the question to the student groups. Thompson took responsibility for the release and said the error came from using a template shared among SUNY student groups.

Local leaders of the progressive Working Families Party denounced the "violent" arrests and said Westchester County Executive George Latimer and Gov. Kathy Hochul had no reason to involve county and state police "when students were exercising their First Amendment rights in a peaceful manner."

“We stand in solidarity with students and faculty, call for any charges to be dropped, and urge an independent investigation into the inappropriate use of force against the students,” read the joint statement from Jennifer Cabrera and Peter Bernstein, leaders of the party's Westchester-Putnam Chapter.

What video of the protest showed

On a live Instagram video taken by a member of Raise the Consciousness, protesters sat silently in a circle around the encampment while a helicopter flew overhead. A heavy police presence was seen a couple hundred feet away until they moved toward the group and began grabbing members out of the circle.

"Everything I've observed has been peaceful,' Christoph Sawyer, 30, a SUNY Purchase alum and observer at Thursday night's demonstrations told The Journal News/told while on the scene.

"I think it's important to support the students while they speak their voices and support their free speech," Sawyer said. "I stand in solidarity with the students and I think what they're asking for is important."

College protests: What's legal and what's not? What experts say

On its Instagram, Raise the Consciousness said it demands that SUNY Purchase fully "divest from companies with ties to the Zionist entity and from any defense contractor, weapons manufacturer or surveillance company in the form of investments."

The group is also demanding an acknowledgment of the death of thousands of Palestinians, which it says is a genocide. The current conflict escalated when Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7.

Around 11:40, police officers began to leave the campus. Sawyer said students cheered as various police vehicles pulled out of the area.

No injuries were reported and the exact number of community members escorted off campus was still unclear Friday.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: SUNY Purchase students, faculty arrested at encampment