Anti-Israel protests have become increasingly common on the campuses of colleges and universities, drawing support from students and outsiders alike — including some prominent public figures.
Among the roughly 100 demonstrators taken into police custody on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, on Saturday was Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and two of her top campaign aides.
BREAKING: Jill Stein and her Campaign Manager and Deputy Campaign Manager, Jason Call and Kelly Merrill-Cayer, have been arrested at Washington University in St. Louis while supporting a protest against WashU’s ties to the war on Gaza.
Video from @KallieECox pic.twitter.com/rkUYC9b5Qx— Dr. Jill Stein🌻 (@DrJillStein) April 28, 2024
In a statement to Fox News, Stein campaign manager Jason Call expressed “solidarity” with the other protesters occupying a campsite on the campus in hopes of convincing the university to sever its investment in a company they say is contributing to Israel’s supposed “genocide” in Gaza.
“The demand from the encampment was specifically for the university to divest from Boeing, which manufactures munitions used in the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza at their nearby St. Charles facility,” he asserted. “The Stein campaign supports the demands of the students and their peaceful protest and assembly on campus. Student protest for peace and civil liberties has always represented the best part of our collective moral conscience.”
The day before her participation in the Washington University protest, Stein reportedly took part in the ongoing demonstrations at New York’s Columbia University. The disruptive encampment at that school has sparked widespread calls for the ouster of its president, Minouche Shafik.
All House Republicans representing districts in the state have issued calls for Shafik to resign, and the effort has attracted bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress.
Referencing a controversial right-wing rally held in Virginia several years ago, U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) wrote: “Add some tiki torches and it’s Charlottesville for these Jewish students. To [Columbia] President Minouche Shafik: do your job or resign so Columbia can find someone who will.”
Nearly two dozen House Democrats signed a letter to the university’s board of trustees expressing “disappointment that, despite promises to do so, Columbia University has not yet disbanded the unauthorized and impermissible encampment of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish activists on campus.”
The lawmakers went on to call on any trustees unwilling to “disband the encampment and ensure the safety and security of all its students” to “resign so that they can be replaced by individuals who will uphold the University’s legal obligations under Title VI.”
