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Brown reportedly moving forward with trespassing charges against 41 student protesters

The students were arrested on Dec. 11 by the university’s police department when they refused to leave an administrative building after business hours.

December 20, 2023

1 minute to read

Brown University is reportedly moving ahead with trespassing charges against 41 students who were arrested last week during an on-campus protest against Israel’s role in the Israel-Hamas war.

The students were charged on Dec. 11 with trespassing by the university’s police department when they refused to leave University Hall after business hours, part of a demonstration calling for Brown to divest “its endowment from Israeli military occupation.”

Previously, 20 students protesting Israel’s invasion of Gaza were arrested and charged with trespassing in November, but the university ended up dropping the charges after a Palestinian student at Brown, Hisham Awartani, and two other Palestinian college students were shot in Burlington, Vermont.

This time, the university is pressing ahead with the charges against the students arrested last week, all members of the Brown Divest Coalition, with six court dates set stretching across the winter break, The Providence Journal reports. Coalition members told the newspaper the timing of the court dates means the students will have to find housing during the break and arrange transportation.

When the students were arrested on Dec. 11, the university warned in a statement of more severe consequences if students did not respect restrictions on the time and location of campus protests.

“The disruption to secure buildings is not acceptable, and the University is prepared to escalate the level of criminal charges for future incidents of students occupying secure buildings,” Brown said.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.