MIT Crews Remove Fences After Pro-Palestinian Protesters Reenter Encampment

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — Crews with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have started packing up the fences surrounding the pro-Palestinian encampment on campus.

Earlier, protesters reentered the encampment on Kresge Lawn, tearing down a fence surrounding the space.

This happened hours after MIT President Sally Kornbluth issued a statement on Monday directing students to leave the encampment — which has been erected for over two weeks — by 2:30 p.m. that day.

“This prolonged use of MIT property as a venue for protest, without permission, especially on an issue with such sharp disagreement, is no longer safely sustainable,” said Kornbluth.

She explained that without 24/7 staffing supervision, the students sleeping outside overnight “would be vulnerable,” and even if the protesters are peaceful, “unilaterally taking over a central portion of our campus for one side of a hotly disputed issue and precluding use by other members of our community is not right.”

Read More: MIT Encampment Grows As Collegiate Students Protest The War In Gaza

Protesters also shut down part of Massachusetts Avenue near the MIT campus on Monday afternoon. Cambridge Police reported that the road had been reopened later that evening.

The statement from MIT’s president explicitly threatened suspension for those who did not leave the encampment voluntarily by Monday afternoon.

MIT also set up a checkpoint where IDs were being checked and warnings were being issued to students.

Read More: Pro-Palestinian Encampment At Tufts University Taken Down

Despite the possibility of suspension, student protesters and supporters pulled down and pushed aside metal fencing and tarps that were placed around the encampment.

Baltasar Dinis, a student at MIT, shared why protesters were determined to reestablish their pro-Palestinian encampment despite potential repercussions from the university and counter-protests from pro-Israel supporters.

“We are here out of a moral obligation to the people in Gaza and to humanity in general," he said.

He added that “we know that being kenneled in and being shunned away from the public side makes us more unsafe. It made us unsafe because it limited our ways to exit if things turn very violent very quickly.”

Dinis explained what many protesters are asking from the university and the motivations behind the encampment and continued demonstrations. “At MIT, we have specific contracts with the Israeli Ministry of Defense. These contracts are military in their nature and in their funding.”

On Tuesday, MIT Chancellor Melissa Nobles reminded students of the "disciplinary consequences" of the ongoing protests on campus.

"As a consequence of events that have already occurred, dozens of interim suspensions and referrals to the Committee on Discipline are now in process, in accordance with the outline described in yesterday’s letter from President Kornbluth. As we said previously, these actions are necessary to ensure the safety of our community," she wrote in a letter to students.

Also on Tuesday, MIT crews began packing up the metal fences surrounding the encampment. "There's a certain amount of euphoria. There's a certain amount of uncertainty about the future, but uncertainty can be a good thing," said first-year graduate student Prahlad Iyengar.

"We're looking at this and realizing how tone-deaf it is to fence in people and add a checkpoint and all this kind of stuff when we're talking about protests for liberation."

When asked if it was a reassuring sign that MIT is potentially stepping back and taking down the fences, Iyengar said, "I wouldn't read into signs... MIT can still do whatever they want up to a point, and we can still do whatever we want. I would just say they're taking it down because it's useless."

WBZ NewsRadio reached out to MIT for comment about why they removed the fences around the encampment.

However, not all MIT community members have supported the pro-Palestinian protest movement on campus.

Marilyn Meyers, a student, planted hundreds of Israeli flags in the grass near the encampment on Tuesday to honor the lives lost on October 7.

"We're trying to show that Israelis are human also and show what we're fighting for: for the hostages, to bring them home. And [we want] to show also how peaceful we are and kind of contrast that with the anarchy that's going on in the encampment."

Meyers said that she thinks MIT has lost all hold over campus.

WBZ NewsRadio's James Rojas (@JamesRojasMMJ) reports.

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