Three days after being moved online following clashes on campus between pro-Palestinian demonstrators and police, face-to-face classes will resume Monday, May 6 at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the establishment announced.
“The campus will resume normal activities” this Monday and “plans to continue them until the end of the week,” announces a press release published Sunday on the university website. “Law enforcement officers are always present on campus to ensure security,” the statement added.
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block announced “urgent changes” in the management of campus security, and that a new office led by former Sacramento Police Chief Rick Braziel would oversee them. “UCLA needs a unit and a leader whose sole responsibility is campus safety to guide us through tense moments,” he said in the statement.
Clashes between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrators
Protests against Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip have rocked American campuses since April 17, leading to police dispersals, mass arrests and a stern call to order from the White House.
On Friday, UCLA said it had made classes available online after a large contingent of police forcefully evacuated an encampment of mobilized students. During the week, the situation had gradually worsened on campus, with clashes between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrators.
More than two thousand arrests have taken place in the last two weeks in the United States, some of them during violent confrontations with the police, accused of having used excessive force. The President of the United States, Joe Biden, who is the subject of pressure from all political sides over the conflict in Gaza, stressed that “order [must] reign” on American campuses.
