Laurel Krause, the sister of an anti-war protester who was killed by law enforcement during the infamous 1970 Kent State University massacre, this week warned against the militarized police response to peaceful college campus demonstrations over Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.
Inspired by Columbia University, whose students set up a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on campus while protesting the more than 200 days of war, a growing number of college students across the country are holding similar demonstrations at their schools. Participating students and organizers have said that the demonstrations are meant to center Israel’s ongoing violence against Palestinians, to call for a permanent cease-fire and to demand that colleges divest from Israel.
But despite footage showing students of various races, ethnicities and religions — including Jewish students — participating peacefully in the protests, right-wing politicians and media figures have accused demonstrators of antisemitism and called for them to be met with a militarized police response.
Last week, Columbia University President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik authorized New York police to sweep the college’s encampment, leading to the arrests of more than 100 people. Since then, witnesses at other campus demonstrations have reported seeing law enforcement — some in riot gear — interacting aggressively with protesters, tearing down encampments and arresting demonstrators.
“As the family member of a peaceful student protester killed by the state, I am aghast at the way that Columbia University President Minouche Shafik, along with administrators at other U.S. institutions of higher education, have endangered the lives and well-being of student protesters by inviting militarized police onto campuses to disperse protesters,” Krause said in a statement Wednesday.
“I urge President Shafik, and other University administrators across the country to hear the demands of ALL student protesters, to encourage and facilitate zones of free expression, and to support the right of your students to protest an ongoing genocide on campus without the threat of state violence and militarized force.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Wednesday appeared before protesters at Columbia, where he called for the demonstrations on campus to be shut down and suggested that the National Guard may need to intervene. Earlier this week, GOP Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.) and Josh Hawley (Mo.) similarly called for the National Guard to be deployed against student protesters.
But inviting armed, militarized police on American campuses to disperse peaceful protesters and others has historically not ended well.
The pro-Palestinian protests come as the U.S. prepares to mark 54 years since the Kent State and Jackson State massacres, in which law enforcement killed six students and wounded nearly two dozen other people.
On May 4, 1970, members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of unarmed demonstrators on Kent State’s campus as they protested the Vietnam War and the invasion of Cambodia. The shooting killed four students and injured nine, including one who became permanently paralyzed. Eleven days later, police fired into a crowd of Black students at what is now Jackson State University, killing two people and injuring a dozen.
One of the students shot dead at Kent State was 19-year-old Allison Krause, the sibling of Laurel Krause.
“In 1970 failures of Kent State University leadership enabled the massacre which left ‘Four Dead in Ohio,’” Laurel Krause wrote, referencing a protest song by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young that was penned in response to the shooting.
“We must not repeat the horrors of Kent State 54 years later.”
As the college protests in the U.S. continue, emergency workers in Gaza have unearthed multiple mass graves containing hundreds of bodies near major hospitals that were under siege by Israel.
Israel invaded Gaza after Hamas-led militants launched an attack on Oct. 7 that killed over 1,100 people and led to the abduction of roughly 250 hostages — half of whom were released during a temporary cease-fire, while about 30 of the remaining captives are presumed dead.
Since October, Israeli forces — with U.S.-funded weaponry — have killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza, displaced most of the population, flattened entire towns, sparked a human-made famine and blocked access to medical care. The Israeli military is preparing for a ground invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where half of the territory’s population has sought refuge.