ARLINGTON, Texas — A University of Texas-Arlington lecturer was arrested after trying to set up tents where a group of pro-Palestinian protesters had gathered on campus Thursday, sources tell WFAA.
UTA’s Progressive Student Union said on social media that they were gathered on the green in front of the university's library early Thursday morning, and that they had held two “mini rallies” as police watched from the outer edges of their informal encampment.
But the encampment in Arlington looks different from many we’ve seen on campuses across the country.
"This is not a formal 'encampment,'" The UTA Progressive Student Union wrote on social media. "We will not sleep at the site, we will take shifts. We will not set up structures for living in, we will set up tarps and umbrellas to shield us from weather. We will not give them a single excuse to displace us. Our goal is to take up space until our demands are met!"
“Instead of essentially martyring ourselves and being arrested within one or two hours of setting up, we decided to go for longevity,” student Seraphine Pecson told WFAA. “And see how much we can get away with while still being in the bounds of legality.”
According to sources, the lecturer came to the site of the protest with two tents on Thursday afternoon and began setting them up. When he didn't comply with police requests to stop, he was arrested, sources told WFAA. Sources say the lecturer will likely be charged with trespassing.
After the arrest, university staff cleared the lecturer's tents and the rest of the protesters were allowed to remain at the site, sources say.
“We couldn’t not do anything, we had to find a way, we found out tarps are okay so that’s what we did we got our tarps,” Ryan Hoffman, also a UTA student told WFAA.
Hoffman and Pecson said students here studied Texas law and university policy and believe they have every right to protest here, without interruption, as long as they don’t set up structures or sleep on university property.
They said they’re playing the long game: they will sit on their tarps, through the night and in the heat every day, until their demands are met.
“Even if that takes weeks or months," said Hoffman.
The encampment at UTA comes a day after police removed pro-Palestinian protesters from the University of Texas at Dallas. The Collin County Sheriff’s Office said at least 20 people were arrested in connection with the protest at UTD.
Similar to the protesters at the University of Texas at Dallas, the protestors at UTA are calling for the school to divest “from companies like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon” that boast ties to Israel and the war in Gaza.
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