ST. LOUIS — ºüÀêÊÓƵ Mayor Tishaura O. Jones said on Wednesday that the city police department will not use force against or interfere with peaceful protests this evening at ºüÀêÊÓƵ University against the war in Gaza and the university's ties to Boeing Co.
Police will, however, intervene if fights break out or there is damage to school property, she said in a joint statement with the police department.
“We ask the entire community to recognize that the rejection of violence is central to ensuring a safe environment for all,†the statement said.
Minutes later, SLU President Fred Pestello sent a letter to students and faculty along similar lines.
“We embrace engagement with challenging ideas as a necessary — if sometimes uncomfortable — component of our mission to pursue truth,†he wrote. “However, violence, threats, intimidation, harassment, and disruptions to University operations are not permitted.â€
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The statements suggest the city and SLU could take a more conciliatory approach to protests planned for Wednesday evening than Washington University and other schools across the country have in recent weeks.
At Washington University on Saturday, police from the city and other municipalities worked to promptly arrest dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators calling on the university to condemn the war and cut ties with Boeing, which sells warplanes and munitions that Israel is using in its campaign in Gaza and employs more than 15,000 people in the region. Students involved were evicted from on-campus housing, professors were placed on leave, and activists say more than a dozen people were injured.
The school’s response mirrored that of several higher education institutions across the U.S., where students have been arrested at schools including Columbia University, Yale University, Northwestern University and, on Monday, the University of Texas-Austin.
But Aldermanic President Megan Green, one of the Washington University professors put on leave, said she hopes SLU will handle Wednesday’s event like it did 2014 demonstrations against racial injustice after police shot Black teen Michael Brown in Ferguson.
Then, protestors spent nearly a week camping in front of the university’s clock tower and talking with administrators.
Protestors eventually agreed to leave in exchange for the school’s commitment to doing more to address poverty and racial inequality in the region.Â
Shortly after the protest broke up, then-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder wrote Pestello, the SLU president, to commend him for his handling of it, calling his leadership “nothing short of exemplary.â€Â