Yash Roy photo
Protesters out of the street, back on Yale's campus, at around 5:45.
(Updated at 5:59 p.m.) The streets around Yale’s downtown campus are back open now that pro-Palestinian protesters who had blocked traffic at the intersection of Grove, Prospect, and College for more than eight hours reached a deal with police to leave — without anyone else getting arrested.
That’s the latest in a day of protester-police-university confrontation that began at around 7 a.m. when Yale and New Haven police cleared a student-led encampment of tents in Beinecke Plaza.
Yale police wound up arresting 48 people who declined to leave the encampment.
According to Yale Police Chief Anthony Campbell, 44 of the arrestees were Yale students, one was a Yale employee, and three were unaffiliated with the university.
All 48 were charged with first-degree criminal tresspassing, given summons to appear in court, and released.
The arrests came after the Beinecke Plaza encampment and debates around pro-Palestinian protests on Yale’s campus entered the national spotlight after the New York Post and a Wall Street Journal opinion contributor reported that a Jewish Yale student journalist had been jabbed with a Palestinian flag on Saturday.
On Monday morning, hundreds of protesters moved from the cleared Yale-campus encampment to the public-street intersection of Grove, Prospect, and College, where they sat in the roadway and on the sidewalk, cheering and chanting for Yale’s endowment to divest from military weapons manufacturers amidst Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza.
Read more below about the day of protests.
At 4:50 p.m., the protest leaders announced to the crowd that they would be moving to Cross Campus for a Passover seder organized by Jewish Voice for Peace. That group had originally planned on hosting the seder in the Beinecke Plaza encampment, and then in the blocked intersection, before agreeing to move it over to Yale’s Cross campus.
New Haven Police did not have to issue any warnings, although they spent most of the day saying that they would issue warnings and potentially arrest people if they did not move from the street by rush hour.
Organizers, while leaving the intersection, said that the protest was far from over for the night.
The reopened Grove-Prospect-College intersection, at 6.
Also on Monday afternoon, Yale President Peter Salovey issued a statement in which he offered insight into why the university decided to pursue arrests after letting the Beinecke protest encampment stand for as long as it did.
On Sunday night, he wrote, “we determined that the situation was no longer safe. Members of the Jewish, Muslim, Israeli, Arab, and Palestinian communities reported that the campus environment had become increasingly difficult. We then became aware of police reports identifying harmful acts and threatening language used against individuals at or near the protest sites. Some of the aggressors are believed to be members of the Yale community while others were outsiders. We will not tolerate such behavior nor any open violation of Yale policies that interrupts academic and campus operations. So, we acted consistently with the warnings we had given over several days and escorted the protesters from the plaza.”
Salovey also said in his Monday afternoon statement that a total of 60 people had been arrested after the Yale police cleared the Beinecke Plaza encampment, including 47 Yale students. Campbell told the Independent that the actual total number of arrestees Monday morning was 48, with 44 being Yale students.
In a separate email comment provided to the Independent on Monday afternoon, Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis apologized for his earlier email intimating that Monday’s protest might turn violent.
“My email was mistaken and I apologize for the suggestion that the protesters might turn violent,” he wrote. “I was repeating speculation I had overheard and I should not have done so.”
In an email press release sent out at 7 p.m. Monday, Elicker praised Jacobson and the New Haven Police Department for “exercising the highest degree of professionalism in their engagement with the Yale community, for ensuring that all protestors were able to demonstrate peacefully and safely, and for successfully working with student organizers to de-escalate the situation and ensuring a peaceful and orderly reopening of these streets to the public.”
Thomas Breen contributed to this report.
See below for previous versions of this story.
Protesters Continue To Block The Block
Thomas Breen photo
Protesters still out at Grove and Prospect at 1 p.m.
(Updated at 1:59 p.m.) Five hours after first stopping traffic at Grove and Prospect streets, several hundred pro-Palestinian protesters continue to block the Yale-adjacent downtown intersection — which police plan to clear by rush hour.
Close to 300 people are still occupying that roadway between the Yale Schwarzman Center and the Grove Street Cemetery.
They first moved into the city street at around 8:30 a.m. after Yale police arrested almost 50 protesters who had been camping out in Beinecke Plaza as part of a student-led effort to get the university to divest from weapons manufacturers amidst Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza.
As of 1:10 p.m., New Haven Police Chief Karl Jacobson is back on the scene and negotiating with organizers. He told the Independent that he wanted the intersection cleared by 5 p.m. or before rush hour, and that he is working with organizers to figure out some sort of deal.
Jewish Voice for Peace New Haven has also said that they want to hold a Passover seder at the intersection at 5:30 pm. That seder was originally planned for the now-cleared Beinecke encampment.
An organizer with JVP told the Independent that the group is now deciding if they will still hold the seder at 5:30 given Jacobson’s desire to clear the intersection by 5. “We’re here because we want Yale to divest. It’s pretty simple, we’re showing solidarity,” Shelly Altman, a member leader of JVP New Haven Haven said.
Jacobson said that he hopes not to make arrests and that the New Haven Police Department (NHPD) is actively working with organizers. He estimated that there are 15 NHPD officers stationed around the protests. If police eventually issue warnings, protesters who do not comply with them would face disorderly conduct charges, which are a class A misdemeanor.
Four New Haven police cruisers are blocking traffic from crossing through the intersections at Grove and Temple, Grove and Ashmun, Prospect and Trumbull, and College and Wall. According to Sgt. Justin Cole, NHPD has communicated with organizers, and the conversations have been productive in communicating expectations.
“This can’t go on forever,” Jacobson said.
Update: At 3:30 p.m., Mayor Justin Elicker sent out an email and text message alert notifying residents to expect “traffic delays and detours” downtown around the intersection of Grove, College, and Prospect streets due to the “ongoing protests by Yale university students.”
Protesters have indicated that they plan on remaining at this intersection throughout the day, according to protest participants who have been at the encampment since last Monday.
Meanwhile, during a separate press conference at Connecticut Innovations at 470 James St. Monday morning, Gov. Ned Lamont was asked about the Yale student arrests. He said he has spoken with top state public safety official (and former Yale police chief) Ronnell Higgins, and that the situation is “well managed.”
Lamont encouraged protesters to remain non-violent, seemingly in reference to a New York Post report that a Jewish Yale student was jabbed in the eye with a Palestinian flag on Saturday.
Yash Roy photos
Justin Farmer and fellow protester (below) at Grove and Prospect at around 1:30.
Meanwhile, back at Monday morning’s protest, Justin Farmer, a former member of the Hamden legislative council, said he had questions for Yale President Peter Salovey and New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker.
“Why arrest people and move the protest from Beinecke, which is sheltered and safe, to a major intersection?” Farmer asked. “Yale can very easily put an end to all of this by disclosing its investments and divesting. It might be $400,000 to $1 million of a $46 billion dollar endowment.”
JVP members also spoke during the protest, reading poetry and calling on the university to disclose and divest.
Also on Monday, Yale Dean Pericles Lewis sent an email to some of the students organizing the protest, saying that according to “law enforcement the core of the group holding the intersection outside Schwarzman are non-Yale protestors with a known history of violent confrontation with police.”
Protest organizers publicly read the email out loud a little after 1:30 p.m. and denounced the university as classist and racist against New Haveners. The vast majority of people at the intersection appear to be Yale students.
New Haven Police Spokesperson Christian Bruckhart told the Independent that NHPD is not the law enforcement agency to make that determination about how many of the protesters are Yalies and how many are not. Yale Police Chief Anthony Campbell did not respond to a request for comment and a Yale University Spokesperson declined to comment.
New Haven Rep. Rosa DeLauro weighed in, stating that while people have a right to protest, “inciting hatred and violence toward Jewish students and community members, as we have seen at other universities, is completely unacceptable and those responsible for violence must be held accountable. I am thankful that for the most part the protests at Yale have been peaceful.”
See below for previous versions of this article.
40+ Arrested So Far As Police Clear Beinecke Encampment; Protesters Block Intersection
Thomas Breen photo
Stopping traffic at Grove and Prospect at 10 a.m. Monday.
Yash Roy photo
Yale Police arresting a student demonstrator around 7 a.m.
(Updated Monday at 10:20 a.m., with university statement) More than 40 people have been arrested so far as Yale and New Haven police cleared a student-led, pro-Palestinian tent encampment in Beinecke Plaza early Monday morning — prompting hundreds of protesters to take over a downtown intersection.
The arrests took place after three nights of Yale choosing not to arrest students who have been rallying in the university’s downtown campus by the hundreds to press Yale to divest its endowment from military weapons manufacturers amid Israel’s war in Gaza.
That changed Monday morning at around 7 a.m.
At that time, Yale administrators issued three warnings to clear the Beinecke encampment — an encampment of more than 35 tents.
Yale Police Chief Anthony Campbell said between 40 and 50 students have been arrested and charged with criminal trespassing, which is a Class A misdemeanor. A New Haven police spokesperson said that the roughly 45 arrestees were “transported to a Yale Police facility where they were processed and released.”
In response to those arrests, hundreds of protesters blocked the Grove and Prospect streets intersection at around 8:15, preventing traffic from passing. The protesters remained in the intersection as of 10 a.m.
“Yale admin, we shall not be moved,” the protesters chanted as they blocked traffic. “Arm in arm, we shall not be moved.”
The chants continued: “Muslim blood is not cheap. For the martyrs we will weep.”
“Disclose, divest, we will not stop we will not rest.”
And: “Palestine is our demand. No peace on stolen land.”
City police spokesperson Officer Christian Bruckhart said at around 10 a.m. that city police have “no current plans to make any arrests of non-violent protesters.”
Craig Birckhead-Morton, a senior undergraduate at Yale, spoke with the Independent after being released from arrest. He was processed after 8 a.m. on Ashmun Street. Birckhead-Morton received a summons to appear at New Haven’s superior court on May 8 for the charge of criminal trespass.
Thomas Breen photos
At Prospect and Grove at around 10.
In a statement provided to the Independent, a university spokesperson confirmed that the 47 student arrestees will also be referred for Yale disciplinary action, “which includes a range of sanctions, such as reprimand, probation, or suspension.”
The statement continued: “The university made the decision to arrest those individuals who would not leave the Plaza with the safety and security of the entire Yale community in mind and to allow access to university facilities by all members of our community. Yale provides detailed guidance on free expression, peaceable assembly, and requesting the use of on-campus outdoor spaces. Since the protest started, the university and the Yale Police Department worked to reduce the likelihood of confrontations and arrests.”
On Sunday night, the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven sent out an email calling out “the hostile antisemitic environment at Yale University that has escalated this weekend,” without identifying any particular incidents. Their statement continued: “Moreover, a lack of safety on Yale campus for Jewish students translates to an unsafe environment for Jews in New Haven. This situation has only gotten worse over the last several months and business as usual is not acceptable.”
Also on Sunday night, Rabbi Jason Rubenstein, the Jewish chaplain at Yale, sent out an email to the Slifka Center community lamenting the “chaos” at Beinecke Plaza on Saturday night. He wrote that, on Saturday, “protests became the site of physical altercations that left a member of our community injured, which we cannot tolerate; I have similarly heard troubling and credible first-hand accounts that respected Muslim members of the Yale community, and their sacred symbols, were treated with disrespect last night — for which there is no excuse. This is precisely the type and degree of conflict so many of us have worked so hard, for so many months, to prevent.”
Before the Yale arrests, protesters had remained in the Beinecke encampment Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. On Saturday night, Yale issued a message from Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis and Graduate School Dean Lynn Cooley telling protesters to leave by 11:30 p.m. on Saturday night or face disciplinary action. The protesters stayed put.
On Sunday night, Yale offered organizers of the protest the opportunity to meet with two trustees of the Yale Corporation, including the one trustee who sits on the committee that determines what investments are ethical. That committee announced this week that they do not believe that investments in weapons manufacturing violates the ethics of the university. Organizers refused the deal and remained in Beinecke Plaza Sunday night.
Yale and New Haven police began arriving on scene around 6:30 a.m. Monday.
“Today, members of Yale’s police department isolated the area and asked protestors to show identification; some left voluntarily,” the university spokesperson stated at 9:48 a.m. “When others did not comply after multiple requests, the Yale Police Department (YPD) issued summonses to 47 students, according to the most recent report from the chief of YPD.”
Watch footage of Monday morning’s protest here and here.
Classes at Yale are set to resume Monday.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Thomas Breen and Dereen Shirnekhi contributed to this report.
Thomas Breen Photo
Police have cleared the Beinecke Plaza encampment.
A previous version of this story from Saturday morning appears below.
Unlike At Columbia, Yale Protesters Not Arrested
Thomas Breen photos
At Friday's encampment and protest in Beinecke Plaza.
Hundreds of pro-Palestine protesters gathered in Yale’s Beinecke Plaza Friday night, and — unlike on Columbia’s campus the day before — none were arrested, police backed down, and the university let tenters stay put.
The protest marked the latest Yale student action to try to press the university to divest its endowment from weapons manufacturers amidst Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza.
Friday’s rally — which included two dozen tents and more than 500 attendees — took place outside of the Yale Schwarzman Center at the same time that members of the Yale Corporation gathered inside the building for a farewell dinner for the soon-to-retire university president, Peter Salovey.
"Books Not Bombs" bookshelf.
On Wall St. by Beinecke Plaza at around 10:30 Friday night.
For much of the day, student protest organizers prepared for a confrontation with Yale police at 11 p.m., when campus law enforcement were expected to clear the plaza and arrest anyone who resisted.
Instead, at 11:40 p.m., the close to 50 uniformed Yale and New Haven police officers, which included six members of New Haven’s crowd control team, stationed in and around the Schwarzman Center left the area. The university instead allowed protesters to sleep through the night in the plaza.
The protest, which lasted through much of the day, was one of the largest at Yale in recent memory.
Friday’s action was part of a weeklong series of protests in front of the Schwarzman Center by pro-Palestine organizers who want Yale’s endowment to divest from weapons manufacturers.
The protesters decided to build an encampment of 24 tents outside of Schwarzman Center to promote that aim.
They also sought to stand in solidarity with the 108 students at Columbia University in New York City who were arrested on Thursday when that school’s president ordered the New York Police Department to clear out a similar campus encampment and to arrest protesting students for trespassing.
“Hey hey, ho ho, there’s blood on your portfolio,” hundreds of protesters chanted late into the night in Beinecke Plaza on Friday.
“Columbia, we are with you!” they cheered. Along with, “Free free Palestine!” and “What do we tell the trustees? If there’s no justice, there’s no peace!” and “Resistance is justified, when people are occupied! Resistance is justified, when people face genocide!“
The Yale Corporation, which is the highest body of the university, had gathered inside the Schwarzman Center Friday night to celebrate Salovey’s decade-long tenure as president. The Corporation will gather for its final meeting of the 2024 academic year on Saturday, when they are expected to choose Salovey’s successor.
In addition to the Yale officers, a Mobile Incident Command Post, which is more colloquially referred to as a prison bus, was present at the intersection of Grove and Prospect Street.
Yale Police only detained one student in connection with the divestment protest but later released them, according to a Yale University spokesperson.
For much of the night, Yale Police signaled that it planned to remove protesters from the plaza starting at 11 p.m. On Monday, the first day of protests this week, Yale Police issued warnings to protesters who were occupying the same space in front of the Schwarzman Center at 10:40 p.m., and the organizers decided to heed those warnings and disperse.
On Friday night, organizers made clear that they would not listen to those warnings, meaning that some protesters would be arrested.
Indeed, organizers told the Independent that at different points in the night Yale administrators, including Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis, told organizers that any Yale College seniors in the group who failed to disperse and were arrested may not be able to walk at graduation or may face other disciplinary action.
At one point Lewis and other Yale administrations offered to speak with organizers and call off arrests if they removed the tents in the plaza. Organizers refused.
Similarly, supporters of the Yale organizers from New Haven, including members of Jewish Voice for Peace, were at the protest and also signaled that they were ready to be arrested by Yale Police.
Yale police in front of Schwarzman Center's entrance.
Click here to watch part of Friday night’s protest.
Thomas Breen contributed to this report.
It’s good that the protestors were not arrested for peacefully protesting on campus grounds for divestment by their university. If they’re not blocking traffic or defacing property or otherwise disturbing the peace, and they are simply making signs, chanting and camping out in Beinecke Plaza it is a time honored Yalie tradition for protests.