Thomas Breen photo
Yale senior Craig Birckhead-Morton and attorney David Grudberg in court Wednesday.
Donning keffiyehs and blouses and dress shirts and the occasional suit and tie, nearly 50 Yale students took their turns appearing before a state judge to face criminal trespassing charges stemming from their arrests at recent pro-Palestinian protests on campus.
The judge continued each case until dates in July or August, taking care to accommodate students’ summer break schedules when determining whether each should return in person or online.
Wednesday morning marked the first time that the young protesters had to appear in court after Yale police arrested a total of 48 people, including 44 Yale students, on April 22 as they cleared a tent encampment in Beinecke Plaza. University police arrested another four people, including two Yale students, on May 1 following another hundreds-strong protest on campus.
The protests marked New Haven’s version of a nationwide, student-led movement voicing outrage with Israel’s war in Gaza and universities’ connections to the conflict through endowment investments in weapons manufacturers.
Each of the Beinecke Plaza encampment arrestees has been charged with one count of criminal trespassing in the first degree. Each of the May 1 arrestees has also been charged with criminal trespassing, and a few with disorderly conduct and interfering with an officer, as well.
Nearly 50 of those defendants had their first date in court on Monday at 10 a.m. in state Superior Court Judge Frank Iannotti’s groundfloor Courtroom A at 121 Elm St.
State prosecutors called each defendant up one by one to appear before the judge.
More than two dozen arrested protesters were represented by Greta LeFleur, a Yale associate professor of American Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Another 20 were represented by Abigail Mason of the Niantic-based law firm Koch, Garg & Brown. And one of the campus protest organizers, Craig Birckhead-Morton — the only protester to be arrested on both April 22 and May 1 — was represented by local attorney David Grudberg.
Between 10:30 and 11, each arrested protester took turns walking from the audience section of the courtroom to the defense table to get a new hearing date from the judge for each of their cases. All were rescheduled for various dates in July and August, with Mason and LaFleur requesting “virtual” court hearings for those who would be away from New Haven during the summer.
How about Aug. 21 or Aug. 28? Iannotti asked for a follow-up hearing date for one of the defendants.
“The 28th is the first day of school,” Mason replied. Can the defendant’s hearing be set for Aug. 29 instead? The judge agreed.
“They’ve got to go through all the Yale students first before moving on” to everyone else scheduled to appear in court today, one defense attorney whispered to her client as he stood by the court’s front door, waiting his turn. “It shouldn’t be too much longer.”
After getting his two cases continued until July 9, Birckhead-Morton told the Independent how disappointed he and fellow arrested protesters are that Yale hasn’t dropped these charges. “This is a very important time for us,” the Yale College senior said, with graduation and commencement just around the corner. “The university could drop these charges against us, but they’re choosing not to.”
“It’s deeply unfortunate that the university is taking this carceral approach to students,” he added. “We want to be able to focus on our roles as aspiring academics” rather than having to come to court. He accused the university of “complicity” in Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, and said, “it’s not functioning as an academic institution should.”
When the last of the protester defendants finished appearing before the judge, the group gathered with their lawyers and supportive Yale professors in the court’s first-floor atrium. They burst into a brief round of applause, with some providing their email addresses to their lawyers for follow-up information about coming virtual hearings.
LaFleur declined to comment on why she’s representing 28 of these arrested protesters. Mason said she was involved in similar types of student activism when she was the age of her roughly 20 defendants, and wanted to support them now that she’s a full-fledged lawyer.
Her boss, attorney Ted Koch, agreed. “Student protests have always led the way to great change.”
A university spokesperson did not provide an updated comment by the publication time of this story. For previous articles about these protests and arrests, a university spokesperson has emphasized Yale’s support for free speech and peaceable assembly, and has said that university police made arrests only when protesters did not follow police orders to disperse.
Outside the Elm St. courthouse before and after (below) the arrested protesters' arraignments.
“ The judge continued each case until dates in July or August, taking care to accommodate students’ summer break schedules when determining whether each should return in person or online.”
How nice for them. I wonder if non-Yale affiliated persons with court cases pending got the same consideration for their busy lives from the courts?
This article shows how privileged these students are, and how they are upset because Yale isn’t dropping the charges because the students didn’t follow the rules set by the university. Actions have consequences. Most experienced civil disobedience protestors are aware that this comes with the territory. Welcome to the real world.