Confrontation in Dunn Meadow: the Police Raids at Indiana University
Indiana State Police raid peaceful protesters in Dunn Meadow on the Indiana University campus in Blooming. The author is in the green shirt, Linda in the hat. Photo: Jeremy Hogan, the Bloomingtonian.
Thursday afternoon, April 25th, 2024, I was doing my job making sales calls as a staffperson at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana,.My wife was walking with me on campus and we heard shouts coming from Dunn Meadow. Earlier we had seen police cars blocking off Indiana Avenue north of Kirkwood, near the Sample Gates. As we neared Dunn Meadow from the Media School area, we saw the tent city and heard the chants “Free Palestine.” We joined the gathered people.
After about an hour or so of pleasant interaction with the students who happily welcomed us, a student spoke into a megaphone that there was a heavy police presence in the area. To everyone’s alarm, a line of black-clad police appeared in Dunn Meadow near the Union Building.
Linda started videoing and the Thursday video can be seen at: https://youtu.be/hkNAyLQ0lnY
Within an hour after the police had left, the tents were re-erected and the protest gathering continued.
On Friday, I took the day off work and we spent it in Dunn Meadow. It was a day of interaction with similar-minded people who are also outraged by the events in Gaza and Palestine; outraged by the fact that we are complicit in genocide. We stayed until midnight and had many wonderful conversations,
The next day, the State Police returned, this time in full military/riot garb and they were accompanied by dark-green uniformed, rifle-toting personnel. Linda filmed 2 videos which chronicle Saturday’s events.
The first Saturday video begins by showing the phalanx amassed across the meadow.
The other video from Saturday begins by showing the actions of people complying with the police orders to dismantle the tent structures and continues with the advance of the police in formation, the taking of territory by the police, the destruction of the tent city, and the withdrawal by the power which had successfully executed the military operation in Dunn Meadow.
I would like to call attention to the Indiana Daily Student article
In the video of Thursday, a policeman can be heard telling students that if they remain, they will be arrested.
In the video of Saturday, a policeman can be heard telling students that as long as the structures are removed, they can remain.
On Saturday evening around sunset, Linda and I returned to Dunn Meadow. The tents had been resurrected. Those of us who had not fallen and been arrested, or who had been nabbed in military-style kidnapping like several of the leaders had been, had returned. Chants of “We will not pause, We will not rest, Disclose, Divest” as well as many other chants were shouted by all.
Today is Sunday. From early morning the massive sound system of the Chabad House on 7th Street has been persistently blaring dull, thumping melodies into Dunn Meadow. Notifying Dispatch at Indiana University Police Department results in being told to notify the IUPD policemen parked nearby on 7th Street. Talking with the policemen sitting in the police car has the result of being told to notify Dispatch.
The Bloomington Police have been notified about this weaponization of music and do nothing.
The thumping beats continue.
The Students remain steadfast.
Statement of Four Cornell Students
Suspended for Protesting Israel’s Genocide
in Gaza
On 4/26, four students were “temporarily suspended” by Cornell University for exercising their constitutional right to protest. In response, these students issued the following statement:
“In the past months, we have seen an incredible movement form on Cornell’s campus: students, faculty members, and staff have joined together to voice their support for the Palestinian Liberation Movement and to demand an end to the genocide happening in Gaza. Cornell’s administration has failed to fulfill its responsibilities to its community over the last six months. Inconsistent and repressive treatment of vocal community members, lackluster responses to threats of sexual assault, and increasingly hostile surveillance tactics towards Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students, staff, and faculty members have made it clear that our safety and voices do not matter.
When students, staff, and faculty have raised safety concerns about Islamophobic, anti-Arab, and, more specifically, anti-Palestinian attacks by other students, administrators nod their heads and “thank us for our perspective,” ostensibly placating us with empty gestures and no follow-up. When students, staff, and faculty have raised academic concerns about the complete erasure of anti-Zionist history and thought, we are ignored or pushed to the side. The administration has tried time and time again to suppress the speech of our communities, all the while hiding behind the claim that they have to ensure a safe and “undisrupted” learning environment for all students. Their choice to suspend peaceful protestors clearly shows that they do not care about all students’ safety equally.
Make no mistake—Cornell is taking such drastic action because the encampment is a fundamental threat to the university’s legitimacy. In our Liberated Zone (and at encampments across the country) we have called into question whether students ought to participate in institutions that are complicit in an ongoing genocide. If our action were not meaningful in the fight for divestment—if our encampment were not a genuine threat to the legitimacy of this institution—Cornell would not have cracked down on students so severely within twenty-four hours without ever engaging with our demands.
Now, to maintain the status quo of apathy and thoughtless compliance, they have suspended us. They seek to intimidate other students to keep us from fighting for collective, mutual liberation. But we are not scared. We will not be intimidated. And we will not stop demanding justice and liberation. We are committed to liberating our people and using our voices to push this administration to do the right thing.
Thus, our demands remain the same, and we raise our voices in unison to say: Divest Now.”
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