Portland State University President Ann Cudd has requested the help of Portland police after 50 to 75 pro-Palestinian protesters who identified themselves as students broke into the university’s main library Monday evening following a peaceful rally urging an end to the Israel-Hamas war.
Joining Cudd at an 11 p.m. press conference were Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, Police Chief Bob Day and Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt, who said the students’ actions to occupy the library were now a criminal matter not an exercise in free speech.
“Universities are set up to explore the competition of ideas, and that’s a noble purpose, but when people engage in acts of violence and destruction, that is no longer peaceful behavior, that is criminal activity,” Wheeler said. “City, county, police, prosecutors, we are all unified. We will not allow acts of violence to carry the day in our city.”
The late-night press conference at the Police Bureau’s Central Precinct capped a day of protest on the PSU campus as students elsewhere in Oregon, including at Reed College, Lewis & Clark College and the University of Oregon, joined students from across the country in calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.
The protest at PSU escalated over five days beginning Thursday night, when Portland police pushed a group of pro-Palestinian protesters in tents out of the South Park Blocks.
On Friday night, after Cudd bowed to student activists and announced that the university would reexamine its partnership with Boeing over its ties to the Israeli military, police again removed protesters from the city-owned park. Protesters then moved into the portico of Millar Library.
On Saturday, Cudd allowed protesters to remain under the awning of the library but asked that they keep the south entrance open to students, faculty and other library patrons. They did, and on Sunday university officials and campus police continued to monitor student protesters at the north entrance from a distance.
On Monday, as the university braced for an afternoon protest expected to draw hundreds to the downtown campus, Cudd reversed course and asked protesters to dismantle the barricades they erected over the weekend. About 500 people attended the 4 p.m. rally, which was largely peaceful.
But by Monday evening the barricades had grown, and protesters who identified themselves as students announced they were occupying the library, which they had renamed Refaat Alareer Memorial Library for the deceased Palestinian poet who died in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza in December.
A chain link fence lined the entrances to the library around 10 p.m., and graffiti had spread to windows on all stories of the building. The spray-painted messages include several that have been denounced as antisemitic on other campuses.
Student protesters announced on X they would not harm any books.
— Michael Russell; mrussell@oregonian.com
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More stories on the Portland State University protest
- Portland police return to PSU after protesters break into library again
- PSU students describe scenes inside library occupation
- As police action unfolds, campus abruptly closed for third day for thousands of PSU students
- Police clear Portland State library of protesters, make arrests; small group returns to re-establish barricade
- Negotiations fail in Portland State library standoff’s 3rd day; campus to reopen Thursday