At 8 a.m. Saturday campus chief of police Tim Longo informed just over a dozen protesters by bullhorn that they had 15 minutes to remove their tents or risk being arrested for trespassing. News of a possible confrontation brought as many as a hundred supporters to the site, and most tents remained standing as students, faculty and community members took shelter from the rain.
Threats were repeated throughout the morning, but UVA claimed the demonstrators responded with chants and violent gestures. By mid-afternoon dozens of state police had surrounded the protest site wearing helmets and carrying shields.
Hundreds of students had gathered to watch as officers moved in on protesters who remained. Some counter protesters, carrying American flags, cheered and chanted “USA” and “Let’s go Wahoos, but a majority expressed their unhappiness with the police presence.
And there were audible gasps as officers used pepper spray to break up the crowd -- arresting 25 people, dragging some of them away.
Some protesters used umbrellas to defend themselves, but police tossed those aside and pushed people down. Afterward, junior Em Gunter expressed outrage.
"This protest has been entirely peaceful this entire time," she said. "No violence existed until the Virginia State Police arrived and began arresting our students, arresting our faculty. And for what?"
Student Abdallah Aljerjawi, a native of Gaza, agreed.
"It’s been civil. It’s been peaceful, and no one has said or done anything."
In his statement, President Jim Ryan claimed university police were met with physical confrontation and attempted assault, so – he said – it became necessary to rely on assistance from the Virginia State Police.
Ryan conceded only a small group had willingly broken the rules, adding the episode was upsetting and frightening, but he claimed the university had no other choice but to uphold the rules.
Afterward a university staffer who asked we not use her name expressed disappointment with the administration’s response, recalling torch-bearing white supremacists who marched on campus in 2017.
"I think it’s kind of unfair that Neo-Nazis can march on our town and bring such violence, and we’re told, ‘Well, they have a right to assemble. They have a right to protest," she said. "You know under the First Amendment they get to be heard,’ but you can’t protest against genocide."
And she wondered why UVA could not comply with students’ request to disclose its investments in Israel and in companies that produce weapons being used in the Middle East.
"It’s a public university. As a Virginia taxpayer, I want to know where is our tax money going?"
Ryan insisted the university strongly encourages free speech and considers it a bedrock value at the heart of what universities do. He added that the school also had a duty to ensure the physical safety of our community and claimed individuals unaffiliated with the university had presented some safety concerns.
It’s not clear how the decision was made to call-in state police, but on Friday Governor Glenn Youngkin told Bloomberg News his office had been in touch with law enforcement and with university leaders:
“We would not allow encampments, tents, we’re not allowing hate speech, and if they’re peaceful then, of course, that’s part of our constitutional right and part of the American fabric, but we can’t allow hate speech, anti-Semitism and most importantly violence and disruption and threats.”
In addition to citing the use of unapproved, amplified sound by protesters, the university had pointed to a prohibition on tents, but a faculty member noted there was an exception in the policy for recreational tents used for camping. On Saturday morning, the university quietly deleted that line.
