Written Reporting
In the largest protest Tufts has seen this semester, over 300 students, faculty, nearby residents and Somerville High School students rallied on Friday in solidarity with Gaza.
The demonstration, stretching from the Academic Quad to the front steps of the Mayer Campus Center, follows a wave of heightened student activism across the country.
In an email sent to the wider Tufts community on Monday, University President Sunil Kumar condemned the three recently passed Tufts Community Union Senate resolutions that called on the university to cut ties to Israel and to acknowledge a Palestinian genocide in Gaza. Sent less than 12 hours after the Senate announced results around 3 a.m., Kumar’s email sparked a student protest and die-in at Barnum Hall on Tuesday.
University leaders announced shortly after 5 p.m. that they will issue a “no trespass order” to students remaining at the encampment on the Academic Quad, after negotiations with students failed earlier today. Tufts University Police Department has begun locking buildings on the Academic Quad as of 5 p.m.
Students and local activists gathered on Wednesday evening at Powder House Park to protest the detainment of Tufts graduate student, Rümeysa Öztürk, by federal authorities on Tuesday.
The protest was organized by Coalition for Palestinian Liberation, formerly known as the Coalition for Palestinian Liberation at Tufts, and other activist groups from the Greater Boston area.
Over a thousand current and former students of Tufts University have signed a petition calling for proactive protection of its community members against federal deportations following the detainment of Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts graduate student, earlier this week.
In a U.S. District Court hearing in Boston on Thursday afternoon, lawyers for Rümeysa Öztürk argued over the presiding Massachusetts judge’s jurisdiction over Öztürk’s case while a lawyer from the Department of Justice argued it should be transferred to a court in Louisiana, where Öztürk is currently being held.
Earlier this week, Tufts University joined a dozen other universities in a lawsuit against the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services over President Donald Trump’s Feb. 7 executive order to restrict federal grants covering the indirect costs of university medical research.
The plaintiffs — including the Association of American Universities, American Council on Education and the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities — argue that the executive order violates federal administrative law and federal grant regulations.
There's four more symbols of the inhumanity erupting in New York's federal courthouses. Abandoned bicycles litter the streets of lower Manhattan.
Their owners? Gone without a trace, likely after attending a scheduled court hearing in the federal building — casting a long shadow over America's city of immigrants.
A Somerville homeowner attempting to rent rooms in his house to Tufts students has faced unexpected resistance from the city government on the grounds that his request to house unrelated students is unlawful.
The homeowner, who requested that the Daily not identify him by name, has been appealing to the Somerville City Council for months.