DETROIT – Wayne State University, located in Detroit, is beginning its 2024 spring-summer semester virtually due to an “ongoing public safety issue,” officials said.
The university notified the community on Tuesday, May 28 that all operations will be remote “until further notice.” Officials said the transition was due to a public safety issue, but did not specify what that issue was.
All events on campus have also been canceled until further notice. Students will be receiving more information from their instructors "via email or Canvas."
The move comes just days after a group of pro-Palestinian students established an encampment on Wayne State University’s campus in protest of the war in Gaza. The Detroit university is one of the latest to form such a protest in an effort to push the institution to divest from Israel and companies and organizations that support Israel’s military efforts in Gaza.
Wayne State officials have maintained that the encampment protest is a trespass and must be removed from campus. Protest organizers are looking to negotiate with the university and come to an agreement on divestment before removing the encampment.
Just last week, authorities broke up a weekslong pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Encampments at other universities, like Rutgers and Brown, came to mutual ends after the institutions negotiated with protesters. At Brown, university leaders agreed to vote on divesting from companies that support Israel in exchange for removing the encampment.
The University of Michigan, however, made no such deal. University President Santa Ono instead said that the university will “support multiple opportunities to discuss and debate complicated issues, including the war in the Middle East,” over the next year.
Protesters told Local 4 that the removal of their encampment does not mark the end of their mission.
---> The Israel-Hamas war is testing whether campuses are sacrosanct places for speech and protest
Palestinians in Gaza have been subject to incessant Israeli bombing, displacement, and a lack of food and resources since Oct. 7, 2023. The latest fighting between Israel and Hamas, the group that rules the Gaza territory, was trigged by Hamas’ surprise attack in Israel that October day, in which they took about 250 hostages and killed about 1,200 people, according to the Israeli government.
More than 36,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the fighting began in October, the Gaza Health Ministry reports. Tens of thousands more people have been wounded in Gaza.
Israel still has support from the U.S., its largest ally, plus several other Western countries amid the war -- though that support has slightly waned as the number of civilian casualties continues to rise. The U.S. and other allies have warned Israel against an attack in the city of Rafah, where displaced civilians are seeking refuge amid the war.
Israel recently launched strikes on Rafah, killing at least 16 Palestinians as of Tuesday, according to first responders. U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has said that launching an offensive attack in Rafah would cross a major line.
In a recent move, International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan has accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his defense minister, and three Hamas leaders of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and in Israel. The International Court of Justice last week ordered Israel to halt its military action in Rafah, but the court can’t enforce that order.
“Due to the ongoing public safety issue, Wayne State University will remain on remote operations, on May 29, 2024.
Students will receive further information from their instructors regarding class arrangements via email or Canvas.
Faculty and staff who can work remotely are expected to do so; those who are unable to work remotely should contact their supervisors for further instructions.
All on-campus events are canceled until further notice. Critical infrastructure workers are expected to report to campus."
Wayne State University