Conflicting reports emerged early Wednesday on a potential negotiated end to the standoff with pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the library at Portland State University, which has closed the entire campus for a second straight day
A spokesperson for the university told The Oregonian/OregonLive that negotiators had offered students a deal under which they would face no criminal charges for leaving the library, but that it was not immediately clear whether any had agreed to those terms.
It also remains unclear how many people in the library are enrolled at Portland State or how many are there, though Police Chief Bob Day estimated on Monday that there were between 50 and 75. Protest organizers have said that a student ID is needed to enter the building.
Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt had said earlier in the week that those who remained in the building could face prosecution.
However, in an Instagram post, protesters inside the building disputed the university’s account of the negotiation process.
“Ann Cudd and faculty gave false hope in regards to negotiations, only to flip at the last second,” the post read. “We had agreed to walk out of the library tonight, to which we were continuously given false hope for.”
A protester who was outside the building as a media liaison told reporters that anyone who could speak to the current state of negotiations was asleep.
Though most of the Millar Library’s first-floor windows have been covered, pictures inside at least two lower level areas show debris on the floor, furniture moved around and graffiti on some walls.
Protesters gathered outside the library have said they were determined to remain until their demands are met, including for the university to cut ties with any company or organization that has business interests in Israel and for the school’s administration to issue a call for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.
Colleges across the country have grappled with how to respond to the wave of student activism around the Israel-Hamas war, which began Oct. 7 when about 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas attacks on Israel. The Gazan Ministry of Health has since reported that more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed by the ensuing Israeli response.
The Portland State University protest is just one of a number of such protests across Oregon colleges and universities. Several dozen students at Reed College in Southeast Portland began occupying a room in Eliot Hall on Monday, a central services building there, a Reed spokesperson said, and have been receiving regular visits from administrators.
The standoff at Portland State is unfolding against a backdrop of similar conflicts at universities around the country. On Tuesday night alone, dozens of students at Columbia University and the City College of New York in Harlem were arrested. Columbia University said those involved were facing expulsion.
The library is near the center of campus, along the South Park Blocks between Southwest Hall and Harrison streets. The building has five floors and a front portico with landscaping now dominated by signs, tarps and wooden pallets.
Around 6:30 a.m., several men guarding the library door pushed another man down the stairs after he had tried to engage them in political discussion.
©2024 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit oregonlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
