A massive group of faculty and staff at the University of North Carolina (UNC) wants student protesters to be allowed to get back to class after anti-Israel demonstrations erupted on campus.
The protesters in question are facing suspension, and 700 members of the faculty and staff have signed a petition asking for amnesty for them, WRAL reported Monday.
The outlet noted that a few days ago law enforcement officers closed in to remove and detain dozens of the demonstrators on the campus.
Protests have been erupting on college and university campuses across America amid the war between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group.
Meanwhile, “The faculty members plan to deliver this letter Monday afternoon in Peace and Justice Plaza,” the WRAL article said.
On Sunday, CBS 17 reported that approximately 1,000 protesters flooded UNC’s campus. The march was organized by students who had also organized earlier encampments, the outlet noted.
“They say that the arrests will not stop them from fighting for Gaza,” a reporter for the outlet said, noting that the protesters were demanding the university “divest from its investments with Israel and for an end to the war in Gaza”:
On Tuesday, UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor Lee H. Roberts returned the American flag to the top of a flag pole after the anti-Israel protesters took it down and replaced it with a Palestinian flag, Breitbart News reported.
BREAKING: The American Flag is back up at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Chancellor Lee Roberts came out and did it himself. pic.twitter.com/Be5HimksfH
— Stu (@thestustustudio) April 30, 2024
Police escorted Roberts to the flag pole where he hoisted the American flag to its proper place. Moments later, anti-Israel protesters and police officials clashed. Law enforcement officers used pepper spray on some of the demonstrators.
The outlet highlighted the fact that “Israel launched a self-defense operation in the Hamas-controlled territory of Gaza after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, leaving 1,200 Israelis dead and more than 200 people taken as hostages.”
When speaking to reporters after the flag incident, Lee said, “This university doesn’t belong to a small group of protesters. It belongs to every citizen of North Carolina”:
“The flag represents all of us. To take down that flag and put up another flag, no matter what other flag it is, that’s antithetical to who we are, what this university stands for, and what we have done for 229 years,” he stated.
