ASU President Michael Crow pleased with university’s handling of pro-Palestine protest
May 7, 2024, 2:59 PM | Updated: May 8, 2024, 5:04 pm
PHOENIX — Arizona State University President Michael Crow applauded how the school handled a pro-Palestine protest on campus nearly two weeks ago, praising the police response and overall nature of the demonstration.
“I thought that it was actually executed very well by the ASU police and the state police that helped us out,” Crow told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show on Tuesday.
“Again, there were no weapons that were used … it came out about as well as could be expected given the complication of the nature of the demonstration.”
The April 26 protest on ASU’s Tempe campus resulted in 72 trespassing arrests. Most of the people arrested weren’t students of the university.
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Their arrests were a result of school policy, which prohibits unauthorized encampments and limits lawful demonstrations from the hours of 5 a.m. to 11 p.m.
The encampment and demonstration continued past 11 p.m. and the arrested individuals did not heed warnings to leave the premises. As a result, the encampments were torn down.
“We allow for free expression. We allow for people to gather. We allow for demonstrations,” Crow said. “We have many demonstrations throughout any academic year.
“We allow for all of that; you can’t disrupt the function of the university and you can’t build structures on the campus of the university because that’s disruptive to the institutions.”
ASU’s two main commencement ceremonies went off without a hitch on Monday after the university said it would kick out those who caused disruptions.
Other universities across the nation where pro-Palestine protests occurred have seen issues at graduation and violence with the actual demonstrations.
“There were some individual demonstrators in and around graduation, which was fine,” Crow said. “No one worked to disrupt the big graduations that we’ve had.”
