The campus of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Dozens of Brown University anti-Zionist protesters were arrested on Monday by campus police for staging an unauthorized protest in the University Hall administrative building, the Brown Daily Herald reported.

According to the paper, the protesters, members of Brown Divest Coalition (BDC) who had demanded that President Christina Paxson divest from “Israeli military occupation,” were arrested in the building while spectators chanted “shame on Brown, shame on Brown.”

“To expedite the process and avoid processing arrests in two locations, Brown [Department of Public Safety] arranged with the Providence Police Department to conduct all arrest processing on-site in University Hall,” a university spokesperson told Brown Daily Herald in a statement. “The disruption to secure buildings is not acceptable, and the university is prepared to escalate the level of criminal charges for future incidents of students occupying secure buildings.”

This is not the first time the university has ordered the arrest of students. Last month, 20 members of BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now were trespassed and arrested after occupying University Hall. The university eventually requested that the charges against them be dropped.

The university has said that deciding to arrests its own students is not something it takes lightly.

“The students fully understood that they would not be allowed to remain in the building after normal operating hours for security reasons, and they could face disciplinary action for violating policies, as well as arrest,” a spokesperson said on Monday.

Anti-Zionists at Brown University have either cheered the atrocities the terrorist groups Hamas committed during an invasion across southern Israel on Oct. 7 or called for a ceasefire that experts have said would hinder Israel’s ability to destroy it.

Brown President Christina Paxson has repeatedly called for respect and civil dialogue since Oct. 7, reaching out to the campus Jewish community as well as denouncing hatred of Muslims.

In the past, she has adamantly rejected demands that the university boycott Israel or sever ties with it.

“We reject calls to use our endowment as a tool for political advocacy,” she said in Feburary during a speech delivered at the 2023 Hillel International Israel Summit, a gathering of students and leaders with interest and expertise in Israel. “Doing this would be antithetical to freedom of expression and the advancement of knowledge.”

In 2019, she rejected a referendum, in which only 27.5 percent of undergraduate participated, calling on the university divest its endowment of companies believed to be “complicit in human rights abuses in Palestine.”

Explaining her decision, she said, “We shouldn’t, in most cases, take political positions.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.