The Daily Emerald is providing live coverage of the University of Oregon’s pro-Palestine encampment, which began on April 29 at 7 a.m. All of our coverage on the encampment can be found here.

On April 29, multiple student organizations at the University of Oregon, including Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace and Grads for Palestine, established a pro-Palestine encampment on the Memorial Quad, following a wave of universities across the nation already doing so. 

 Since then, unions on campus such as the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation, University of Oregon Student Workers and United Academics of the University of Oregon have released or plan to release statements regarding the encampment and the student demonstrators involved.

In a statement posted on its Instagram, UOSW announced its solidarity with the encampment. Numerous leaders of the union are actively involved in the encampment. 
UOSW acknowledged in the post that “we stand with and support the students at the encampment, and stand firmly against the use of law enforcement, firing, or academic discipline of students exercising their rights.”
GTFF released its statement on May 2 detailing its support for the students within the encampment and for the right of freedom of speech. The statement also included ways for students to protect themselves during this time. 
In an email statement to the Daily Emerald, GTFF President Leslie Selcer stated that the union hopes members of the encampment are not faced with the same level of police response that has been seen at other campus demonstrations.
“Our main concern is that UO and local police do not respond to the encampment with the kind of police brutality, repression and retaliation that we have seen at other campuses across the nation,” Selcer stated. “It disgusts us to see administrators sending riot police to brutalize their students/faculty for protesting the ongoing 76 plus years of genocide in Palestine.”

Some members of GTFF are participants in the encampment via the Working Committee of Grads for Palestine. 
United Academics President Mike Urbancic acknowledged the work that student organizers at the encampment have put in, including their “level of organization and discipline.”
UA released its statement on May 3. The statement addresses the right to open expression on college campuses, as well as denouncing the use of police brutality. 
According to its statement, UA announced that “we are alarmed at the shameless exertion of pressure on university leaders by the nation’s politicians, by the universities’ most powerful donors and by other interest groups. We are even more alarmed at how quickly our institutional leaders have capitulated to that pressure. In just a few months, too many university leaders have abandoned long-standing principles of academic freedom and shared governance that are meant to protect colleges from such outside influence.”
Other organizations on campus have released statements regarding the encampment, including Ducks for Israel and University of Oregon Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine.