Students in Washington, D.C. voted to end the Tinker-Eckhardt war: A lawsuit against Israel for a Palestinian culture night

In a lawsuit filed by students in Washington, D.C., the school prevented the club from showing a documentary film that was critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

On Oct. 7, Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 Israelis and took roughly 240 others hostage, according to Israeli authorities. Israel then launched a war against Hamas inside Gaza. According Gaza’s health ministry, Israel’s military response has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, a majority of them women and children.

The students had a Palestinian culture night in January but the event wasn’t on the official calendar. It was not possible to get the event approval to be held at a later date.

In 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case of Tinker v. Des Moines that “made clear that high school students had a right to peacefully express their views about the war,” said Spitzer.

In 1965, a group of students in Des Moines wore black arm bands in support of the truce in the Vietnam war. The policy states that any student who does not remove the armband will be suspended. On December 16, 1965, two students were sent home, Mary Beth Tinker and Christopher Eckhardt, because they wore their religious symbols to school. The Supreme Court upheld their argument that students’ free speech did not suffer when they stepped onto school property.

The students were able to host on Thursday but it was still not what they would have wanted. They said the school required them to give a list of books they were going to display on a table and symbols.

The students are looking for a federal judge to tackle this case quickly, so they can still host the documentary screening before school ends for seniors on June 7.

Pro-Palestinian protests in Indiana, Washington and Boston, a protest that protested Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip

More than an hour and a half later at Indiana University, campus police and Indiana State Police arrested 23 protesters. A group set up “unapproved temporary or permanent structures” on the campus’s Dunn Meadow and then refused to leave, according to a university statement obtained by NPR.

The school wanted to make sure that the first priority was to create a safe environment that supported teaching and learning.

More than a 1,000 miles east on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis, another pro-Palestinian protest sprung up on Saturday. Protesters spread out on campus with tents and made calls for more people to join, according to a university statement.

“It quickly became clear through the words and actions of this group that they did not have good intentions,” the statement read. “When the group began to set up a camp in violation of university policy, we made the decision to tell everyone present that they needed to leave.”

When the group refused, campus police arrested 80 people – including Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. The Stein campaign confirmed the arrest in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

According to Washington University, all those arrested are facing charges of resisting arrest and assault on a police officer.

According to the statement, the Indiana University Police Department continues to back peaceful protests on campus.

And another 800 miles east at Northeastern University in Boston, state police arrested more than 100 people at a pro-Palestinian demonstration Saturday morning.

According to a post on X, Northeastern University made the decision to arrest protesters after they erected an inn on a public area and used anti-Semitic slurs.

A video circulating on Instagram seems to have caught the moment when someone said “Kill the Jews” at Northeastern, but it’s unclear who said it. A local group posted a video on their website. They claim that a pro-Israel counter- protester made an antisemitic call in order to get attention from proPalestinian demonstrators.

The movement is largely focused on support for people in Gaza and demands that universities divest from companies that profit or support Israel’s war effort in Gaza. The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as some US politicians, have called the demonstrations antisemitic.

Vermont Senator’s tell NPR that he disagrees with Netanyahu’s characterization of student protests as antisemitic.