Nearly 100 students and supporters were arrested Wednesday night and charged with criminal trespass after refusing to disperse from the Dartmouth College green during a protest against Israel’s military action in the Gaza strip, Gov. Chris Sununu confirmed.
Sununu praised the action of Hanover, campus, New Hampshire State Police and college administrators in quelling the disturbance without having to resort to more forceful crackdowns as has been seen on other college campuses.
“I am shocked frankly especially with what we saw at Dartmouth. These young people who are potentially throwing away their careers and degrees and opportunity,” Sununu said on the Morning Information Center radio program with Mike Pomp Thursday morning.
“You can take this whole discussion to, where are the parents?”
State Police issued a statement Wednesday night after the arrests were made starting around 9 p.m. Hanover and campus police were processing the arrests, officials said.
“Tonight, the New Hampshire State Police deployed personnel and various resources to the University of New Hampshire and Dartmouth College campuses in response to illegal activity and at the request of local law enforcement,” the statement said.
Earlier Wednesday, Sununu said the protests at Columbia University and other college campuses across the country against Israeli actions are “pure antisemitism, pure hatred,” driven by students who are informed about world events by what they see on social media rather than what they learn in the classroom.
“This is driven by antisemitism. One hundred percent this is pure antisemitism, this is pure hate and I am disgusted by it,” Sununu said after Wednesday’s Executive Council meeting.
Sununu praised public and private higher education administrators in New Hampshire for working to ensure that demonstrations at Dartmouth College, the University of New Hampshire in Durham and other campuses have been largely respectful and peaceful.
A representative of the Palestinian Solidarity Coalition at Dartmouth said the group planned to set up an encampment on the Hanover campus Wednesday night.
“My understanding is they are going to allow some encampment or sit-in,” Sununu said. “We will make sure we are working with them to make sure their voices are heard and … (protesters) do it in a peaceful way.”
Later Sununu expressed optimism that Dartmouth officials can safely manage the event.
“I am hopeful that things are not going to go badly,” Sununu said.
There have been smaller demonstrations at New Hampshire colleges by students and citizens objecting to the Israeli offensive in Gaza.
“They have all done a very, very good job to date” to make sure the discussions are peaceful and respect the rights of all, Sununu said.
According to published reports, a speaker at a recent UNH protest said the lives of Palestinians were “more important than that dirty rag,” referring to the American flag.
On Tuesday, 215 human rights organizations including the Movement for Black Lives, Greenpeace USA and the Working Families Party issued a statement praising the campus protests and condemning university crackdowns against them.
”We commend the students who are exercising their right to protest peacefully despite an overwhelming atmosphere of pressure, intimidation and retaliation, to raise awareness about Israel’s assault on Gaza–with U.S. weapons and funding,” the statement said.
Sununu’s father, former Gov. and White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu, has described himself as “a third-generation American, a Lebanese American and an Arab American” with family roots in Lebanon, Greece and El Salvador.
Emergency Management and Homeland Security Director Robert Buxton has over the past few weeks been reaching out to college officials to ensure they have the resources they need to keep demonstrations under control, Sununu said.
“I think that everyone sees what is happening nationally and everyone is pretty appalled by it,” Sununu said.
“It is really important we don’t take that for granted and make sure that it (a civil protest) is maintained,” Sununu said.
Larger protests at Columbia University and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) have been fueled by the activism of non-students, he said.
“We know a lot of these folks aren’t just students. There are a lot of outsider folks,” Sununu said.
Sununu said he is proud to have signed a state law in 2020 requiring teaching of the Holocaust and genocides in public schools.
Restriction proposed
Last summer, Sununu signed an executive order that no state investments or contracts could be made with interests that have boycotted Israel.
The New Hampshire House of Representatives will vote Thursday on a Senate-passed bill (SB 439) to adopt that order into state law as it applies to state agencies.
The House Executive Departments and Administration Committee voted 14-6 to recommend the bill be killed by the full House Thursday.
“Political positions and statements are any organization’s free-speech choices,” said Rep. Carol McGuire, R-Epsom, who chairs the panel.
“If we were to add this restriction it could open the state procurement system to be controlled by the political winds of the day. State procurement and contracting choices should only be used to get the best deals possible for the New Hampshire taxpayers.”
The bill would not apply to the investments of either the state retirement system or the state treasurer, which are not state departments, McGuire said.
Rep. Carroll Brown, R-Bristol, urged the House to pass the bill.
“The minority feels that it is important to support the United States government position in its support of Israel as an ally,” Brown said.
Sununu defended his position and signaled his hope the House would support the policy.
“It is not a political position,” he said. “It is about antisemitism and hatred.”
The products or services from anti-Israel interests should have “no place” in state purchasing, he said.
Even before the Hamas violent attacks against Israel that killed 1,200 last October, legislators had proposed bipartisan legislation to define the free-speech rights of protests conducted on public higher education campuses (HB 1305).
The state Senate is expected to approve the measure Thursday with some minor changes to the House bill.
Sununu praised those promoting this for seeking the right balance between free expression and public civility.
The House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee on Wednesday also endorsed, 20-0, putting into state law a contemporary definition of antisemitism at the behest of Chairman and Rep. Terry Roy, R-Deerfield.
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance first took up the issue in May 2016; nearly three dozen other states have adopted it, as have the past four presidential administrations, Roy said.
The definition, when applied to an illegal act, can be used to charge an individual with a hate crime, he said. The language was added to an unrelated bill (SB 508) dealing with a screening of inmates in county jails who may suffer from a mental health or substance use disorder.
