Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) is pressuring Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser to help police clear the pro-Palestinian protesters’ encampment at George Washington University.
Cotton wrote a letter to Bowser, accusing her of “failing to protect the rights of law-abiding citizens by letting a terrorist-supporting mob take over a large area of a university.”
Washington, D.C., police denied the private university’s requests to receive help to clear the encampment because they were “worried about the optics of moving against a small number of peaceful protesters,” the Washington Post reported on Friday.
“Campus officials requested help from the D.C. Metro Police last week, but even as they prepared to assist, the mayor’s office told police to stand down and said it would look bad publicly for police to disrupt a ‘small number of peaceful protestors,’” Cotton wrote in the letter, which he endorsed on his X account. “I’m writing to inform you: What looks bad publicly is D.C. allowing a band of antisemitic, mask-wearing fanatics who call for an ‘intifada revolution’ to turn a university into a pro-Hamas encampment.”
The move is unusual given that multiple other universities, such as the University of Texas at Austin, have been granted police support for protests around the Israel-Hamas war. However, UT is a public university, while GWU is private, and Washington, D.C., police did not seem convinced a crime had been committed on the campus.
Washington, D.C., police officers have still kept a steady presence near the GWU site.
“I have no doubt that if protestors were illegally gathered in opposition to Washington, D.C.’s disastrous record on crime, you would have quickly ordered the police to intervene,” Cotton’s letter states.
“Whether it is due to incompetence or sympathy for the cause of these Hamas supporters, you are failing to protect the rights of law-abiding citizens by letting a terrorist-supporting mob take over a large area of a university. Your actions are a good reminder of why Washington, D.C. must never become a state. I’m calling on you to reverse your decision and allow the D.C. police to uphold the law.”
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The private university provided an update on the encampment on Sunday, saying it “violates our clearly defined rules of conduct and behavior.”
“Further, the actions of some protestors have been highly offensive to many members of our community. The protest is jeopardizing our ability to meet the priorities of our university community, and the hateful language being displayed has no place on our campus.”
