Auraria students protesting the Iraq War spurred a camping ban on campus years before the City of Denver created one.
The tents on Auraria Campus go against a camping ban on the property, but the campus officials haven't enforced it.The students want the University of Colorado, Denver and Metropolitan State University to cut all ties with Israel and condemn its actions. They plan to keep the encampment going until those demands are met, but the campus has a longstanding ban on camping that students are violating by setting up tents on Auraria’s Tivoli Quad.
According to Williams, the campus had the largest college-based military recruiting center of any school in Colorado back then. “We, as a group of students, had an encampment,” Williams says. “And we also had consistent protests.” Despite the efforts of protestors like Williams in the early 2000s, the Iraq War lasted until 2011, and there are still military recruitment centers at the Auraria Campus today. But so is Williams, who is now advising and supporting the Students for a Democratic Society, the group organizing the Palestine encampment.
“Camping is defined as the use of Auraria Campus facilities or grounds for living accommodations or housing purposes, such as overnight sleeping or making preparations for overnight sleeping , the making of any fire for cooking, lighting or warmth, or the erection or use of tents, motor vehicles, or other structures for living or shelter,” the
However, as Williams points out, The City of Denver’s camping ban, instituted in 2012, was spurred by Occupy Wall Street protests — although it is now mainly used to address those living on the city’s streets.In 2011, people pitched tents across downtown Denver, including in Civic Center Park, as part of a protest held across the country against economic inequality and financial corruption.
“From our perspective, the camping ban in Denver, and everywhere else that has a camping ban, is unconstitutional under our state constitution as cruel and unusual punishment because it criminalizes one of the activities of survival,” Mclean-Riggs adds.“The camping ban is a time, place and manner restriction under the First Amendment put in place to ensure the health, safety and mission of the campus is not compromised,” Ashby says.
College Palestine Protests Denver Camping Ban
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