Princeton University has issued an edict to Pro Palestinian demonstrators telling them in a letter to the Campus Community Monday night that they need to clear out their encampment on Canon green also the university can prepare for annual class Day Celebrations the message comes as more than a dozen students who've been on a hunger strike since May 3rd ended their fast and traded off with new participants to keep the strike going as Ted Goldberg reports little is known about the deadline or consequences for ending the encampment as Princeton prepares for commencement on May 28th the school's message to anyone in the encampment is to get out forcing protesters to figure out their next steps we're just communicating with uh princ Administration thus far uh the Administration has not yet met our demands so we're still deliberating on what to do president Christopher ice grber sent out a message last night saying that protesters needed to leave Canon green but didn't set a hard deadline he said having protesters there makes it impossible to ready the green for class day and other events under these circumstances to continue the sit in would involve a significant and impermissible disruption of University activities this comes as a second wave of a hunger strike begins until Princeton grants amnesty for the 15 people arrested during protests they have dispelled the notion that this movement is violent in any form because hunger striking is a peaceful Act of self-deprivation their act of um compassion by doing this hunger strike uh has enabled us to you know better uh facilitate conversations with the administration uh that being said for us our top priority of The Hunger Strikers is their health and safety period MO is a student here and says the first wave of hunger Strikers had to stop after a week and a half for health concerns one of them was sent to the hospital uh unfortunately had uh uh poor vital on one day and so uh um yeah she had to go to the hospital and then uh the other ones are recovering us Democratic Senate candidate and Princeton grad Larry ham has joined the hunger strike for 24 hours I think it diminished the stature of the University a university is supposed to be a place for the expression of of controversial ideas for debate discussion and historically universities have been a place for student protest ham says he'll only drink water out of solidarity which was something we didn't do in 1978 when we took over when 210 of us took over Nassau Hall we didn't have a hunger strike and I was very impressed extremely impressed by the number of days Princeton's President also said the university would work to minimize the impact of the arrest on the participating students the restorative justice option would require students to accept responsibility for violating University policy promised to avoid future violations and reconcile with people significantly affected by their actions protesters have said that's not good enough to end the hunger strike but they're satisfied there's at least some communication our satisfaction with how the Administration has responded to us has been uh less than what we had hoped for uh but we still think that uh uh the negotiations that we are partaking in uh are still uh a success for for us there was also a meeting today held by the Council of Princeton University Community Resources committee to give an initial assessment for the protesters requests to divest so while protesters have started packing their belongings they may not be finished making their voices heard in Princeton I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight news