This post was updated May 3 at 1:10 a.m.

For the Daily Bruin’s full coverage of the UC Divest Coalition and Students for Justice in Palestine encampment, see here.

Students expressed support for UCLA’s decision to transition to remote classes for the remainder of the week.

In a BruinAlert sent at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, the university announced that classes will be held remotely Thursday and Friday. This statement comes after Wednesday classes were canceled following attacks on the pro-Palestine encampment in Dickson Plaza by counter-protesters Tuesday night. 

Many students said they appreciated UCLA’s choice to pivot to remote classes because they did not feel safe on campus. 

A spokesperson from the UC Divest Coalition at UCLA said in a press conference that 25 protesters within the pro-Palestine encampment were hospitalized after events Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

“It’s the most appropriate move to make after what happened last night,” said Kelly Li, a second-year human biology and society student. “It’s the only thing that they could do right now to protect the students.”

Caitlin Morlett, a second-year linguistics and psychology student, said she would not feel comfortable attending classes on campus because of recent violence.

“Especially after seeing all the videos from last night, you just don’t know who’s there or what weapons they may have,” she said. “A lot of people that aren’t students were coming in, so that’s kind of scary.”

Some students said their midterms were canceled or moved to next week. Karen Tadeo, a first-year psychology student, said while canceling classes through the end of the week is appropriate, any more days off could cause students to fall behind in their learning.

“Thursday or Friday, it’s only two days, and students have Saturday and Sunday to get back,” she said. “But if they do extend it to another week, I would be like, ‘Oh, what is going on?’ We actually need to get to class.”

Cooper Darling, a first-year civil engineering student, said the school should prioritize safety for students and protesters over hosting in-person classes and midterms.  

“Obviously, what is being protested is also much more important in the larger scale of things,” he said. “Things will get adjusted – I know things are getting moved online, so we’ll be able to recover.”

Darling added that, in addition to moving classes to a remote setting, UCLA should support students by providing mental health resources to those affected by on-campus violence and protection for peaceful protesters on campus. 

“Last night was a particularly bad incident,” he said. “They should try to protect peaceful protesters and maintain the safety of the campus as a whole.”