Auraria Campus says it will likely have to replace grass after encampment

DENVER (KDVR) — The pro-Palestinian encampment has cleared out of the Auraria Campus in Denver, and the area is now fenced off. But campus leaders say they will likely have to replace all the grass on the Tivoli Quad.

“There’s several burn spots where a lot of the structures sat for the three and half weeks, and we’ll have to do an assessment as far as cleanliness on the quad because there were some biohazard concerns,” said Devra Ashby, a spokesperson for the Auraria Campus, which is home to the University of Colorado at Denver, Community College of Denver and Metropolitan State University of Denver.

She said clean-up crews found evidence of drug paraphernalia and human waste.

The three-week encampment cost the campus an estimated $290,000 , although an exact breakdown of where that money was or will be spent was not provided.

“That comes from lost parking revenue, event cancellation revenue. It comes from damages and repairs that we’ve already had to do. It also comes from an estimated cost of law enforcement agencies that have come in to help support our Auraria Campus Police Department, as well as what we are looking to do to replace the quad at a future date,” Ashby said.

FOX31 caught up with protesters as they were moving out over the weekend .

“We are going to be expanding this fight to different fronts as we move into the summer,” said Paul Nelson.

The group was demanding full disclosure of investments from the schools on campus and divestment from entities that aided Israel. Nelson said the group did not get everything it wanted from the protest.

“We’re sad to say that it hasn’t won divestment, but it has won a tremendous amount of momentum towards it. We got full disclosure from the university at MSU,” he said.

Over the three weeks, there were 80 arrests and citations given. A breakdown provided by Auraria on May 16 said 16 were actively enrolled students, 41 were non-students, and 20 were “not actively enrolled students/alumni.”

It is possible those who are students will have to go through a code of conduct review.

MSU Denver said it will not initiate a student discipline process until the school has complete information. A spokesperson added: “Peacefully protesting in accordance with campus policies is not a violation of the student code of conduct and is protected by the First Amendment.”

Campus leaders say they are now looking at the outcomes at other universities that had protests and having discussions about changes that could be made moving forward.

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