On a windy afternoon this week, students on Denver’s Auraria Campus snapped pre-graduation pictures and walked to finals. Most seemed to pay little attention to the quiet encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters that has taken over the quad.

Over the last two weeks, the encampment has grown into the largest of any of its kind on a Colorado university campus, with dozens of tents and at times holding up to a thousand protesters. But the setting differs from the recent protests at private colleges that have attracted the most attention nationally.

The public campus that houses Metropolitan State University of Denver, the University of Colorado Denver, and the Community College of Denver is largely composed of commuter students who are from low-income backgrounds, which stands in contrast to private campuses with the most high-profile protests, such as Columbia University in New York City.

The campus protesters against the Israel-Hamas war and U.S. involvement in it are part of a nationwide movement of students who have called for universities to divest from any corporations operating in Israel, among other demands. But as at other colleges, some Jewish students say the encampment should be taken down and that the protest has disturbed the climate on campus and made them feel less safe.

Read more at Chalkbeat Colorado.

Chalkbeat Colorado is a nonprofit news organization covering education issues. For more, visit chalkbeat.org/co.

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