Roughly a dozen “Gaza solidarity encampments” have proliferated on campuses across the country over the last 48 hours, spurred by the arrests of more than 100 pro-Palestinian student protesters at Columbia University on Thursday.
Columbia students had put up tents on Wednesday, the same day that President Nemat (Minouche) Shafik testified at a congressional hearing about her administration’s response to campus antisemitism since the Israel-Hamas war began. The protesters’ central demand was that Shafik divest Columbia’s endowment from weapons manufacturers, including those with ties to Israel, as a moral statement in support of Palestinians.
Shortly after the arrests, Columbia students rebuilt their encampment on an adjacent quad, where students still remain. Then an encampment sprang up at another campus. And another.
“The students of Columbia, Yale, Rutgers, and countless other schools, with the resilience of their Gaza solidarity encampments, have shown us what it means to resist the powers of our complicit institutions and fight collectively,” read a statement from a coalition of organizations involved in an encampment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Across campuses, students are calling for divestment from Israel and other actions to support Palestinians.
At Emerson College, where students have occupied an alleyway with tents since Sunday night, college officials and Boston police were “closely monitor[ing] the situation,” a spokesperson told the Boston Globe.
Emerson students said they’ve been on high alert after a dozen of their peers were arrested last month while protesting outside the inauguration of the college’s new president. One student participating in the encampment, David, who was arrested during that protest and asked to be identified only by a first name for safety reasons, said the arrests at Columbia resonated with Emerson activists.
“That was a very inspirational moment to see,” he told The Chronicle. “Just like us, so many of their students were being arrested for just peacefully protesting on our own campus that we pay so much for.”
In a statement addressing the encampment, Emerson College said it “strongly supports the right to express one’s beliefs through protest.”
“This right comes with the responsibility of doing so without bigotry or hatred in any form,” the statement says. “We encourage thoughtful dialogue and meaningful expression but will not tolerate actions threatening safety, operations, or educational access.”
As David sees it, supporting divestment doesn’t involve taking a political stance. “Every single college in Gaza has been destroyed,” the Emerson student said. “So, it feels as though you can make a statement about that without choosing sides, which is the core reason why our president has not made a statement.”
Campus Unrest
Echoing mass arrests last week at Columbia University, campus police officers on Monday detained 47 Yale students who were protesting the university’s ties to weapons manufacturers.
Students at the University of Maryland at College Park started their own demonstration on campus Monday morning.
K. Santana, a senior studying sociology at Maryland, was participating in the outdoor sit-in and asked to be identified by a first initial for safety reasons. Santana told The Chronicle that he wants the university to publicly denounce the actions of Israel against Palestinians.
“I think that the long-term plan, if you were to be in charge of one of these institutions, is to read the room,” he said. “By and large, I think that they should get with the young people, go with the trends, and publicly denounce Israel and the United States for waging war on Palestine for 75 years.”
Santana said he often hasn’t felt comfortable talking about his views on campus. He said he has witnessed his professors walk a fine line when talking about Israel’s occupation in Palestine.
“When you are pro-Palestine, you don’t necessarily feel in these classes that you can be outwardly so for fear of causing a disruption,” Santana said.
At New York University, in lower Manhattan, a large crowd gathered Monday at a campus plaza, where an encampment was set up at 6 a.m. By late afternoon, the university had issued a dispersal order, according to the NYU Palestinian Solidarity Coalition, warning students of “severe consequences” and that “anything is on the table.” The university on Instagram said it had witnessed “disorderly, disruptive, and antagonizing behavior” at the plaza.
At the New School, also in Manhattan, students who had set up a small encampment inside the University Center received handouts notifying them that the protest was not in accordance with university policy. Students causing “disruptions to the educational environment … may be subject to sanction,” the notice read, ranging from warnings to expulsion.
Harvard University preemptively closed Harvard Yard from Monday through Friday, restricting access to Harvard ID holders and banning structures in the Yard without prior permission in anticipation of similar demonstrations.
Columbia isn’t the first university where students have been arrested for occupying campus property while calling for divestment from companies involved with the Israeli military. But more commonly, police have been called when protesters are demonstrating inside campus buildings, not on outdoor quads like Columbia’s.
On April 5, Vanderbilt University expelled three students and issued interim suspensions to 27 others who participated in a 22-hour sit-in inside a university building to protest the administration’s blocking of a student referendum vote on divestment from Israel. The same day, police arrested 20 student protesters at Pomona College who had entered the president’s office.
Columbia’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine shared a post on Instagram Sunday, imploring other pro-Palestinian student activists interested in starting their own encampments not to “make this solely about solidarity with Columbia.”
“This is about solidarity with Gaza first and foremost,” the post read. “Use Columbia as an example of how to escalate.”
