HYDE PARK — Hundreds of students and community members set up camp on University of Chicago’s main quad Monday morning in solidarity with Palestinians abroad and in the United States who are demanding an end to violence in Gaza.
The protest, which comes amid similar actions on campuses nationwide, is intended to center the violence Gazans have faced and the needs of all Palestinians — not the students themselves, organizers said.
“We are seeing how, with all of these college movements, the focus on the news has become about the universities,” said Rayna, an organizer with UChicago United for Palestine who did not share their last name. “We want the focus to always remain on Gaza, on Palestine, on the fact that people are being bombed daily.”
Hamas, the group which controls the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip, launched a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7. Militants killed an estimated 1,200 Israelis and took around 240 hostages in what President Joe Biden called the deadliest day for Jewish civilians since the Holocaust.
The Israeli military has retaliated with months of airstrikes, raids and other military actions in Gaza. Health authorities say more than 34,000 people — or about 1.5 percent of Gaza’s pre-war population — have been killed, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.
At least 434 more Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank territory since the war started, the majority by Israeli forces, according to the United Nations. Human rights advocates and critics of the war have raised concerns and accusations that Israel is going beyond the bounds of war on Hamas to commit genocide against Palestinian civilians, something Israel has roundly rejected.
For nearly the entire seven months of war, pro-Palestine UChicago students have organized on campus to demand university leaders “divest, disclose and repair.”
Organizers want UChicago to cut ties with Israeli companies and the Israel Institute, publicize its investments in weapons manufacturers, and commit to a program of reparations “from Palestine to the South Side,” among other demands.
Past student actions include a November sit-in at Rosenwald Hall, during which police arrested 26 students and two faculty members before prosecutors dropped charges, according to the Chicago Maroon. Organizers also gathered daily in the quad starting last fall, giving passersby context on the war which centered Palestinians.
This week’s encampment began after a rally and march on campus Friday that drew more than 200 people. Activists have planned the encampment for months, and some organizers are willing to remain in place as long as necessary to achieve their demands, Rayna said.
“I would choose to stay here indefinitely, and I know that other people would also,” Rayna said. “… We will be here until the university acknowledges the scholasticide that is happening in Palestine.”
University President Paul Alivisatos said in a campus-wide message the encampment “clearly violates policies against building structures on campus without prior approval and against overnight sleeping on campus.” For now, however, leaders will not move to clear the encampment, saying the university’s general principle is to give “the greatest leeway possible for free expression, even expression of viewpoints that some find deeply offensive.”
“I believe the protesters should also consider that an encampment, with all the etymological connections of the word to military origins, is a way of using force of a kind rather than reason to persuade others,” Alivisatos wrote.
“For a short period of time, however, the impact of a modest encampment does not differ so much from a conventional rally or march. Given the importance of the expressive rights of our students, we may allow an encampment to remain for a short time despite the obvious violations of policy — but those violating university policy should expect to face disciplinary consequences.”
Alivisatos urged students to consider other methods to make their point.
“If necessary, we will act to preserve the essential functioning of the campus against the accumulated effects of these disruptions. I ask the students who have established this encampment to instead embrace the multitude of other tools at their disposal. Seek to persuade others of your viewpoint with methods that do not violate policies or disrupt the functioning of the University and the safety of others,” he wrote.
Organizers at the encampment spoke to the need for solidarity between South Siders and Palestinians, as both groups experience systematic violence and displacement, they said.
Owing to longstanding issues surrounding the university’s relationship with the community it inhabits, students also called on the school to abolish its private police force, fund South Side housing and education programs, stop new construction projects in the area, and more.
“We say ‘free Palestine’ from the Mississippi River to the Mediterranean Sea,” an organizer with Not Me We said during a rally Monday afternoon.
The university historically has resisted academic boycotts and demands of divestment, saying it does not endorse social or political stances in order to preserve academic freedom.
Leaders rebuffed calls to break with companies doing business in Israel in 2016 and opposed calls to boycott Israeli institutions in 2013. The university also resisted calls to divest from companies doing business with the Sudanese government during the war in Darfur.
“This is [the university’s] chance to change the narrative you have built for yourself,” Abby, an organizer with Social Workers Against Genocide and a master’s student at the Crown Family School of Social Work, told the crowd at the rally.
“The whole world is watching you,” Abby said. “Now is the time to divest. Now is the time to listen to your students and to the community members who you have displaced.”
Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th), who has staunchly supported pro-Palestine organizing and calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, arrived on campus late Monday afternoon to speak to the demonstrators.
The Pilsen alderman recently drew backlash after speaking at a pro-Palestine rally where a demonstrator burned an American flag. A vote to oust him from his committee chair position failed earlier this month.
“I stand in full solidarity with the movement here on the University of Chicago and the students who are a facing a reckoning with the history of the University of Chicago that has been on the wrong side of history for many other things,” Sigcho-Lopez said. “I’m so proud as a City Council member to see the unity of the students, the clarity and the courage of you all, in the midst of the atrocity of a genocide happening in front of our very eyes.”
Sigcho-Lopez was among the City Council members who supported the resolution calling for a ceasefire in February. Mayor Brandon Johnson casted the tiebreaking vote in favor.
“There’s no mistake that the resistance starts in our college campuses,” Sigcho-Lopez said. “Chicago took a courageous stance being the first large city to pass the ceasefire resolution, because of the organizing of our communities on the ground.”
One counterprotester released a “stink bomb” in the early minutes of the encampment, leading to a confrontation that was resolved fairly quickly, an organizer said.
A video apparently showing the aftermath of the stink bomb shows organizers confronting the person. Police escorted the counterprotester away, and that person did not return, organizers said.
The encampment drew a noticeable police presence, but the encampment remained peaceful as of noon Monday. UChicago Police officers mostly stood or drove Segways around and watched.
At Northwestern University in nearby Evanston, officials announced Monday they reached an agreement with pro-Palestine protesters to end an encampment that began Thursday, according to the Daily Northwestern.
The agreement will allow protests and gatherings in support of Palestine at Deering Meadow through June 1. University officials also committed to providing an “immediate temporary space” for Middle Eastern, North African and Muslim students as a permanent home for those students is completed, the Daily Northwestern reported.
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