College Campus Protests
A conversation with the students behind the Israel-Hamas war protests
Philadelphia, April 26th — Twenty-four hours after students at the University of Pennsylvania set up an encampment to protest the university’s policies with regards to the Israel-Hamas war, I set foot onto College Green, the heart of Penn’s campus. I had imagined irate protesters, armed police officers in riot gear, and the beginnings of unfettered chaos. Instead, I found the opposite.
Students lounged in the grass; some affixed handmade banners to trees, others weaved gingerly through tents and tables stacked with platters of food, while others simply laid on blankets soaking up the sun. A faculty member sat in a lawn chair surrounded by a semicircle of students, engaged in a dialogue about addressing anti-Semitism during the protests. On the outskirts of the encampment, photographers scoured the worn brick walkways in hopes of finding a memorable shot of the protesters. Several police officers stood casually at least fifty feet away, observing the situation keenly but not intervening.
Though the scene was peaceful when I visited, Penn experienced its share of turmoil in the following days. That evening, Penn notified protesters that they were in violation of university policy and instructed them to disband the encampment. Dozens of complaints of harassment were filed with the university within two days of the encampment being established.
The administration formally spoke with the students several times to discuss their demands, but ultimately deemed them unreasonable. On May 9th, six students who participated in the encampments were placed on a mandatory leave of absence, as they were deemed a threat to campus safety. The next day, the encampment was disbanded by police. On May 18th, students occupied Fisher-Bennett Hall, where nineteen people were arrested.
In hopes of better understanding the motivations behind the protests, I spoke with three of the protest’s organizers — Penn undergraduate students Emma Herndon, Sophia Rosser, and Taja Mazaj — on April 26th. If you prefer to read these interviews, we have attached full-length transcriptions at the end of this article, which have been edited for clarity.
Intentions versus reality
The protesters at the University of Pennsylvania set up an encampment with three clear demands, urging the university to disclose its investments, divest from the Israeli state and military, and defend the voices of pro-Palestinian students on campus. The organizers I spoke with appeared to be well-intentioned, but the reality of how their ideals manifest across hundreds of participants is far more varied.
According to Herndon, “being pro-Palestine is being anti-hate”. On one hand, there are many participants who care deeply about realizing this message by demonstrating peacefully, respecting the viewpoints of others, and understanding the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict. As she mentioned, there were an abundance of constructive activities available to protesters, including student-led teach-ins, song workshops, and art builds. However, there are a portion of students who have engaged in harassment and other unethical behavior.
On the first day of the Penn encampment, a statue of Benjamin Franklin was spray-painted with an anti-Semitic message. Sitting directly across from the center of the encampment on College Green, it was a glaring example of the moral disunity amongst the protesters. On social media, Jewish students shared videos of being confronted and verbally abused on campus. Members of the encampment also reported being harassed and threatened. In one instance, a pro-Israel counter-protester with a knife holster approached the encampment but was apprehended by police before the situation could escalate.
Like many other universities in the United States, Penn’s administration was unable to reach a compromise with students. In the first week of the protests, students met twice with university officials. In addition to demanding that the encampment be disbanded, a university spokesperson said:
We also stated our desire to move beyond a posture of demand vs. counter-demand and towards shared opportunities that help create a more inclusive, respectful campus environment.
While protesters deliberated with the administration, tensions on campus rose, culminating in a forceful removal of students by police and the occupation of Fisher-Bennett Hall.
On a wider scale, the majority of university protests across the United States remained peaceful — at least until the start of May. According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), over 97% of student protests between October 7th and May 3rd stayed peaceful. Only a small percentage of protests went beyond shoving, pushing, and minor property damage. Protests in other countries such as Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands have had varied levels of peace, with some leading to violent confrontations with police.
Representation in the media
Despite these statistics, many widely-read news outlets have forgone nuanced coverage of the protests in favor of overly simplistic — and at times — sensationalized reporting. In a USA Today article published on April 30th, columnist Ingrid Jacques criticized Joe Biden’s comments on the protests, in which he stated:
I condemn the anti-Semitic protests. … I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.
Jacques argues that the university protests deserve “no support from the president” due to the anti-Semitic incidents that have occurred on campus. Although she cites misconduct at several campuses, she inaccurately generalizes these incidents to all university protests across the United States. Additionally, she fails to inform readers of the peaceful aspects of numerous encampments, such as the teach-ins and seminars conducted at the University of Pennsylvania.
A key tenet of journalism is fairness — in this case, crafting a balanced story that relays a variety of perspectives to the reader. While it is not irresponsible to compile evidence to support an argument, drawing unequivocal conclusions about more than 140 campus protests based on a handful of incidents demonstrates questionable journalistic integrity.
Other papers have published more comprehensive reporting about the protests. The Philadelphia Inquirer, for example, provided specifics about the encampment at the University of Pennsylvania on the day that it was established. The paper included details about student demands, historical context about previous divestment campaigns, and statements from participating faculty. However, local and national publications alike could have improved their coverage by including more first-hand accounts of those on campus.
Student journalists have arguably had more success writing in-depth stories. A recent piece by the Columbia Daily Spectator included interviews with undergraduate and graduate students at Columbia University, freelance photographers, professors, and administrators. Some students shared anecdotes of enduring hate speech: a Jewish senior was told to “go back to Poland”, while a group of students wearing keffiyehs were assaulted and called “terrorists” and “sluts”.
Others described more peaceful experiences — a student recounted taking Palestinian dance lessons at the encampment during the early days of the protests. Later, another student detailed how police violently arrested students after occupying Hamilton Hall several days later. Overall, the Spectator provided a level of immersion largely unmatched by mainstream media, allowing readers to conceptualize a more holistic portrait of the protests.
Coverage of the Israel-Hamas war has also suffered from inaccurate and negligent reporting by prominent news outlets. In April, a group of over fifty journalism professors wrote a letter to The New York Times questioning the credibility of its front-page story “Screams Without Words: Sexual Violence on Oct. 7”. Per The Washington Post:
Relatives of a woman slain in the attack, whose story became a central focus of the Times report, cast doubts on reporting suggesting that she was raped, while other critics pointed to discrepancies in various accounts offered by an eyewitness cited in the story.
Although the Times admitted that video evidence “undercut” some of the information presented in the article, it did not issue a correction. The professors asked the Times to conduct an investigation of the writing process with a team of independent journalists, which the newspaper declined to conduct.
While it is indisputable that Hamas committed war crimes on October 7th, it is unacceptable for journalists to fabricate or exaggerate evidence under any circumstance. According to Joe Kahn, executive editor of The New York Times, the Israel-Hamas war has been “the most divisive story I’ve experienced in my more than three decades in journalism”.
When covering such a polarizing conflict, it is more important than ever for the press to thoroughly vet sources and publicly acknowledge mistakes when they occur. The role journalists play in shaping public opinion towards the war and protests is second to none, which is why the bar for professionalism must remain high.
Protests throughout history
In spirit and in practice, the Vietnam War protests of the 1960s share many qualities with the Israel-Hamas war protests of today. Although the first Vietnam War protests were teach-ins led by professors, they gradually evolved into organized demonstrations — at times turning violent. A fateful Wednesday in the fall of 1967 marked the first time a protest spiraled into brutal chaos.
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, hundreds of students organized a sit-in to block Dow Chemical from recruiting undergraduates. Dow Chemical was infamous for its role in manufacturing napalm and Agent Orange, whose use by the U.S. military resulted in thousands of civilian deaths in Vietnam. The goal of the sit-in has some parallels with the divestment demands of university protesters today. For example, students at the University of Pennsylvania demanded that the school divest from Ghost Robotics — a university-affiliated company that has sold dog-like robots to the Israeli military for use on the battlefield.
While many students at UW-Madison protested ethically and peacefully, there were some who did not abide by a common code of conduct. A group of protesters chanted “Sieg Heil” and performed the Nazi salute to taunt police officers. According to Bob Lawrence, a business student who supported U.S. involvement in Vietnam at the time:
Many of them [the protesters] had a lot of respect for Martin Luther King Jr. I think for the most part, they adhered to his nonviolent philosophy. But “Sieg Heil”? That was really, really dumb.
On the other hand, many protesters acted to maintain peace. John Henz, an ROTC cadet, described encountering protesters the day after the sit-in:
That afternoon, when I got to my economics class, the building was completely encircled by students with locked arms. I thought I’d have to fight my way through. Instead, their arms opened. They said, “You are who we are trying to save.” I’ve never forgotten those words. They were saying, in essence, “You should not have to go to Vietnam. We’re doing this to bring people back, because this is a war we should not be participating in.” It made me realize that students were being misrepresented as crazies by the media, when in reality they were asking important questions.
Similar to the university encampments, there were a mix of well-intentioned protesters with malevolent instigators at UW-Madison — the line between which blurred as the sit-in became more violent over the course of the day. By the early afternoon, a full-blown riot had broken out. Local police officers were instructed to break up the crowd, many of whom did not have riot training. Armed with billy clubs and tear gas, they beat students indiscriminately. Students also attacked officers albeit bearing little weaponry.
Student Jane Brotman described the scene as “the most brutal and violent thing I have ever witnessed”.
Despite the unprecedented level of police brutality, some newspapers supported the actions of law enforcement and criticized the protesters. The Chicago Daily News called the demonstration “silly” and argued that the violent police response was necessary:
University students should be able to comprehend better than the average citizen the difference between legitimate dissent and lawless rebellion. When they do not, the authorities have little choice but to maintain order — by force if need be — and bring rebellion within manageable bounds.
Other publications adopted opposing yet equally staunch stances. The Stanford Daily drew criticism for calling Dow Chemical “friendly neighborhood napalm makers”. It is evident that partisan media coverage towards civil unrest is nothing new — in today’s age, it is only the context that has shifted.
The protest at the UW-Madison had a domino effect, making national headlines and propelling over 2,000 students to rally on the main quadrangle the next day. It stoked the fire of anti-war sentiment — a flame that had already been spreading rapidly across the nation. Four months later, over 50% of Americans disapproved of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s handling of the Vietnam War.
Although protesters at UW-Madison may not have succeeded in preventing Dow Chemical from recruiting students, the violence they endured arguably had a much stronger influence on ending the Vietnam War than the hypothetical result of their demands being met without resistance. By pressuring politicians to end the war and pass laws limiting use of the military overseas — such as through the War Powers Act of 1973 — there is strong evidence for protest being a powerful tool in creating social change and reform.
At their core, the Vietnam War protests and the Israel-Hamas war encampments bear the same paradoxical truths. The protests embody both prejudice and acceptance, hope and bitter despair, vitriol and genuine compassion. The public is left to reckon with what has been, and what will always be an ugly marriage between the most upstanding and the most reprehensible aspects of humanity. While thousands of civilians lay dead or suffering as a result of the Israel-Hamas war, wrapped up in a conflict where the value of a human life has seemingly vanished, we must ask ourselves what the cost of apathy is — and ask if it less than the price of change.
Special thanks to Dylan Marchlinski for contributing to this article as an editor and videographer.
Interview with Emma Herndon and Sophia Rosser, protest organizers
Sequoyah: Could you tell me about the programs that you're conducting here at the protests?
Emma: We’re students from the University of Pennsylvania and we've come here and established an encampment on College Green with primarily three goals in mind: to ask the university to disclose its investments, to divest from the Israeli apartheid state, and to defend the voices of pro-Palestinian students on campus.
With those three demands in mind, we've established a lot of different forms of programming, including what’s going on now, which is a talk about anti-Semitism — both in organizing spaces and just on campus in general. That’s being led by two members of Faculty for Justice in Palestine. That’s really exciting. It’s just one example of some of the programming that we've had throughout the past day.
Sophia: I think one of the more important parts of this space that we established is education; creating a space for education about Palestine — the kind that the university hasn't been teaching us, or a lot of our professors don't teach us — that we've had to take upon ourselves to learn. I think the programming is really awesome. We have a wide variety. Like Emma said, we’ve had Faculty for Justice in Palestine professors come speak. We've also had art builds. If you go over there, there's — on Locust — chalk up and down of “Free Palestine” and similar slogans.
The programming is also really nice because students are also leading it, like we were talking about earlier. A freshman is really interested in the similarities between the Vietnam War and student protests today, and he wanted to share what he's been learning. I think it's really beautiful how there aren’t the same dynamics in school that there are here, like how there's a professor and students. We've broken that down and everyone's learning from everyone.
Sequoyah: To address the media representation of a lot of these protests across America, what would you say to the people that say that there's more violence and anti-Semitism on campus? Do you think that's accurate, especially at Penn?
Emma: In terms of anti-Semitism — that is something that we care about, and I think that the session we're having right now is testament to that. We have so many Jewish students in our organizing group and in this encampment who we value and who do value Jewish voices on campus. I think that's an important part for us: demonstrating the fact that being pro-Palestine is being anti-hate, and that includes being against anti-Semitism.
Sophia: In terms of the violence, we're here peacefully. Whenever people come up to us trying to incite or get a rise out of us, we've told everyone here: don't give in. That's what they want to get out of you; don't feed into that. What we're seeing across the U.S. is similar with these non-violent protests. The universities are essentially scared of their students, scared of the spaces that these students are creating. They're calling their local police forces in on them and it's the police that are escalating and are the perpetrators of this violence. Safety is our number one concern — we don't want anyone getting hurt.
Sequoyah: In an ideal world, what would you hope to get out of these protests?
Sophia: Our three demands: disclose, divest and defend. Ideally, those would be met and then we would go from there. Like Sophia was saying, one of the other really neat aspects of this encampment is how we've had the opportunity to create a space that the university has neglected creating on our campus.
Now, we have the opportunity to community build, and to establish bonds with people who might not necessarily have the opportunity to do so in a classroom context. We've been really encouraged by how much support we've been receiving and also how much positivity and vulnerability we've been able to cultivate in this space.
Sequoyah: Do you think any of your demands have been met so far? For example, I heard that FJP (Faculty for Justice in Palestine) denounced Ghost Robotics at Penn. Do you think that there has been progress since you’ve come out here?
Emma: Not yet. We are in coalition with FJP and we agree with them in terms of denouncing Ghost Robotics, but so far we have not yet heard from the university in terms of their response to our demands.
Interview with Taja Mazaj, protest organizer
Sequoyah: Could you tell me about what you do with the protests and how you got involved?
Taja: We are part of a national movement right now that is uniting Palestine's solidarity protests across the country. It's been really powerful to see what's going on at other schools, and we wanted to get involved.
We currently have three demands which are: disclose — the university needs to disclose all of its financial holdings including its endowment and what they're investing their endowment in. They need to divest — we want the university to divest from all holdings in the Israeli state and the Israeli military. Currently, they are funding weapons that are being sent to Gaza through Ghost Robotics, so that is also part of that demand. Also, defend — not only the student activists but the Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students that have been cast aside by this university and unjustly disciplined for their participation in activism.
Sequoyah: Could you tell me about the programming? I see you have a professor talking to the students. How has that been, and what's the dynamic been like?
Taja: The programming has been very powerful. It's definitely a community effort where people have been reaching out to us. We're reaching out to people and we're seeing a flood of community support. We had Fred Hampton Jr. here earlier today and Pam Africa, and they're giving very powerful and igniting speeches.
We also have poetry readings and song workshops. It’s a really good chance for us to not only learn together, but be able to commune, be in open dialogue, and also just create a new community because we have been kind of pushed aside and divided by Penn. We're taking the space for ourselves now.
Sequoyah: Would you say you've taken any inspiration from previous peaceful protests — for example, back in the 1960s with Vietnam? Has that factored into any of how you conduct the protests?
Taja: Yeah, I would say a hundred percent. The university campus has always been a hotbed for student activism and social movements. Whether it's Vietnam or whether it's May 1968, these student activists have paved the way and they've been so inspiring, including the movement against South African apartheid, which has been really inspiring and encouraging for us.
We are definitely building it up. Now, with these kinds of occupation encampment protests, I think that the widespread nature of them is redefining how protest is happening on university campuses. It’s very exciting to see and it's exciting to also be part of that history.
Sequoyah: Generally, are you optimistic for the future of Israel and Palestine? Do you see there being a way to peace or a two-state solution?
Taja: Yeah, honestly I think I wouldn't be here if I wasn't optimistic, but it's also such an awful genocide that we are witnessing right now. At times it's easy to be hopeless and feel like we're not doing anything. But I always think about one of the last posts that Aaron Bushnell made — not an exact quote — but he said: “people often ask themselves, what would you do if you were alive during a war or during a genocide and your country was complicit?” The answer is: you're doing it right now. So I think right now, there's really no other option other than for us to hope for a better future and also fight for that better future. So that's what we're in right now.
Sources
https://www.thefire.org/news/campus-encampment-bans-rarely-violate-first-amendment-heres-why
https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnam-war-protests
https://www.thedp.com/article/2024/05/penn-student-palestine-encampment-discipline
https://billypenn.com/2024/04/22/israel-palestine-gaza-robot-dogs-ghost-robotics/
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/columbia-university-protests-israel-gaza-campus.html
I think you should consider the choice of calling the genocide “the Israel-Hamas war”. You discuss journalistic bias in your article, but referring to it as such is a bias on its own. In particular, Hamas is a political/governmental group while Israel is a nation, and framing this as a war between Israel and Hamas entirely omits Gaza from the picture. There are two editorial choices being made here that are inherently biased: one to frame this conflict as one between Hamas and Israel rather than between Gaza/Palestine and Israel, and the second to call this a war despite the objectively lopsided nature of the killing that has occurred thus far.
Good article