During the Gaza war and genocide, protests on university campuses in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza escalated in April 2024, spreading in the United States and other countries, as part of wider Gaza war protests. The escalation, nicknamed the "student intifada" by activists, began on April 18 after mass arrests at the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at Columbia University, in which protesters demanded the university's disinvestment from Israel. Over 3,100 protesters were arrested in the U.S., including faculty members and professors, on over 60 campuses. Protests spread across Europe in May with mass arrests in the Netherlands, 20 encampments established in the United Kingdom, and across universities in Australia and Canada.
The different protests' varying demands included severing financial ties with Israel, transparency about financial ties, ending partnerships with Israeli institutions, and amnesty for protesters. Universities suspended and expelled student protesters, in some cases evicting them from campus housing. Many universities relied on police to forcibly disband encampments and end occupations of buildings, several made agreements with protesters for encampments to be dismantled, and others cut ties with Israeli institutions or companies involved with Israel and its occupied territories. The campus occupations also resulted in the closure of Columbia University, Cal Poly Humboldt, and the University of Amsterdam; rolling strikes by academic workers on campuses in California, and the cancellation of some U.S. university graduation ceremonies.
Hundreds of groups expressed support for the protests, and the police response in the U.S. was criticised. Supporters of Israel and some Jewish students raised concerns about antisemitic incidents at or around the protests, prompting condemnations of the protests by international leaders. Students and faculty members who participated in the protests, many of whom are Jewish, said the protests were not antisemitic. A May 2024 poll estimated that 8% of U.S. college students had participated in the protests, with 45% supporting them and 24% opposed. 97% of the protests remained nonviolent and 28–40% of Americans supported the protests with 42–47% opposed. The protests were compared to the anti-Vietnam and 1968 protests, politically criticized by a wide range of mainstream U.S. Republican and Democratic politicians, and frequently counter-protested by Zionist and right-wing organizations.
Background
Protests, including rallies, demonstrations, campaigns, and vigils related to the Gaza war occurred across the U.S. since the conflict's start on October 7, 2023, alongside other Gaza war protests around the world. Pro-Palestinian protesters criticized Israel's invasion, war conduct in the Gaza Strip, and U.S. military and diplomatic support for Israel.
Students occupying administrative buildings were arrested at the request of college administrators at Brown University in November and December 2023, and at Pomona College on April 5, 2024. In March 2024, after protesters occupied the president's office at Vanderbilt University, the university suspended students and expelled three. These were "believed to be the first student expulsions over protests related to the Israel-Hamas conflict", according to The New York Times.
Characterizations as antisemitism
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was established to protect against racial discrimination in Jim Crow laws affecting education, was reinterpreted by Attorney Kenneth L. Marcus while he was working at the Office for Civil Rights of the United States Department of Education to include protections against discrimination on the basis of religion, particularly "when an affected student's 'shared ancestry' would have been treated as a 'race' in earlier jurisprudence". Jason Brownlee writes that Marcus "subsequently became one of the preeminent advocates for applying Title VI against speech and events criticizing Israeli repression of Palestinians, deeds Marcus considered antisemitic", and advocated adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
A May 2024 "Dear Colleague" letter formalized a broadened interpretation of Title VI that created a "hostile environment" for groups protected by Title VI, thereby challenging free speech rights protected by the First Amendment with regard to phrases such as "from the river to the sea", speech that describes Zionism as settler colonialism, or mentioning the Gaza genocide.
On October 25, 2023, Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Alyza D. Lewin and Kenneth L. Marcus of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law had written university presidents a letter calling on them to investigate Students for Justice in Palestine for "potential violations of the prohibition against materially supporting a foreign terrorist organization", adding, "universities must also update their code of conduct to ensure that harassment and support for terrorism have no place on campus." Jewish Currents and The Intelligencer noted the letter cited no evidence in support of these allegations. Administrators at several private universities then suspended their SJP chapters, starting with Brandeis University on November 6, 2023. On November 14, Columbia University followed suit, suspending its chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. The state of Florida ordered that all SJP chapters in the state be disbanded.
Protests on campuses
By May 6, 2024, student protests had occurred in 45 of the 50 states in the United States and the District of Columbia, with encampments, occupations, walkouts or sit-ins on almost 140 campuses. Thirty-four encampments were established in the United Kingdom; across universities in Australia, beginning with the University of Sydney; and in Canada, including an encampment at McGill University. On May 7, protests spread further on European campuses after mass arrests at the University of Amsterdam campus occupation, including occupation of campus buildings at Leipzig University in Germany, Sciences Po in France, and Ghent University in Belgium. By May 8, protests had taken place in more than 25 countries, and on May 13, approximately 1,000 Dutch students and university staff took part in a national walk-out.
First encampment at Columbia University
A series of occupation protests by pro-Palestinian students occurred at Columbia University in New York City from April to June 2024, in the context of the broader Gaza war protests in the United States. The protests began on April 17, 2024, when pro-Palestinian students established an encampment of approximately 50 tents on campus, calling it the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, and demanded that the university divest from Israel.
The first encampment was dismantled when university president Minouche Shafik authorized the New York City Police Department (NYPD) to enter the campus on April 18 and conduct mass arrests. A new encampment was built the next day. The administration then entered into negotiations with protesters, which failed on April 29 and resulted in the suspension of student protesters. The next day, protesters broke into and occupied Hamilton Hall, leading to a second NYPD raid, the arrest of more than 100 protesters, and the full dismantling of the camp. The arrests marked the first time Columbia had allowed police to suppress campus protests since the 1968 demonstrations against the Vietnam War. On May 31, a third campus encampment was briefly established in response to an alumni reunion.
Spread in the United States
Over 3,100 protesters were arrested in the U.S., including faculty members and professors, on over 60 campuses. Demonstrations initially spread in the U.S. on April 22, 2024, when students at several universities on the East Coast—including New York University, Yale University, Emerson College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Tufts University—began occupying campuses, as well as experiencing mass arrests in New York and at Yale. Protests emerged throughout the U.S. in the following days, with protest camps established on over 40 campuses. On April 25, mass arrests occurred at Emerson College, the University of Southern California, and the University of Texas at Austin.
A continued crackdown on April 27 led to approximately 275 arrests at Washington, Northeastern, Arizona State, and Indiana University Bloomington. Several professors were among those detained at Emory University, and at Washington University in St. Louis, university employees were arrested. On April 28, counter-protests were held at MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). On April 30, approximately 300 protesters were arrested at Columbia University and City College of New York and pro-Israel counter-protesters attacked the UCLA campus occupation. The next day, over 200 arrests were made at UCLA.
Hundreds of arrests ensued in May, notably at the Art Institute of Chicago, University of California, San Diego, the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, and University of California, Irvine. On May 20, the first strike by academic workers took place on campuses in California at UC Santa Cruz, followed by UC Davis and UCLA on May 28. The protests ended as universities closed for the summer.
Protesters' demands
Many of the protests involved students demanding that their schools sever financial ties to Israel and companies involved in the conflict, as well as an end to U.S. military support for Israel, as part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Some protests also demanded that universities sever academic ties with Israel, support a ceasefire in Gaza, and disclose investments. Student demands varied among the different occupations, including that universities stop accepting research money from Israel that supports the military, and that college endowments stop investing with managers who profit from Israeli entities.
Student protesters called on Columbia University to financially divest from any company with business ties to the Israeli government, including Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. NYU Alumni for Palestine called on New York University to "terminate all vendor contracts with companies playing active roles in the military occupation in Palestine and ongoing genocide in Gaza, namely Cisco, Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar and General Electric". Pro-Palestinian protesters demanded that the University of Washington cut ties with Boeing. Students at the University of Vermont demanded the cancellation of a planned commencement speech by Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
After several mass arrests, the demands also included amnesty for students and faculty who were disciplined or fired for protesting. The protests on many campuses were created by coalitions of student groups, and largely independent, although Reuters Press reported that they were inspired by demonstrations at Columbia University. All disavowed violence. Protesters at Vanderbilt University smashed a window and injured a security guard.
Impact
Closures, cancellations, and graduation protests
In April 2024, the occupations resulted in the closure of Columbia University and Cal Poly Humboldt for the remainder of the semester, and faculty members in California, Georgia, and Texas also initiated votes of no confidence. Columbia, Cal Poly Humboldt, and the University of Southern California canceled their graduation ceremonies due in May. On May 13, the University of Amsterdam closed for two days after renewed occupations on campus.
In May, protests at graduation ceremonies occurred at the University of Michigan, Northeastern University, the University of Illinois Chicago, Indiana University, Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of North Carolina, and the University of California, Berkeley. After demands from protesters, the University of Vermont canceled its graduation ceremony speaker, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield. On June 1, students staged a walkout at the University of Chicago's graduation ceremony, and walkouts at graduations occurred at Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and elsewhere. In April, a pro-Palestinian student group won elections in the University of Michigan's student government. In August, the student government voted to freeze its funding for student clubs until the university met student activists' divestment demands.
Divestment by universities
On April 28, Portland State University (PSU) announced it was pausing its financial ties with Boeing, including gifts and grants, over its ties to Israel. PSU President Ann Cudd wrote in a campus-wide letter, "the passion with which these demands are being repeatedly expressed by some in our community motivates". On May 6, Trinity College Dublin in Ireland agreed to end its investments in Israeli companies that are listed on the United Nations Human Rights Council "blacklist" after an encampment on Fellows' Square was erected. This included three of the 13 Israeli companies the university's endowment fund had invested in.
The University of Helsinki in Finland suspended student exchanges with Israeli universities on May 21 after two weeks of campus protests. On May 28, the University of Copenhagen in Denmark announced it would cease investing in companies that operate in the occupied West Bank, divesting US$145,810 worth of holdings from Airbnb, Booking.com, and EDreams the next day. Three days later, Ghent University in Belgium cut ties with Israeli universities and research institutions, referencing "concerns regarding connections between Israeli academic institutions and the Israeli government, military, or security services". The university had severed ties with three Israeli institutions two weeks earlier, citing incompatibility with Israel's human rights policy. On June 11, the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, agreed to protesters' demands to factor human rights into its investment decisions.