Above photo: Pro-Palestine protest, July 2024. Stephen Melkisethian.
After the swell of protests for Palestine on more than 100 college campuses in April and May, many students are returning to campus resolved to continue their activism despite their schools’ threats of disciplinary and legal consequences. Many groups’ plans are flexible in responding to changing university repression tactics.
Purpose Drives Protest
Marie Adele Grosso joined the Columbia University chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) two years ago when she started at Columbia’s Barnard College. She said the group mainly did cultural awareness work back then, but the activism escalated in the spring when they created the first of the college encampments that became an international movement. College students across the country and the world demanded their institutions divest from companies connected to Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians.
“I am doing what I believe is moral, and I think everyone has the responsibility to be standing up in whatever way they can,” Grosso said.
Grosso was one of the more than 2,600 college students arrested nationwide during the spring encampment movement, but she says nothing will stop her from protesting again.
“I will be continuing to protest and I will continue to do whatever I think will be most effective,” Grosso said. “I’m probably the most intense rule follower you’ll ever meet in 99% of situations. I’m definitely not breaking rules to break rules, but I will continue doing whatever is the most moral option because we’re actively witnessing a genocide, and right now, my tuition as well as my tax dollars are going towards that genocide, so I don’t think it would be at all reasonable for me to stand by and let that happen.”
Most of the Columbia University students arrested in April will return to campus, with only six of the 62 arrested still suspended. The president of Columbia resigned on Aug. 14, and student groups vowed on X that their demands remain the same for any leader.
Grosso said that the group’s plans depend on what happens with the war and the university, and that new university restrictions, the intensifying of the genocide, and a new university president with unknown plans all make it hard to predict what they’ll do.
“Every time we take an action, it’s not to take action. It is very purposeful and has a goal at the end of the day,” Grosso said. “When we did the encampment, it wasn’t just to have an encampment; it was to gain some sort of leverage with our university and try to get them to speak with us, and that will continue to be how we operate, where we will just do what we believe is the most moral and necessary thing to push for whatever next action we need.”
On the first day of classes Tuesday, protesters returned to Columbia’s campus, marching on a picket line to urge students and faculty to boycott classes, with some taken into custody.
Colleges Adjust Student Protester Consequences
Grosso’s suspension was lifted over the summer, and she is now on disciplinary probation through the end of this academic year. Ava Harrington, a student at University of Massachusetts Amherst and a member of its SJP chapter, is concerned that many student activists are returning to campus on probation.
Harrington explained that while a student can appeal a suspension or expulsion, probation is too low of a sanction to be allowed to appeal.
“That’s concerning because the school is basically applying the harshest level of sanction that they can that can’t be appealed and then utilizing that as a kind of like weapon to, in my opinion, discourage people from expressing their right to free speech,” she said.
“While it is concerning—the suppression of free speech here in America—what is more concerning is the suppression of life and existence itself in Gaza,” Harrington said. “The reason that free speech is being suppressed is because of our country’s active involvement in a genocide.”
Israel, which the U.S. has supported with bombs, troops, diplomatic cover, and tens of billions of dollars’ worth of aid since Oct. 7, has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians and forced more than 90% of Gazans from their homes.
Harrington said she doesn’t know what UMass Amherst SJP’s actions will look like in the coming semester, but she does know that advocacy will continue.
UMass Amherst announced on Aug. 13 that it was dropping its request to have felony charges leveled against the two co-presidents of SJP for “inciting to riot.” UMass Amherst Chancellor Javier Reyes sent a message to the campus community on Aug. 23 saying he is committed to constructive dialogue and to free speech—and to remind students there are university guidelines that specify when, where, and how demonstrations are allowed. Those guidelines were reviewed over the summer by the new Campus Demonstration Policy Task Force that Reyes convened to make recommendations for changes, and on Sept.4, the results were released with Reyes’s full endorsement. The report suggests providing a clearer definition of what types of structures cannot be erected on campus, but the guideline that students have the right to demonstrate only if they do not “disrupt campus operations” or “promote substantial disorder” is left open to interpretation.
Other colleges, including Columbia University, also quietly dropped or reduced charges against arrested students over the summer, while others such as the University of California, Indiana University, and the University of South Florida passed new anti-encampment policies and communicated they will strictly enforce existing and new rules. New York University released an updated student code of conduct that threatens to penalize students who criticize Zionism.
The University of Houston was one of the schools that dropped charges against students for their pro-Palestine protest in the spring. Reyna Valdez, a member of the school’s SJP chapter, said she feels excited to return to school because of the movement’s growth and the step of having its demands publicly acknowledged. She said the group will have educational spaces available, such as its “popular university” from the spring that preceded the encampment.
“We definitely plan on having that be a bigger focus, and having more educational-style events and community spaces and having them be open, not only to students but the community as well,” Valdez said.
UH SJP set up its popular university Aug. 26 to 29 in a main student center on campus and received pushback from the university administration each day, including calls to police.
Valdez said she believes her university’s divestment from Israel and the corporations supporting its war is not only possible but inevitable.
Returning To Campus, Students Galvanize
Protests have restarted as many students return to campus in late August. Students at The University of North Carolina-at Chapel Hill staged a protest on Aug. 23 and posted on Instagram, “We will keep protesting, keep disrupting business as usual, and keep increasing pressure on this complicit university until all of our demands are met—until UNC divests from Israel and Palestine is free.”
According to SJP, on Aug. 19, Barnard College students protested disciplinary actions against them, leading to the arrest of one student.
Across the country, students seem undeterred by the police violence leveled against them by their own schools in the spring.
Harrington said she finds hope in the continued resolve of her community. She said she doesn’t feel dispirited by the actions or inactions of her university or government because her motivation comes from her moral compass, not the institutions she’s fighting.
“As they see that there’s still active and vocal presence on campuses that are saying ‘this is our issue, we are making this our issue, and we’re going to make it your issue,’ that’s when things start changing,” Harrington said.
Grosso said she is also driven by her moral compass to keep organizing.
“I’m going to continue caring about my education, continue trying to get an education, but I will keep pushing them as long as I can, and there’s not anything they can do to stop that.”