Gaza Solidarity Encampments Are Spreading Far Beyond Columbia’s Campus

Pro-Palestine protesters remained in an encampment at Columbia University’s lawn on Monday.Stefan Jeremiah/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.A growing number of college students nationwide are staging encampments to protest their universities’ investments in Israeli entities in light of Israel’s war on Gaza, which has reportedly killed more than 34,000 Palestinians.
The protests have sparked mass arrests and suspensions, including at Columbia University, where more than 100 students—including some from Barnard, the all-women’s college located across the street from Columbia’s campus, which has a partnership with the university—were arrested last week after occupying the upper Manhattan campus.
Central to protesters’ demands are for the universities to divest from companies that fund corporations closely connected to Israel’s military operations and for administrators to allow pro-Palestinian protesters to demonstrate without threats of disciplinary action.
Many of the protests have sprung up the past few days after the groups National Students for Justice in Palestine and Palestinian Youth Movement put out a call this weekend “to take back the university and force the administration to divest, for the people of Gaza.”
The encampments appear to be largely peaceful, with demonstrators seen attending teach-ins and chanting in solidarity. But some participants have nonetheless faced serious encounters with law enforcement, including the arrest of more than 40 students at Yale this morning, a university spokesperson confirmed to Mother Jones.
Here’s a running list of where we have seen students setting up encampments across the country in addition to Columbia and their demands.

A few miles south of Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus, students at New York University began camping outside the university’s Stern School of Business at 6 a.m. on Monday, according to the NYU Palestine Solidarity Coalition. The group is demanding NYU “divest from all corporations aiding in the genocide and fear tactics generating manufactured consent in academic spheres,” shut down its Tel Aviv campus, and remove the New York Police Department from the New York City campus. NYU spokespeople didn’t immediately respond to questions from Mother Jones on Monday afternoon.

Less than a mile from NYU’s campus, students at the New School set up an encampment on Sunday, when the school was hosting an event for newly admitted students, according to an Instagram post from the school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. The group is demanding divestment from corporations involved in Israel’s war on Gaza, protection from retaliation for pro-Palestinian protesters, and “a full academic boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions.” In a statement Sunday, the New School called the encampment “unauthorized.” The university’s president announced an official would meet with students on Monday to discuss “divesting from certain holdings within the university’s endowment” and that the Board of Trustees would meet with students “in the near future to consider the students’ request for financial transparency of the university’s investments.” A New School spokesperson didn’t respond to additional questions. 

In Boston, students at Emerson College, MIT, and Tufts set up encampments on Sunday night, the Boston Globe reported. The groups are demanding the schools disclose and divest from investments in Israel, stop punishing student organizers, and support a ceasefire in Palestine. “We were definitely inspired by what’s going on at Columbia,” Owen Buxton, an Emerson College student, told the Globe. “They put out the call for universities across the country, and we answered.” An Emerson spokesperson told Mother Jones that “a small number of protesters actually stayed in the alley [overnight], much fewer than the number when the protest was initiated.” A spokesperson for Tufts said that, as of early Monday afternoon, there were about a half-dozen tents set up and a similar number of protesters, and that classes were proceeding as usual. “Regarding the students’ demands, our position on this has been clear and consistent for several years: We do not support the BDS movement,” added Patrick Collins, Tufts’ executive director of media relations. Representatives for MIT and the Boston Police Department didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

At Yale, police arrested more than 40 student protesters early Monday morning, according to the student groups behind the encampment set up since Friday. By Sunday night, more than 250 protesters were occupying 40 tents in front of the main library, according to the Yale Daily News, the student-run newspaper. Student organizers compared today’s arrests to the 1986 arrests of more than 70 Yale students who protested South African apartheid. In an email to students Sunday, Yale University President Peter Salovey said that while most protesters were peaceful, university police were also investigating reports of threats and harassment. More than 1,600 Yale alumni have also signed a letter demanding divestment. A Yale spokesperson told Mother Jones on Monday that university officials spent “spent several hours in discussion with student protestors yesterday,” adding that both the university and police had warned protesters “numerous times” that they faced the possibility of arrest.

BREAKING: Organizers of the Yale divestment encampment have been informed that those at the encampment can expect arrest, likely sometime between now and early morning.
Repeat: ARRESTS ARE EXPECTED AT YALE.
The crowd of hundred of students is sitting in a circle and singing. pic.twitter.com/yjwdxi0hGF
— Thomas Birmingham (@thomasbirm) April 22, 2024

About 40 students set up an encampment at the University of Michigan on Monday morning, demanding divestment from Israeli entities, according to the student-run newspaper The Michigan Daily. In a press release, the student protesters said the university invests more than $6 million in Israeli companies and military contractors. A university spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to questions.

Students at Vanderbilt University have been occupying parts of the campus lawn since March 26, according to the Vanderbilt Divest Coalition. The group is demanding increased transparency about the university’s investments, for school officials to drop charges and disciplinary actions against students who have protested in support of Palestine, and the reinstatement of a canceled referendum concerning recommendations made by the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, according to the student-run newspaper, The Vanderbilt Hustler. A university spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to questions.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates. If you know of an encampment or college protest we missed—email me and let me know: jmcshane@motherjones.com.