“A New Sense of World-Building”: Inside the Student Movement for Gaza
May 8, 2024
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Prem Thakker, a politics reporter, and Gillian Goodman, a journalism graduate student, discuss the student movement demanding schools to cut financial ties with Israel. They highlight campus protests, police responses, encampments, media portrayal, and administrative reactions to student actions across US universities.
Student demands for financial divestment from companies profiting from Israeli actions sparked solidarity among campuses nationwide.
Columbia University's student-led protests intensified the national divestment movement for Palestine.
Historic student activism, like the anti-apartheid movement, serves as a blueprint for current divestment efforts.
Deep dives
University Protests against Pro-Israel Response
Several universities responded to pro-Palestine and anti-war campus protests with police force. Columbia University faced NYPD arrests after failed negotiations, replicating militarized responses on multiple campuses like UCLA and University of Texas, using tear gas and stun grenades.
Escalation at Columbia's Encampment
Columbia's students erected an encampment as part of their pro-Palestine protests. After repeated negotiations and concessions by the administration were deemed insufficient, students occupied Hamilton Hall symbolically renaming it, mirroring the historical occupation of a similar building during protests in 1968.
Divestment Movement at Columbia
Columbia students demand financial divestment from companies profiting from Israeli actions. Following protests and rallies, a significant percentage of students at Barnard and Columbia College supported divestment measures, sparking solidarity across campuses like Yale, MIT, and UNC.
National Impact of the Student-Led Protests
Columbia's student-led protests intensified the divestment movement nationally, with schools like Evergreen State College contemplating similar divestment measures. Amid the student movement for Palestine, protests have spread, despite potential confrontations with heavy police presence on some campuses.
Impact of Past Divestment Movements
Previous divestment movements, such as the one against apartheid in South Africa, paved the way for current efforts. Initiatives at Hampshire College and Evergreen State show potential for successful divestment, with echoes of historic student activism fueling solidarity among college protesters nationwide.
Evergreen State College, in Olympia, Washington, reached a deal with students to work toward divesting from “companies that profit from gross human rights violations and/or the occupation of Palestinian territories.” It is one of the few schools to reach deals with students protesting Israel's war on Gaza as demonstrations spread to more than 154 campuses nationwide.
This week on Intercepted, we bring you a special episode from inside the student movement for Gaza. Prem Thakker, a politics reporter for The Intercept, breaks down the campus protests and students' demands for schools to cut off financial ties with Israel and weapons makers. Thakker is joined by Gillian Goodman, a freelance writer and journalism graduate student at Columbia University. Gillian takes us inside the protest encampment at Columbia, which inspired similar demonstrations nationwide before it was violently dismantled by police.
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