Between April 17 and May 4, hundreds of pro-Palestine student protestors set up an encampment at Columbia University, in a bid to get their university to divest from companies with ties to Israel.
The movement sparked nationwide student protests, with universities including Yale, Harvard, Berkeley, NYU, MIT, Maryland, Vanderbilt, South Carolina, Texas, and Michigan all setting up similar encampments in the wake of the Columbia protest.
The Columbia encampment, which served as the catalyst for this student uprising, came to an end last week. Sueda Polat and Mahmoud Khalil, two of the Columbia protest leaders, spoke to Columbia administration at 7pm on May 4. The students continued to demand that Columbia divest from companies that support Israel's government and military, while Columbia’s president remained staunchly opposed to divestment.
As a compromise, the university offered to ensure their proposals received expedited review by the school’s divestment advisory committee, if protestors on the lawn encampment left immediately. Polat and Khalil refused.
By 9pm, police turned up on the south side of the university campus with seven jail buses. Surveillance drones loomed overhead. Police proceeded to arrest dozens of protestors occupying Hamilton Hall on burglary and trespassing charges, including at least 30 students, six alumni and two Columbia employees. They then cleared out protest encampments that had remained on the campus lawn for over two weeks.
The Columbia encampment has now come to an end – but the movement it inspired continues to thrive. Encampments are still going strong at US universities such as Harvard and MIT, while other universities, including Cambridge and Oxford in the UK and Sydney University in Australia, have now set up pro-Palestine encampments on campus too. Notably, at Brown University, demonstrators succeeded in negotiating with university administration who said they would discuss and vote on divesting funds from companies connected to the Israeli military campaign in Gaza.
Evidently, it’s possible for students to make their voices heard through protesting. And although the Columbia encampment has now been dismantled, its impact across the world remains palpable.