When pro-Palestinian protesters and Northwestern administrators sat down to negotiate last month over the encampment that had taken over Deering Meadow, neither side was much in the mood for compromise.
“The first day we went, we were like, ‘Oh, hell no … we’re not moving — at all — unless you give us something really tangible,’ ” said Mounica Sreesai, a PhD student and member of the encampment’s negotiating team.
Northwestern’s president, Michael Schill, who is headed to Congress next week to be grilled about the school’s response to the encampment there, described a similar position among administrators in an opinion piece for the Chicago Tribune.
The protesters “asked for several changes to university policy including divestment from Israel and the end of an academic program that focused on Israeli innovation,” Schill wrote. “We said a flat no to both.”
At that point, the encampment had been up on the school’s campus for less than a day, and Sreesai said the activists were not in a rush to disband it. The protest had drawn support from hundreds of students, faculty and community members who sat in a ring around the tents on Deering Meadow, as if forming a protective barrier.
Across racial and religious differences, they mourned the more than 34,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza, while sharing meals and learning the dabke, a traditional Arabic dance. There were Muslim, Christian and Jewish prayers, and celebration of Passover.
“It took a lot of community power and strength,” Sreesai said.
But after five days of back and forth, of ceding ground and bouts of heavy rain and the threat of arrest and disciplinary action, student organizers and school officials managed to do what their counterparts at most other campuses have not: They struck a deal.
Protesters would dismantle the encampment, except for one aid tent. In return, university leaders promised to answer questions from students and faculty members about Northwestern’s investments, establish an affinity space for Middle Eastern and North African students and pay to educate five Palestinian undergraduates.
The agreement has been beset by criticism from both sides. But the people who helped broker the deal believe it should serve as a model to activists and administrators at campuses across the country for how to resolve conflicts without calling in the cops. Northwestern was one of the first schools to see its encampment come down peacefully, and in the weeks since, more universities have followed suit.
“A lot of credit goes to the negotiating teams who were working through the night, over the weekend,” said Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, a professor at Northwestern and member of Educators for Justice in Palestine.
“It was just kind of an inspiration to see how committed [students] were to this cause and how dedicated they were to supporting each other,” she said, “to try to reach an agreement … that would really be something that people would look back on in the next generation and say, ‘This is one moment when things really started to change.’ ”
The deal is a departure from what’s been seen at countless institutions, including the University of Chicago and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where encampments have been taken down by police. At the latter, more than 68 protesters were arrested after school leaders called in Chicago police to clear their encampment.
“We were … looking at what was happening at other universities,” Schill told WBUR’s Here and Now. “Even when they went in with force, it typically wasn’t successful. And so we thought the best way to sustainably de-escalate the situation was to actually talk with our students.”
That decision, and the agreement, have come under fire from multiple directions.
Next week, on May 23, Schill will face a congressional committee during which lawmakers are expected to rake him over the coals for making a deal with students, instead of bringing the hammer down on them.
The Anti-Defamation League, StandWithUs and Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law are calling for Schill to resign, saying Schill made a deal with protesters who “fanned the flames of antisemitism and wreaked havoc on the entire university community.” The American Jewish Committee accused Northwestern leaders of “succumbing to the demands of a mob.”
Members of Northwestern’s chapter of Jewish Voices for Peace helped organize the encampment and say these accusations are a distraction from Israel’s killing of Palestinians in Gaza.
In a video message, Schill talked about his Jewish ancestors fleeing the Nazis and settling in Israel, and he said there had been a rise in anti-semitism at Northwestern. He said he respects the Jewish groups calling for his resignation.
“But I do take issue with calling our students a mob,” he said. “They are students. They’re young. They are sometimes naive. Sometimes, they’re learning. And so the best way for us to … achieve our educational mission is for us to engage in dialogue with them.”
Meanwhile, student organizers who helped put the deal together have been accused of selling out. Some pro-Palestinian activists say the negotiation team should have settled for nothing less than divestment: Northwestern’s withdrawal of all investments in companies supporting Israeli military action in Gaza.
Sreesai from the encampment negotiating team said they had to compromise.
“Very quickly, on the second day, we kind of figured out that this is not sustainable,” she said. “This constant anxiety is harming our people in the community that we want to center.”
For vulnerable students, she said, getting arrested or facing disciplinary action could mean losing financial aid, student housing or student visas.
And disclosure represents a meaningful step towards divestment, Sreesai said. It means students will be able to ask questions about where Northwestern is investing its money and get an answer within 30 days. That level of financial transparency at Northwestern, and most other private universities, is unprecedented.
“To have gotten that without any violence and while keeping everybody safe, without Black students and people of color having to interact with the cops even … I’m still processing it,” she said.
Lisa Kurian Philip covers higher education for WBEZ, in partnership with Open Campus.
The cancellation of the end-of-school-year music festival comes days after the university said it has reached a stalemate in negotiations with organizers of a pro-Palestinian encampment.
On Tuesday, Chicago’s Jewish community celebrated Israel declaring its independence 76 years ago, on May 14, 1948. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered across the plaza. There were a few altercations, but no arrests were made.
The flags, along with signs and banners, had been placed on Deering Meadow, where a pro-Palestine encampment stood for five days before organizers reached an agreement with university administration.
Protesters’ demands have focused on divestment — demanding universities cut ties with Israel and businesses supporting the war in Gaza.
The Israel-Hamas war is heightening fears of unrest, but convention leaders say they’re confident in their partnerships with Mayor Brandon Johnson, Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling and the U.S. Secret Service.
In a press conference at the school Thursday morning, students criticized university president Paul Alivisatos and shared their experiences when police began emptying the encampment early Tuesday.
Rafah has become the most recent focus of Israel’s military, which describes it as Hamas’ last holdout. Chicago-based Dr. John Kahler has seen conditions deteriorate as Gazan refugees fled south to the city.
En la madrugada del martes, agentes del campus rodearon el patio principal de la universidad y les impidieron la entrada a los estudiantes, según informaron desde el lugar de los hechos.
One protester said they were hit by an officer and taken to Thorek Memorial Hospital for treatment, according to a complaint filed with the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.
Reality on the ground is different from what policymakers understand in war rooms, far from the constant sound of bombs and drones, a Chicago-area doctor who has volunteered in Gaza writes. Thaer Ahmad, a Palestinian American, walked out of a meeting with President Joe Biden about a month ago and is calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.
After Oct. 7, chairs with the photos of hostages seized in Israel by Hamas were placed outside Am Shalom synagogue in Glencoe, waiting for the hostages’ release. “Our 248 chairs will stay up as long as they have to,” Am Shalom’s senior rabbi writes.
The group the People’s Art Institute accused law enforcement of yanking people’s hair, strangling them, and hitting people with batons and metal fences at the Saturday protest.
Around daybreak Tuesday, campus officers surrounded the university’s main quadrangle and kept students from entering, according to reports from the scene.
Según los informes, en el campus de Lincoln Park de DePaul los contra manifestantes intentaron enfrentarse a los manifestantes, pero los pro palestinos utilizaron tácticas de desescalada para mantener la paz. En todo el país se ha detenido a más de 2,500 manifestantes desde el 18 de abril.
The University of Chicago Faculty for Justice in Palestine on Monday reaffirmed support for the “peaceful, welcoming and educational space” students had created and called on school leadership to return to “good-faith” negotiations.
An official familiar with Israeli thinking says Israeli officials are examining the cease-fire proposal approved by Hamas. But the official warns that the plan “is not the framework Israel proposed.”
Counterprotesters at DePaul’s Lincoln Park campus reportedly tried to clash with pro-Palestinian protesters. Nationwide, more than 2,500 protesters have been arrested since April 18.
Police said the museum asked them to clear the encampment on Saturday, hours after organizers set up tents in the Art Institute’s North Garden which they said were intended to pressure the school regarding the “occupation of Palestine.”
On a mostly peaceful day, tensions briefly bubbled over when counter-protesters confronted the demonstrators at the university’s Edward Levi Hall. An altercation prompted campus police to respond.
Las protestas contra la guerra han invadido los campus universitarios en las últimas semanas. Los estudiantes apoyan a los palestinos en los ataques de Israel contra Gaza, denuncian lo que llaman censura por parte de sus universidades y piden a las instituciones que dejen de invertir en fabricantes de armas y empresas que apoyan a Israel.
Classes disrupted, fellow students threatened, clashes with police, and the yo-yo story has to wait.
Tensions were higher Tuesday when hundreds of New York police officers raided Columbia University and City College of New York while a group of counterprotesters attacked a student encampment at UCLA.
The backlash comes days after the university made an agreement with encampment organizers to take steps toward divesting from Israel.
“I remember coming out of my apartment one day and spotting Chicago cops dragging young protesters out of one section of Lincoln Park and shoving them into trucks, while nearby poet Allen Ginsberg was chanting in a circle of peaceful protesters not far away from the radical Abby Hoffman,” remembers Dan Webb, who later became a U.S. attorney.
El campus se une a las protestas en todo el país para pedir a las universidades que dejen de invertir en empresas que apoyan a Israel.
Anti-war protests have swept college campuses in recent weeks as students support Palestinians in Israel’s attacks on Gaza, decry what they call censorship from their universities and call on institutions to divest from weapons manufacturers and companies supporting Israel.
They are willing to risk the completion of degrees or acquiring police records as allies of suffering civilians in Gaza, a reader from Hyde Park says.
The campus joins protests across the country calling on universities to divest from companies supporting Israel.
The two-part, four-hour film on WTTW comes just in time for the 750th anniversary of a key event in Dante’s life.
Déjà vu is a heck of a thing. Whether it’s 1970 or 2024, war weighs heavily on campuses — and on athletes.
window.fbAsyncInit = function() { FB.init({
appId : '425672421661236',
xfbml : true, version : 'v2.9' }); };
(function(d, s, id){
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;}
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = "https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js";
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));
Source link