Why are students protesting? Demands for schools to divest from Israel.

Publish date: 2024-08-05

Waves of student-led protests unfolding on university campuses around the country in recent weeks have shared the key demand that schools cut financial ties with companies that facilitate Israel’s war in Gaza. In response to the protests, schools have canceled classes and altered commencement ceremonies, arrested and suspended students, called for calm and an end to the disruptions — and in some cases pledged to address some of the protesters’ demands.

Here’s what you need to know about why people are protesting at U.S. campuses:

Protest origins

Campus rallies and vigils for victims of the war in Gaza have disrupted colleges since October and were supercharged on April 17, when students at Columbia University set up a Gaza solidarity encampment. Dozens of schools across the United States quickly followed suit.
Encampments were some of the most visible manifestations of the protest movement, and they have been the site of arrests by campus and, in some cases, municipal police. Officers have also responded to protesters occupying university buildings.
Several university presidents, including at Columbia and Indiana universities, have faced calls to resign for their response to campus protests. The calls for resignation have come from pro-Palestinian protesters who have decried the police presence on campus, and from pro-Israel protesters who say school leaders have failed to stand up to antisemitism on campus.
Students have largely demonstrated in a show of solidarity with Palestinians displaced or killed in the Israel-Hamas conflict, but a few have demonstrated in support of Israel. Protesters, especially at wealthy schools such as Yale and Columbia, have also demanded that their university endowments divest from military weapons manufacturers and defense contractors with ties to Israel.

As tensions rise at university protests and police make over 2,000 arrests nationwide, these students share why they will continue to protest. (Video: Hadley Green, Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Reshma Kirpalani/The Washington Post)

Divestment

The protesters have largely demanded that universities stop their endowments from supporting Israeli-linked companies or institutions. Such divestment can be complicated when a university’s financial relationship to a targeted company is not direct but through an investment in an index fund.

Some schools, such as New York University, have balked at recent calls to change their investments, The Washington Post reported, but there is precedent. Columbia, the University of California system and Yale have committed to divesting from assets tied to contentious issues including fossil fuels, prison holdings and tobacco sales.

At Cornell University and other schools, students have identified ties to specific companies, such as the weapons manufacturers Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.

“Divestment is a rallying cry that is nationally resonant,” said Nick Wilson, a 20-year-old Cornell student involved in the protests. “We don’t want our tuition dollars going to the research and development of weapons” that may be used against Gazans.

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Other demands

While divestment is the major demand of student protests across the country, students are also calling for changes that are specific to their campus communities’ particular relationships to Israel, weapons manufacturing, and issues like militarization and occupation that are viewed as relevant themes to Palestinian freedom.

Arrests and suspensions

At least 2,300 people have been arrested — most of them students — while universities have punished some students with suspensions and evictions from student housing.

They have been charged with trespassing, vandalism and violating campus policies about overnight camping.

Some international students have risked their visa status to join demonstrations that may lead to arrests, suspensions or expulsions.

Wilson, of Cornell, was one of several members of a student-elected negotiation committee to be suspended indefinitely for their activity. Wilson said that while he has remained in his student housing and used his meal plan at dining halls, he cannot attend classes, take finals or work as a research assistant, a job that requires accessing a lab on campus.

“Effectively, I’ve been placed on house arrest by my university,” Wilson said.

Not all universities used police to quell dissent. Brown, Northwestern and other schools negotiated with protesters to end their demonstrations this week, calming fervor and calls for their presidents to resign.

The war

More than 34,000 people have been killed and 77,000 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers.

Danielle Douglas-Gabrielle, Richard Morgan, Rachel Siegel and Susan Svrluga contributed to this report.