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Wednesday, April 24, 2024
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ADMINISTRATION
‘We will not stop until we get full divestment’: UMich protesters begin encampment on Diag
Encampment comes amid similar pro-Palestine protests on campuses across the country SNEHA DHANDAPANI & MATTHEW SHANBOM Daily News Editor & Daily Staff Reporter
About 40 pro-Palestine University of Michigan student protesters set up an encampment on the Diag Monday morning, with the earliest arriving at about 6 a.m. From a distance, passersby can see a collection of tents, Palestinian flags and signs asking the University to divest from companies with financial ties to Israel. The demonstration follows six months of protesting for the University’s divestment, beginning with a sit-in outside the University President’s House on Oct. 13. Since then, pro-Palestine student protesters have chanted for the University to divest from companies profiting from the Israeli military campaign in Gaza at Pierpont Commons, throughout the Michigan Union and inside the Alexander G. Ruthven Building. Monday’s protest was organized by the TAHRIR Coalition, a multicultural coalition of more than 80 pro-Palestine student organizations, including Students Allied For Freedom and Equality and the U-M chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. Recent protests on the U-M campus have followed a similar pattern of pro-Palestine protests at universities across the nation. At Columbia University, more than 100 students were arrested for
participating in an encampment on April 18. Similarly, at Yale University, more than 45 student protesters were arrested for trespassing Monday morning. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine held a protest on April 19 in support of the student
ADMINISTRATION
UMich campus reacts to draft of Disruptive Activity Policy
Students and faculty respond to the University’s most recent addition to the free speech guidelines SNEHA DHANDAPANI & EILENE KOO Daily News Editor & Daily Staff Reporter
On March 24, more than 100 University of Michigan student protesters interrupted the 101st Annual Honors Convocation in protest of the University’s investment in companies profiting from Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Four days later, on March 28, the University sent an email to the campus community containing a draft of a Disruptive Activity Policy, the newest modification to the University’s free speech guidelines. Since then, students have expressed concern over how the policy might impact their right to protest on campus. As chants ring from the Central Campus Diag to Pierpont Commons on North Campus, The Michigan Daily spoke with students to understand their thoughts surrounding the U-M administration’s response to student activism. When the draft policy was released, the U-M campus community was invited to fill out a feedback survey in the University administration’s March 28 email, which was open until April 3. While the campus community has responded to the DAP in both writing and protest, the DAP has received attention from outside organizations as well. The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan released a statement April 3 which detailed a letter they sent to University President Santa Ono, asking him either to
CALEB ROSENBBLUM/Daily
Members of the Tahrir coalition set up an encampment on the Diag to protest the University’s investment in Israel Monday morning.
rescind the policy entirely or make substantial changes to it. On April 5, 1,635 U-M faculty, students and staff signed an open letter opposing the University’s recently released DAP draft. This letter cited part of the draft policy which stated protests cannot prevent movement around campus. “No Person without legal authority may prevent or impede the free flow of persons about campus, whether indoors or outdoors, including any pedestrian, bicycle, or vehicular traffic,” the draft policy reads. In response, faculty members wrote that they believe this policy would jeopardize the University’s tradition of student activism. “We maintain that as a collective, we now pride ourselves on the outcomes of this persistent and principled activism, even though many of the protests were not popular at the time – including protests spearheaded by Martin Luther King, whose legacy U-M now celebrates annually,” the letter reads. “The very nature of protest is disruptive because it seeks to incite change.” The April 5 letter also referred to the 1987 Supreme Court case City of Houston v. Hill. The case ruled that a licensing ordinance violated the First Amendment by giving city officials complete discretion over the placement of news racks in the city. The letter said the same principle applied to the DAP because, if enacted, the University would have complete discretion over what is defined as “disruptive activity.”
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arrests at Columbia. Both Yale and Columbia hold investments in Israeli companies. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Rackham student Shreya Chowdhary said the encampment on the Diag was inspired by the events at other universities across the country. “This encampment is a
statement to the University that we will not move until they divest, that we will not allow our endowment to fund the genocide … and it is also an act of solidarity with other student organizers across the country from Columbia, to UNC Chapel Hill to a bunch of other places that are setting up similar solidarity on campus,”
Chowdhary said. “So it’s not just this (one event). It is a national movement that we’re participating in to demonstrate that students across the United States are not going to stand for our universities funding genocide and profiteering from genocide.” In an interview with The Daily, LSA sophomore Annabel Bean,
co-founder of the U-M chapter of JVP, said the protest is intended to be a call to action for the University to divest. “You’ll see that our universities are funding this genocide both directly and indirectly, funding the larger military-industrial complex, industrial complex and materialism more largely,” Bean said. “We really want to tell them that this is our University.” In a press release obtained by The Daily, the TAHRIR coalition stated that actions taken by the University in response to student activism, such as trespass warnings, arrests and proposed changes to the University’s freespeech policy, have caused feelings of targeted repression against proPalestine protests. Chowdhary said she hopes University administration comes to speak with the student protesters on the Diag. “We expect the University to come talk to us and negotiate with us,” Chowdhary said. “They’re probably going to try to kick us off. We want to emphasize that people camp on the Diag all the time, so any acts to try to kick us off (show) there’s no other interpretation than it being repression of our right to protest. And we’ve seen that (the administration) has consistently demonstrated that they are willing to take any and all measures to repress pro-Palestine protests, specifically compared to other protests.” Read more at MichiganDaily.com
CAMPUS LIFE
TAHRIR Coalition organizes campus-wide strike for Palestine Students, professors and staff members across campus protest work and class in support of divestment
CHRISTINA ZHANG & AUDREY SHABELSKI Daily Staff Reporters
As part of a nationwide strike for Gaza on Monday, the TAHRIR Coalition, a multicultural coalition of more than 60 University of Michigan student organizations including Students Allied for Freedom and Equality and Jewish Voice for Peace, organized a strike on the University of Michigan campus. Students refused to go to class, work or spend money with the goal of pressuring the University to divest from companies profiting off of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. The strike was purposefully organized on Tax Day to pressure the economy in response to U.S. taxpayer dollars going towards Israeli weaponry. It featured teachins on the Diag and picket lines in front of multiple University buildings from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Picketers chanted, “Join us on the picket line, shut it down for Palestine.” Throughout the day, the Diag was filled with pro-Palestine organizations offering free food, banners, stickers, pins and screen printings. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, SAFE President Salma Hamamy said the Diag served as a central space for strikers to organize. “It’s more so to facilitate community space,” Hamamy said. “People will come every two hours to prepare for the next picket line, and then they
will go over to various schools and buildings and picket outside, or inside at certain points as well.” The strike extended to the Central Student Government as well, with newly inaugurated CSG President Alifa Chowdhury releasing an executive order on April 12 that said they would halt all CSG-related work for the strike and urged community participation. In a press release about the executive order, Chowdhury and CSG Vice President Elias Atkinson urged the campus community to participate in Monday’s strike. “We have released Executive Order 14-001 directing the executive branch to halt all activity and echoing the call for the U-M community, including students, staff, and faculty, to join the strike,” the statement said “On Monday, April 15th, refuse to attend or hold classes, withhold your labor, and instead join organized actions to call for divestment and the liberation of Palestine.” Chowdhury told The Daily the strike included an array of activities meant to educate and engage campus community members. “We’ve been having teachins about Palestine at the Diag because we’re not against learning — I think that’s a misconception,” Chowdhury said. “We’ve been picketing across campus, North Campus, here. We’ve been screen printing, we’ve been hosting art workshops. We really want it to be an inclusive space and also a learning space. We’re trying to get people more involved and understand what
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INDEX
GRACE BEAL/Daily Members of TAHRIR Coalition and other supporters of Palestine participate in the national strike for Gaza in the Diag Monday afternoon.
we’re doing.” In an interview with The Daily, LSA junior Rachel Sajdak said she was participating in the strike because she felt disappointed in the University’s decision not to divest from companies profiting off Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. “Today I’m refusing to buy anything,” Sajdak said. “I’m refusing to go to class. I’m refusing to do most of the things I would do in my normal day and think about the gratitude I have for being able to conduct my day however I like, because that’s not the case for Palestinians in Gaza. I’m very motivated by our University’s refusal to engage in conversation about divestment and its cowardly actions.” In an interview with The Daily, Art & Design junior Paulina Perez Balderrama said she had a class, RCHUMS 305: Art & Conflict of the Modern Middle East, that met
Vol. CXXXIV No. 24 ©2024 The Michigan Daily
in the Diag Monday because of the course’s connection to Palestinian history and art. “I had a class earlier today, but it was counterintuitive not to go because it talks about art and conflict in the modern Middle East,” Perez Balderrama said. “A lot of the themes we talk about are liberation and conflict in Palestine. We decided to continue that class but not (hold it) in a University building. We held the class in the Diag so we could still be a part of everything happening here. A lot of my classmates came to the teach-in after.” Early in the morning, while the organizations gathered on the Diag, students gathered at the Art & Architecture Building on North Campus for an event called “Art Disrupt! Art Build @ STAMPS” which served as a space for students to make protest signs and express their frustrations through artistic works. Read more at MichiganDaily.com
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