This story was written by Teen Vogue's 2024 Student Correspondents, a team of college students and recent graduates covering the election cycle from key battleground states.
Last spring, pro-Palestine campus protests, encampments, and demonstrations reached a fever pitch across the country. Many of the protests resulted in students facing legal and academic repercussions. And as students began returning to campus this fall semester, the arrests began again.
Shortly after classes began for University of Michigan students on August 28, university police shut down a pro-Palestine “die-in,” where students and community members were demanding that the university divest from various weapons manufacturers tied to the ongoing violence in Palestine. Four protesters, who the university said were not students, were arrested. University spokesperson Colleen Mastony told Teen Vogue, “The university has been clear that we will enforce our policies related to protests and expressive activity and that we will hold individuals accountable for their actions.”
A few weeks later, Michigan State attorney general Dana Nessel announced misdemeanor and felony charges against 11 protestors who participated in the UMich spring encampment. The TAHRIR Coalition at the University of Michigan decried the charges in a statement, accusing the state AG of “bypass[ing] local prosecutor Eli Savit in an effort to secure harsher criminal penalties following previous felony charges, ongoing academic disciplinary actions, and hiring bans.” The decision was also condemned by Palestinian American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI).
These were only the first among several examples of alleged campus protest and protester suppression, including, on September 21, Harvard threatened disciplinary action over a silent “study-in” hosted by the student group Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine. And at Cornell, grad student Momodou Taal may be deported after being suspended for participating in a protest at a campus career fair that featured defense contractors.
As demonstrations persist into the new academic year, more than 30 universities and colleges are implementing new policies that affect everything from masking to “distributing literature,” per a Mother Jones investigation. The regulations restrict students' ability to protest and exercise free speech. Other institutions face lawsuits involving allegations of both antisemitism and Islamophobia. Here’s what’s happening on campuses nationwide.
What’s happened since the spring?
More than 3,000 people were arrested at pro-Palestine campus protests and encampments in spring 2024, and while charges were dropped for many students, some are still facing legal repercussions or awaiting court decisions. Those in legal limbo may also be unsure of the future of their academic careers. Some colleges withheld degrees and others continue to enforce other disciplinary measures.
Some campus organizers at schools like Arizona State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison are leading community campaigns for legal defense to support students and community members facing legal action. These efforts have persisted throughout the summer with groups at the University of Wisconsin-Madison “packing the court” for their peers' hearings, raising money for bail funds, and leading public pressure movements to get charges dropped.
The University of South Florida expelled one student and suspended another following spring encampments. Students are fighting to appeal the decision with Students for Democratic Socialism Tampa Bay and continuing to organize in solidarity with Palestine. In response to a request for comment from Teen Vogue, a spokesperson from USF said they were unable to comment on the decision to expel one student and suspend another due to student privacy laws, adding, “Any student who is accused of violating university policy may be subject to sanctions from the university for violating the USF student code of conduct.”
In New Haven, close to 50 protestors, including Yale students, were arrested and charged with trespassing during April demonstrations demanding the university “divest from genocide.” Those arrested are now facing ongoing legal battles. At the beginning of the semester, there were calls to have the charges dismissed, a push that was recently shut down at Princeton University.
Beyond academic and legal challenges, students may also be navigating the trauma of experiencing violence – whether at the hands of police or counter-protestors. At many demonstrations and encampments, police were called in to break up protests, leaving some students injured and some hospitalized.
New protest policies limit students
Last spring, University of California campuses saw pro-Palestinian protests from San Diego to Davis to Santa Cruz. In total, UC campuses saw over 500 arrests and many student suspensions. At UCLA, police failed to intervene for three hours as counter-protesters violently attacked students, according to the Washington Post. (UCLA did not respond to the Post’s request for comment.)
In anticipation of students returning to campus, UC president Michael V. Drake instituted new policies for every UC campus that prohibit blocking access to university buildings, forbid masking “to conceal identity,” and ban setting up tents or campsites on university grounds.
On August 27, in response to the new policies, UAW 4811, a union representing more than 48,000 UC academic workers, issued a “Demand to Bargain” with UC administrators. According to a press release issued by UAW 4811, the proposals have a “significant and consequential impact on the terms and conditions of employment for members of UAW bargaining units.” Mask bans similar to the one now enforced on UC campuses have also been criticized for endangering disabled people and hindering these communities from enacting their First Amendment right to organize.
Other institutions like the University of Virginia are making similar updates to their guidelines, prohibiting setting up tents and masking to evade identification. Students and faculty condemned these updates, telling the school newspaper, the Daily Progress, that they were implemented with little input from the campus community.
New policies enacted to limit protests take many different forms. The University of Wisconsin-Madison updated its protest policy, prohibiting all “expressive activity” within 25 feet of university facility entrances. Expressive activity may include everything from the distribution of literature to chalking. Free speech expert Howard Schweber told The Daily Cardinal the updated policy is “extremely problematic, clearly unconstitutional.”
Students and faculty at Columbia University noticed new attempts to keep protests at bay at the beginning of the fall semester. The spring encampments at Columbia — and the occupation of a campus building renamed by students as “Hind’s Hall” to honor six-year-old Hind Rajab, a young girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza — helped inspire other encampments and occupations all over the country. Gates that have historically been open to anyone are now guarded and only those with Columbia IDs are granted access, as reported by Reuters. The site of the Palestine Solidarity Encampment now features signs prohibiting camping.
Nonetheless, most days students from Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) sit outside tabling and speaking to new and current students. On September 3, as many students began to arrive on campus, protestors chanted and addressed passersby resulting in two arrests; Columbia declined to comment to the Intercept, "citing the fact that they occurred off-campus — by a few feet — and instead referred [the matter] to the NYPD."
At nearby New York University, police pepper-sprayed protesters and arrested over 120 demonstrators, including faculty, during an April protest, per a statement from the NYPD to Teen Vogue. Now, NYU is welcoming students back to class with updated guidelines on conduct. One of the guidelines is a nondiscrimination and anti-harassment policy ("NDAH") that bans discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender identity, disability, or other protected identities. In their updated version, NYU added a clause to include criticism of Zionism or the belief that “Jews deserve their own state in their ancestral homeland” as violating the NDAH policy. The addition reads, “Using code words like ‘Zionist' does not eliminate the possibility that your speech violates the NDAH policy.”
NYU Faculty for Justice in Palestine released a statement saying they are “alarmed” by NYU’s updated student guidance and expectations. They claim the new guidelines “troublingly equates criticism of Zionism with discrimination against Jewish people” and “legitimize far-right and ethnonationalist ideologies under the guise of protecting students from racial discrimination.”
Unprecedented lawsuits pending
Jewish and Palestinian students are suing their universities regarding fallout from the handling of pro-Palestine protests at schools including the University of Texas at Austin, Columbia University, and the University of California Irvine during the 2023–2024 academic year.
A federal judge ruled that Harvard must face a lawsuit filed by Jewish students for purported indifference while students allegedly were facing harassment from pro-Palestine protests. A spokesperson for Harvard told ABC News that the university will continue to take action and “address the root causes of antisemitism on campus.” In response to a request for comment from Teen Vogue, a spokesperson said, “We appreciate that the Court dismissed the claim that Harvard directly discriminated against members of our community.” The lawsuit comes eight months after a group of Palestinian students filed a civil rights complaint against Harvard alleging the university had failed to protect them from “discrimination on campus.”
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