Hundreds of Chicago-area college students have joined the wave of pro-Palestinian protests sweeping campuses across the country, expressing support for the people of Gaza and demanding their universities divest from Israel.
Only one protest encampment in the Chicago area remains, at DePaul University’s Lincoln Park campus. The university says it’s at a “stalemate” with protesters.
Police cleared an encampment at the University of Chicago last week. On May 4, police arrested 68 protesters as they tried to set up a camp outside the Art Institute of Chicago. Northwestern University’s camp was dismantled earlier his month after a deal with administrators.
Protesters’ demands have focused on divestment — demanding universities cut ties with Israel and businesses supporting the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Some 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza face catastrophic levels of hunger, on the brink of starvation, and a “full-blown famine” is taking place in the north, according to the U.N. The death toll from the war in Gaza has soared to more than 35,000 people, most of them women and children, according to local health officials.
The war began Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250 others. Israel says militants still hold around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.
Here’s what we know so far about what’s happened, what the protests are about and what comes next.
How did the protests start?
Students at Columbia University in New York City set up a protest camp on April 17, the same day university President Nemat Shafik was called to testify before Congress. Shafik faced criticism from Republicans over alleged antisemitism from pro-Palestinian protesters.
The next day, New York City police were called to clear the encampment and arrested over 100 protesters.
The arrests, which New York Mayor Eric Adams says were requested by Columbia officials, garnered national attention and inflamed college protests nationwide. Soon, protest camps had been set up at University of Michigan, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of North Carolina.
What do protesters want?
As the death toll mounts in the war in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis worsens, protesters at Columbia and universities all over the U.S. are demanding schools cut financial ties to the conflict and pledge to support a cease-fire in the region.
Protesters have said universities should disclose and unload any investments in companies doing business with Israel or manufacturing weapons and end programs that partner with Israeli institutions.
“From this divestment campaign to the divestment campaigns all around the world, we demand divestment, repair, justice, freedom for all Palestinians,” Moon G., an incoming master’s student at the University of Chicago Divinity School, told the crowd at the encampment at the university’s Hyde Park campus on April 29.
The DePaul University Divestment Coalition’s list of 10 demands include ending study abroad trips to Israel, removing people with ties to Israel from the university’s board of trustees and ending research or collaborative relationships with Israeli universities.
Organizers at Northwestern called on the university to end its Israel Innovation Project, a STEM program where students, faculty and staff collaborate with counterparts in Israel.
At U of C and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, protesters demanded the school refuse future donations from the Crown family, who own a 10% stake in defense company General Dynamics. U of C is home to Crown Family School of Social Work, Family and Practice, and the family has endowed a professorship at SAIC. The family is a major donor to many universities.
Protesters have also called out how universities have responded to the protests and demands.
A statement announcing the Northwestern encampment said students “report the administration is curtailing free speech.” A University of Chicago protester said the university turned down requests for a public meeting regarding divestment from Israel in the fall.
Where are protests happening in the Chicago area?
University of Chicago
Campus police at the University of Chicago cleared a pro-Palestinian encampment at the school early Tuesday morning, ending an eight-day demonstration that brought student protesters and university officials to an impasse over the protesters’ demands.
Hundreds of University of Chicago students set up the encampment on April 29.
Protesters who participated in the pro-Palestinian encampment criticized the university and campus police Thursday for the way the tents were cleared.
Katja Stroke-Adolphe, a student at the university’s law school and student organizer with groups like Law Students for Justice in Palestine, said she was pushed down and her friend was struck by officers in riot gear.
Stroke-Adolphe, 25, told reporters that her experience ran counter to a statement released by the university’s dean of students Tuesday, which read that “all of the protesters left without incident.”
“I ask how [the University of Chicago Police Department] — in riot gear — raiding people sleeping in their tents, grabbing, shoving and hitting people, throwing me to the ground, how any of this is without incident,” she said.
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
A pro-Palestinian encampment set up on May 4 outside the Art Institute of Chicago was cleared by Chicago police hours after it went up leading to nearly 70 arrests, officials said.
Students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with the group SAIC Students for Palestinian Liberation assembled shortly before noon at the museum’s North Garden, near Michigan Avenue and Monroe Street.
The group said they were staging the protests to demand the school and museum disclose its investments, give amnesty to demonstrators and divest from those supporting the “occupation of Palestine.”
SAIC United for Palestine said more than half the protesters arrested were held in custody for more than 11 hours. The school accused protesters of stealing keys and a radio from a security guard as well as blocking emergency exits near the encampment, among other allegations.
COPA has opened a preliminary investigation to determine whether it or the Chicago Police Department’s Bureau of Internal Affairs will take over the inquiry into officer conduct. One protester said they were hit by an officer and taken to Thorek Memorial Hospital for treatment, according to a complaint.
DePaul University
The encampment on DePaul University‘s Lincoln Park campus officially began at 10 a.m. on April 30.
Protesters have been negotiating with the university over their list of demands, which call on the administration to acknowledge the mounting death toll in Gaza, divest from companies that “advance Palestinian suffering and profit off the occupation,” and join the city of Chicago in calling for a cease-fire.
The latest proposal from the university, released Saturday, includes an offer to financially support “teach-ins” once per quarter, set up an informational meeting between organizers and the university’s board and create a committee to identify “programming and educational moments that promote positive outcomes for the region.” The proposal declines to call the war a “genocide” or commit to considering divestment.
The proposal requires the camp to end by noon on Sunday. But after the protesters didn’t accept the proposal’s terms, the university is considering “this dialogue at a stalemate.”
Northwestern University
Hundreds of people set up an encampment on April 25 on Deering Meadow on Northwestern University’s Evanston campus.
Despite the university enacting an “interim addendum” to its student code of conduct to prohibit tents, protesters kept the encampment up through the weekend before reaching a deal with university administration last week to take down all but one aid tent. The agreement allows protests to continue without tents until June 1, the last day of class.
The university is facing heavy backlash over the agreement, with university president Michael Schill bearing the brunt of the criticism. Three Jewish organizations are calling for him to resign, and he will testify before Congress later this month about antisemitism on campus. Meanwhile, a truck with signs saying “Hamas’s favorite university president, Michael Schill...” above a link to a campaign calling for Schill to resign has been seen parked across from Deering Meadow at the university.
A display of Israeli and American flags at Northwestern University was vandalized with red paint Sunday night, according to the university. Northwestern University president Michael Schill said that if the vandals were Northwestern students, that disciplinary action would be pursued, though university police would be investigating.
Other protests
Hundreds of demonstrators from the University of Chicago, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia College Chicago and Roosevelt University marched, chanted and held up signs supporting Palestinians living in Gaza on April 26.
And students at a few Chicago high schools protested the war on May 1 by first demonstrating in their schools then marching to an encampments at the University of Chicago.
About 15 Jones students took a CTA bus to join a group of around 30 kids from Kenwood Academy High School, Hancock College Prep and Kennedy High School who marched through Hyde Park to the University of Chicago encampment.
On the 1.5-mile walk to U of C, the group chanted “Gaza, Gaza don’t you cry, we will never let you die,” “Biden, Biden you can’t hide, you’re committing genocide” and “No more weapons, no more war, cease-fire is what we’re fighting for.”
Are their demands being met?
Before their encampment was cleared, pro-Palestinian organizers at the University of Chicago reached what they called an “impasse” with university officials.
The university had not met with student organizers since for several days, after both parties failed to come to terms over language in a draft agreement and funding for future scholarships and research, according to a student organizer.
“There were areas where we were able to achieve common ground, but ultimately a number of the intractable and inflexible aspects of their demands were fundamentally incompatible with the University’s principled dedication to institutional neutrality,” said university president Paul Alivisatos in a statement.
DePaul University and protesters remain at a similar impasse over their demands after almost two weeks of protests.
Student protesters had some of their demands met as part of a deal with Northwestern administration to end the encampment announced on April 29.
University President Michael Schill said the agreement represents a “sustainable and de-escalated path forward.” The agreement allows protests to continue without tents until June 1, the last day of class. The demonstrators will be allowed to keep one aid tent.
As a first step toward divestment, the agreement requires the university to disclose information about any investments to people associated with the university within 30 days of the inquiry. It will also re-establish a committee to advise on investments that will include student representatives. The university also committed to fully funding tuition for five Palestinian undergraduate students, supporting visiting Palestinian faculty and students at risk, providing an immediate temporary space for Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Muslim students, and renovating a building for future use.
The deal has come under criticism from Jewish groups — ADL Midwest, StandWithUs and the Louis D. Brandeis Center — who have called on the university’s president to resign.
Nationally, demonstrators at Rutgers University packed their tents up after the state university agreed to establish an Arab Cultural Center and to not retaliate against any students involved in the camp.
Protesters at Brown University in Rhode Island agreed to dismantle their encampment on April 30. School officials said students could present arguments for divesting Brown’s endowment from companies contributing to and profiting from the war in Gaza.
Faculty at Pomona College in California voted in favor of divesting from companies they said are funding Israel’s war in Gaza, a group of faculty and students said Friday.
What about allegations of antisemitism?
In a statement, the Illinois Holocaust Museum described the protests convulsing campuses as “a moment of grave crisis” and says the Holocaust is being used as a political and rhetorical tool. It also said Columbia University in New York offering hybrid classes for students anxious about being on campus is a “worrisome sign.”
“There is nothing antisemitic about supporting the Palestinians’ rights or demonstrating in support of Palestinians,” the statement said. “But within these protests have been worrisome and persistent examples of antisemitic expression. … Bad actors are using the cover of free speech in this moment of tension to normalize dangerous ideas that cause real harm to Jewish students and communities.”
The museum said statements like “From the River to the Sea, Palestine is Arab,” “Students will go home when Israelis go back to Europe, US, etc. (their real homes)” and “All you do is colonize” were “explicitly calling for the murder of these protesters.”
For Palestinians, the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” has been a rallying call for decades, signifying what they believe is their right to peacefully return to the land that is now Israel.
On April 30, three Jewish students identified only as Jane Doe, John Doe 1 and John Doe 2, filed a lawsuit against the university, alleging harassment by members of the encampment.
The lawsuit filed in Cook County Court condemns the university for allowing the encampment on campus, alleging it violated multiple Northwestern policies. But rather than enforce school policy, “Northwestern twisted itself into a pretzel to accommodate” the encampment, the complaint alleges.
Have there been arrests or violence in Chicago?
After the SAIC encampment was set up, police said 68 people were taken into custody and would be charged with criminal trespass to property.
The Chicago Police Department says officers spent a little more than two hours negotiating with demonstrators to clear the area. About 4:30 p.m., police began making mass arrests at the request of museum officials.
There were no injuries or arrests made when the University of Chicago encampment was cleared, but people were pushed to the ground, an organizer told the Sun-Times.
University of Chicago and DePaul saw confrontations with counter-protesters earlier, prompting police to show up with riot gear at one point to the U of C encampment.
Nationally, just over 2,900 people have been arrested on the campuses of 57 colleges and universities since April 18, according to figures based on AP reporting and statements from universities and law enforcement agencies.
More than 200 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had camped out on the campus of Columbia University in New York City or occupied an academic building were arrested in recent weeks.
At least 132 people were arrested at the University of California, Los Angeles earlier this month as an encampment there was cleared, according to a spokesperson for the CHP Southern Division.
What happens next?
Northwestern protesters plan to continue their protest until June 1. University of Chicago organizers said they will continue to push the school to divest from Israel and support its Palestinian students, with or without the encampment.
“This is one tactic in a much larger campaign,” said a senior organizer named Sammy who did not give their last name out of safety concerns.
The end of the semester — and May graduations — have been a looming deadline for universities. But graduation ceremonies are going off largely peacefully so far.
Only about 30 students at Duke University stood up against comedian and pro-Israel entertainer Jerry Seinfeld, who received an honorary doctorate Sunday. The vast majority of the 7,000 students there took no overt action as the crowd let out a mix of cheers and boos.
At Emerson College in Boston, some students took off their graduation robes and left them on stage. A few dozen pro-Palestinian protesters tried to block access to Sunday evening’s commencement for Southern California’s Pomona College.
Contributing: Associated Press, Isabel Funk, Jessica Ma, Violet Miller, Sophie Sherry, Aidan Sadovi
