Protesters’ demands have focused on divestment — demanding universities cut ties with Israel and businesses supporting the war in Gaza.
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 camp in the Chicago area remains, at DePaul University’s Lincoln Park campus.
Police cleared an encampment at the University of Chicago on Tuesday. On Saturday, police arrested 68 protesters as they tried to set up a camp outside the Art Institute of Chicago. Northwestern University’s camp was dismantled last week 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.
On Oct. 7, Palestinian militants launched an unprecedented attack into southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting about 250 hostages.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 34,500 Palestinians, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry. Israeli strikes have devastated the enclave and displaced most of its inhabitants.
The war has driven around 80% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million from their homes, caused vast destruction in several towns and cities and pushed northern Gaza to the brink of famine.
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.
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 last week.
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?
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.
The action, which sparked a subsequent standoff with demonstrators, began around daybreak as campus police surrounded the university’s main quadrangle in the Hyde Park neighborhood.
When the police barricade that blocked students’ path was removed about 8 a.m, a mass of protesters made for the steps of Edward H. Levi Hall, where they linked arms as police surrounded them.
By 9 a.m. protesters had dispersed of their own accord as a rainstorm moved through.
Hundreds of University of Chicago students set up the encampment on April 29.
A pro-Palestinian encampment set up Saturday 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.”
The first arrest was made around the time the encampment was set up as police tried to push protesters away from Monroe Street at Michigan Avenue, a Sun-Times reporter observed.
Growing to several hundred demonstrators, including students and faculty, students from other universities and passersby who joined, they were met by dozens of Chicago police officers who set up barricades to stop protesters from moving onto the sidewalk on Monroe Street.
