American University Students for Justice in Palestine and supporters were repeatedly asked to quiet down and move their vigil on Oct. 7 amid AU Police Department presence because the quad was booked all day by the University and AU Hillel for a Unity Dinner at 6 p.m.
Beginning before noon, SJP members and supporters sat on the quad by Hurst Hall as speakers read names from a megaphone of those who have died in Israel’s attacks on Gaza and Lebanon. Many demonstrators wore keffiyehs, and one flew both the Lebanese and Palestinian flags.
“During the reading, administration responded with threats of arrest and removal, deploying AUPD officers equipped with zip ties and stationed a bus to shuttle students out, right next to the group of students leading this memorial,” SJP said in a statement to The Eagle. “These actions were clearly designed to intimidate and silence students to distract us from the ongoing year-long genocide that AU continues to be complicit in.”
The vigil was the start of SJP’s “Week of Rage” to mourn and protest “one year since the beginning of the brutal israeli genocide against the Palestinian people, a genocide which has taken hundreds of thousands of martyrs,” they wrote in an Instagram caption.
Around 2 p.m., two AU administrators attempted to walk into the crowd of demonstrators while names continued to be read. They were blocked by students in SJP and left as demonstrators yelled “shame” after them.
At 2:50 p.m., across the quad, around a dozen AUPD officers stood with bundles of zip ties. SJP and their supporters gradually dispersed, and the officers and bus left half an hour after their first appearance.
“The whole point is deescalation,” said Matt Bennett, vice president and chief communications officer, in an interview with The Eagle in regards to AUPD’s presence. “That is step number one and the priority. We believe in free expression here and we support it.”
On Oct. 11, AU Student Government posted on their Instagram about the vigil and the administration’s response. The post details an email sent by their executive board to administration on the night of Oct. 7, after the vigil, asking for no conduct violations to be taken against students who participated and to know who made the decision to call AUPD in.
SG met with Chief Financial Officer, Vice President and Treasurer Bronte Burleigh-Jones and Vice President of Student Affairs Raymond Ou and Vice President of Inclusive Excellence Nkenge Friday on Oct. 8. The administrators declined to confirm or deny whether disciplinary action will be taken against participants in the vigil, according to their post. During the meeting, they clarified that Burleigh-Jones and Raymond Ou had been the ones to request AUPD’s presence.
“Students should be able to mourn, gather, and protest without fear of being detained by AUPD,” SG’s post reads. SG plans to “keep open lines of communication” with administration and “call for increased transparency” on University policies.
On Oct. 7, a group of half a dozen administrators and AU staff watched the demonstration and had frequent conversations with SJP representatives. Administrators warned SJP that they were in violation of the amplified sound policy from the new policies enacted earlier this month.
Bennett said that the University wasn’t asking SJP to “close up shop” but to move from the quad and go through the new University protocols to use a megaphone. Bennett said that the new policies placed on student protests not only protect free speech, but encourage students to participate in protests.
Under the new Facilities Use policies, students must clear the use of megaphones or speakers in public spaces with the University.
Bennett clarified to The Eagle that the entire quad was booked all day for the University-organized Unity Dinner at 6 p.m. that day. He explained that SJP was not authorized to demonstrate on the quad and was instead given other locations on campus to use.
Before leaving, SJP announced that they would be back on the quad the next day for a previously scheduled protest. On their Instagram, they condemned the response from University administration.
“We are on OUR campus, and being charged for honoring and reading the names of our martyrs,” SJP wrote in an Instagram post that was posted soon after AUPD arrived. The post also called for more people to come show their support on the quad and join other events of SJP’s Week of Rage.
In their statement to The Eagle, SJP expanded on similar sentiments, “We will not capitulate to this administration’s threats of sanctions and threats of student code of conduct charges. No amount of intimidation and repression will quell our organization’s mission, and we will continue to honor all of our martyrs. Repression will only breed resistance.”
Many students and community members walked past the demonstration during its duration and some stopped to observe for longer. Among those were Tomer Ben-Ezer and Gabriella Weissbart, both seniors in the College of Arts and Sciences, and members of AU’s chapter of Students Supporting Israel.
Ben-Ezer and Weissbart both did not support SJP’s decision to hold a vigil on Oct. 7 specifically. Ben-Ezer voiced concerns about “increasing inflammation” on what he described as “my mourning day” for his six lost family members and friends.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists killed over 1,200 people in southern Israel and took over 250 hostages. The Israeli government responded with ground invasions and airstrikes on Gaza within days. The ongoing siege on Gaza has since killed an estimated 40,000 people. More recently, Israel has conducted ground strikes and ground invasions in Lebanon to target the Hezbollah militant group.
Both Ben-Ezer and Weissbart expressed a desire for dialogue between the different sides on this issue.
“We’re college students in D.C. We’re not gonna solve the problems happening across the world in the Middle East,” Weissbart said. “What we can do is work on the campus climate and campus unity. How do we make campus feel safer and better for everyone? And that is through talking to people and humanizing the other side.”
This article was edited by Payton Anderson, Maya Cederlund, Tyler Davis and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks.
