Photo from Instagram-Students for Justice in Palestine
By Dan Murphy
One of the more interesting and underreported stories in Westchester ended on Nov. 27, when a group of student protestors at Sarah Lawrence College ended their “occupation” of part of the campus and one SLC building. The students were protesting against the college’s investment in Israeli companies and the use of those monies to fund the Israeli war in Gaza.
This was the first protest in Westchester since the spring, when many college campuses had student protests over Gaza, Israel and the hostages held by Hamas since Oct. 7, 2023.
The protestors included members the Students for Justice in Palestine and the Divestment Coalition at Sarah Lawrence.The demand from both groups was for SLC to “fully divest from companies manufacturing weapons used by the Israeli government.”
Sarah Lawrence SJP announced the ending of the occupation on Nov. 27 after the administration conceded to one of the protesters’ main demands. “We have voted to dismantle our camp after receiving written confirmation from the college that a report disclosing the extent to which the companies listed in
the Divestment Proposal are included in the college’s investment portfolio will be published by January 27, 2025,”
Most of the protestors are not likely to face any punishment, except for the several who “occupied” a SLC adminstration building, which they held for a day.
SLC President Cristle Judd said,“I want to be clear that peaceful protest has long been a part of Sarah Lawrence’s history. I want to be equally clear that some of yesterday’s actions crossed lines in ways that cannot be ignored or condoned. Students whose actions threatened the health and safety of those in
our community or who knowingly and repeatedly violated clearly communicated college policies will be subject to disciplinary action through the student conduct hearing process,”
SLC Professor Samuel Abrams said that President Judd’s words, “ ring hollow to me.” “The students’ behavior is performative; it is causing harm to their peers as well as to the school’s mission and core functions. The college should ask law enforcement to end this charade, and these students should be held fully accountable and must face consequences, including expulsion.
Judd should be removed from office, and the school needs to return to its true values of actually providing a liberal education so that its students can tackle the problems of, and thrive in, a complex and rapidly evolving world.”
Sarah Lawrence College has fallen; it can be rebuilt with the right guidance and leadership. None of this should have happened, and it is a direct result of educational malpractice and disastrous leadership by the school’s president,” wrote Abrams for Mindingthecampus.org-https://www.mindingthecampus.
org/2024/11/25/sarah-lawrence-has-fallen/.
Not surprisingly, the SLC Student newspaper, The Phoenix and reporters Tallulah Hawley and Zoe Cushing supported the rights of student protest. “Sarah Lawrence’s occupation takes place amid a global shift in how universities treat on-campus, peaceful student protests. UN Rapporteur Gina Romero reports that from 2023-2024, pro-Palestine student protests across the world have faced protest bans, restrictions on
rights to assembly and arbitrary arrests. She urges universities to refrain from falsely citing hate speech as a reason for restricting and villainizing peaceful protests.
“The actions taken next by the Sarah Lawrence administration will have an impact on international precedents for institutional responses to on-campus peaceful protests. If punitive action is taken
against participating student protestors (revocation of financial aid, scholarships and potential expulsion), then Sarah Lawrence will be adding to a global climate that has made peaceful protesting increasingly dangerous to those involved. Making it more difficult to organize peacefully without punishment is a form of censorship.
“Whether disapproval of the protestors’ message or concern for campus operations is at the heart of restricting student protests is a moot point. The fact is that the actions that the administrators take to punish and prevent sit-ins silence student voices. For a student body that already does not feel heard by the administration, the next step could mean everything for admin-student relations,” https://sarahlawrencephoenix.com/opinions/2024/11/21/ensuring-student-rights-to-protest-sjps-international-walkout-for-divestment-and-arms-embargonbsp.
Two other informative stories https://indypendent.org/2024/12/sarah-lawrences-gaza-solidarity-encampment-ends-after-university-said-it-would-disclose-ties-to-israel/
Two other stories we found informative are: https://indypendent. org/2024/12/sarah-lawrences-gaza-solidarity-encampment-ends after-university-said-it-would-disclose-ties-to-israel/
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