Chants of “Free, Free, Palestine!” and “Money for jobs and educations, not for war and occupation” echoed across the Johns Hopkins Homewood Campus in Baltimore on Wednesday, Apr. 24, as hundreds of students, faculty, and community members decried the mounting death toll in Gaza.
“We’re gathered here today to declare our shame and disgust at the state of Israel’s oppression of Palestine,” said one speaker, who declined to give their name, citing the ongoing harassment of Pro-Palestine activists.
The groups Hopkins Justice Collective and Students for Justice in Palestine organized the action, which is part of a movement that’s spread to dozens of college campuses, calling on their schools to stop investing in companies that profit from Israel’s war on Gaza.
“We refuse to accept that endowments from Johns Hopkins are going towards weapons that slaughter these precious Palestinians,” said a speaker. Others called for a ceasefire and for the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
Across the country, protests on college campuses have grown and videos of the brutal arrests of students and professors have gone viral. Pro-Palestinian activists have also faced allegations of rampant antisemitism that have largely not been substantiated with evidence.
“We recognize their willingness to put their bodies on the line and the risk they’re taking on in the face of mass arrest, evictions, and suspension into silence for false accusations of antisemitism for supporting Palestinian resistance and decolonization,” said another speaker at the rally, who also declined to be named.
The movement appears to have already secured concessions. On Apr. 26, Portland State University announced it was pausing ties with airplane and weapons manufacturer Boeing, citing student protests that raised concerns Israel used the company’s weapons to commit atrocities in Gaza.
In 1986, Hopkins students launched a nine-day sit-in to demand the school divest from companies that did business with apartheid South Africa. In 2019, students occupied Hopkins’ Garland Hall for over a month to demand the school abandon its bid to create its private police force.
Activists at Hopkins are considering launching their own occupation—a tactic with a storied history on campus. In 1986, Hopkins students launched a nine-day sit-in to demand the school divest from companies that did business with apartheid South Africa. In 2019, students occupied Hopkins’ Garland Hall for over a month to demand the school abandon its bid to create its private police force.
Universities have faced growing pressure to divest their sizable endowments—over $10 billion in the case of Hopkins—from companies that harm public health and the environment. Inspired by its success in bringing down the then-apartheid government of South Africa, in 2005, Palestinian civil society groups endorsed the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement which calls for institutions to divest from Israeli companies. In 2017, Hopkins became one of the first institutions to divest from thermal coal.
Organizers said the primary aim of Wednesday’s march was to raise awareness of the human toll of Israel’s war on Gaza. The official death toll has surpassed 34,000, the majority of whom are women and children, with thousands more buried under rubble. Aid groups and humanitarian organizations have warned of impending famine; the destruction of homes, civilian infrastructure, hospitals, and universities has left Gaza close to “uninhabitable” for its 2.2 million residents.
A recent Gallup poll found a majority of Americans now disapprove of Israel’s actions, and Pew Research noted that younger Americans are more likely to sympathize with Palestinians than older generations.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden approved an aid package containing $26 billion dollars to Israel, despite growing concerns by State Department officials that the close U.S. ally is violating international law in Gaza.
“We are deeply disturbed by the silence of people in power across the world, from the U.S. government to the Johns Hopkins administration,” a student said at the rally.
Police have arrested hundreds of peaceful demonstrators, including at New York’s Columbia University, the University of Austin, the University of Southern California, and Emory University in Georgia; others have also faced harsh disciplinary measures, including expulsion.
“They want to silence us so we don’t stand up in solidarity with the Palestinian people. It’s our moral obligation to keep fighting back against this repression. They want to keep us from speaking out against genocide,” a speaker said at the protest.
20-year-old Hopkins student Simcha Leischmann, a Jewish member of the Hopkins Justice Collective, said there is growing support to launch a protest encampment.
“We’ve had people coming up to us today asking, ‘When is the encampment? Was that supposed to start today?’ said Leischmann. “We’re hearing those requests and we’re planning something that is going to keep people safe while we can still make our specific demands.”
Students at Rice University in Houston labeled their campus occupation as an art installation to avoid drawing the school’s ire, the Houston Chronicle reported.
Organizers say they are developing demands they will present to campus administration.
“It’s very likely going to be a specific demand, that Hopkins divest from two to three weapons companies to make it a little more feasible on a quick timeline,” Leischmann said.
Pro-Palestine activism on campus has not yet reached the level witnessed at schools such as Columbia, the epicenter of the current protest movement. But activists expect increased participation ahead of a potential Israeli ground invasion of Rafah, where over one million Palestinians have sought refuge.
“There were some horrible massacres that were uncovered at Nasser Hospital, and the situation that the people there are enduring is just getting worse and worse. And we were just astounded by the collective silence,” said Fatima, a Muslim member of Hopkins Justice Collective and Students for Justice for Palestine.
Speakers also highlighted how, in the past, student protests have pressured institutions, including Johns Hopkins, to divest from companies that profit from human rights violations.
Hopkins divested from South Africa’s white supremacist government after a years-long campaign that included the creation of mock shantytowns on campus to highlight the conditions facing Black South Africans. In May 1986, three Hopkins fraternity brothers were charged with arson and attempted murder for a firebombing that injured one student protestor.
Figures like Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have argued that the Pro-Palestine activists are antisemitic and their protests are not protected by the First Amendment.
In a statement, independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish, rejected Netanyhu’s attempts to paint anti-war protestors as antisemitic. “Antisemitism is a vile and disgusting form of bigotry that has done unspeakable harm to many millions of people. But, please, do not insult the intelligence of the American people by attempting to distract us from the immoral and illegal war policies of your extremist and racist government,” said Sanders.
Instances of antisemitism and Islamophobia have surged since the Oct. 7 attacks, in which Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 240 more, but no evidence links student protests with antisemitism.
A 2021 poll by the Jewish Electorate Institute found Jewish voters in the U.S. were concerned about antisemitism, with a majority believing it originated from right-wing groups. The poll also found that 40% of Jews under 40 believe Israel is an apartheid state, and 43% believe its treatment of Palestinians is similar to racism in the United States.
Johns Hopkins University did not respond to Baltimore Beat’s query about whether it was aware of antisemitic or Islamophobic acts on campus.
Still, it provided a statement that read, in part, “As an academic community, we are guided by the principles of academic freedom and support the free expression of every member of our community, including their right to protest, demonstrate and share their views. At the same time, threats, acts of hate or discrimination, including religious discrimination, harassment, and intimidation, violate university policy and our student code of conduct and are antithetical to the values of the university.”
At the rally, a student waved an Israeli flag among a handful of counter-protestors. She said she objected to speakers’ depictions of Israel’s actions, which she argued were in self-defense to the Oct. 7 attack.
Another Jewish student said the counter-protestor was brave for waving the Israeli flag. They both said they had not experienced antisemitism on campus. The second student said they faced online harassment for supporting Zionism, which they consider part of their identity.
“I’m a Zionist and I’m very vocal about it. And I’ve been called a terrorist, I’ve been called racist,” they said.
Barae Hirsch, a community member and recent Hopkins graduate, had a different view.
“I’m also Jewish, I was raised Jewish, my whole family is Jewish, and I feel in complete solidarity with folks organizing for the liberation of Palestine.”
Hirsh noted that 300 Jewish activists were arrested in New York the previous night urging Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to end U.S. military aid for Israel.
“From one Jew to another, I would say that, if you want to choose Zionism as your identity, you also take on what it means. And that means colonization, it means displacement, it means genocide. And so that’s something we all have to take accountability for,” said Hirsh.
Leischmann said she has skipped class to accompany Muslim students who have faced harassment on campus.
“I was way more worried about my friends who wear the hijab, who are visibly Muslim, than my safety. I think people weaponize their Jewish identities to paint themselves as victims. And I think we would do a lot more for Jewish safety by standing in solidarity with Palestinians.”
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