Johns Hopkins administrators begin negotiations with pro-Palestinian student protesters Tuesday
The Johns Hopkins University administrators are meeting with pro-Palestinian protesters Tuesday afternoon to negotiate a resolution to the campus encampment, the Baltimore institution said.
Hopkins Justice Collective, a group of students, alumni and affiliates of the university, rallied in the rain before the 3 p.m. meeting to pressure Hopkins administrators to meet their demands. University officials want students to clear the tents pitched since April 28 on the campus lawn, called “The Beach.” Protesters said they won’t leave until the university divests its endowment from companies that support Israel.
Ten student representatives, who covered their faces and did not identify themselves by name, from Hopkins; Towson University; the University of Baltimore; the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Maryland Institute College of Art; and Goucher College read a joint statement before the 2:30 p.m. rally. A representative from Hopkins, who identified themselves as a community member, said student leaders are going into negotiations with “an open mind and heart” but would not quit until Hopkins officials heard the group’s voices.
“We feel our voices have been snubbed out by the administration in an effort to get us to disband,” the representative said, adding that protesters will stay “for however long it takes.”
Protesters are demanding Hopkins divest its endowment from companies such as Elbit Systems, BlackRock, Northrop Grumman, Palantir, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Google. Students also demand that the school reveal all financial ties to Israel, lobbying efforts to increase militarized spending and an account of the use of weapons and military technology developed at Hopkins.
The encampment has grown over the week to around 70 tents, which are closed off by tarpaulins and a fence. More than 100 people rallied at the encampment Tuesday afternoon, chanting, “If we don’t get it, shut it down.”
A group of Jewish students who stood on a hill overlooking the encampment said they were insulted by the group’s chants of “Long Live the Intifada,” referring to a violent uprising against Israel’s military occupation in 1987. Protesters won’t engage with Jewish students who try to speak with them at the encampment, they said.
“Especially at this university that promotes conversations and discussions and talking, if you’re unwilling to hold a dialogue, it’s just a recipe for radicalization,” said Ido Harlev, a Hopkins student and Israeli citizen. “For me, that’s extremely dangerous.”
Harlev and three other students opposed to the encampment said they’re disturbed that people who aren’t students are sleeping on the campus lawn.
Pro-Palestinian college encampments have roiled commencement plans and end-of-year events across the country. Hundreds of college protesters have been arrested. Administrators at Columbia University canceled its main commencement Monday due to the demonstrations.
A Hopkins spokesperson said the university’s May 23 commencement is moving forward as planned. Students are in the middle of a week of final exams.
Student representatives from Goucher and Towson criticized their university leaders for threatening to discipline student activists and impose academic sanctions.
Goucher President Kent Devereaux last week ordered campus protesters in a “small number of tents that have emerged on the academic quad” to “immediately remove their tents and abide by the campus demonstration policy.”
A Hopkins spokesperson said the university’s Public Interest Investment Advisory Committee received a request to divest from companies that support Israel.
“Requests to the committee are given serious consideration and ultimately decided by the Board of Trustees, which has fiduciary responsibility for the institution,” J.B. Bird, a university spokesperson, said in a statement.
About 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students attend Hopkins, which has multiple campuses. Protests have been peaceful.
University officials, however, said they will start disciplining students who violate the student code of conduct, specifically those who remain at the encampment. Protesters “made clear their intention to continue the encampment for several weeks,” Provost Ray Jayawardhana said in a university email Monday.
No Hopkins protesters have been disciplined, a representative of the Hopkins Justice Collective said Tuesday.
Last month, Hopkins’ graduate student workers’ union ratified its first contract with the university, which included the right to peacefully protest without being met by force.
“We acknowledge the intentions and efforts by our student protesters to manage the site in a safe way; however, as we have already seen at other universities, encampments attract individuals from outside the campus community who are not within the protesters’ control and who may seek conflict and escalation,” Jayawardhana said.
Hopkins administrators offered to meet with protesters several times over the weekend, but the student leaders declined to meet before Tuesday, Jayawardhana said.
Hopkins’ Krieger School of Arts & Sciences Faculty Senate praised Daniels for taking some of the protesters’ demands seriously and urged him “to continue to follow principlesof dialogue, engagement and de-escalation” in a statement over the weekend. Members of the body wrote that they’d observed the peaceful protesters learning de-escalation tactics. The faculty group had also seen counter-protests, which were “largely met with attempts to de-escalate and, at most, an attempt to document and archive,” according to the statement.
Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the local health ministry, and put over a million people at risk of starvation during widespread famine, according to the United Nations. Israel’s strikes have been in response to an attack Oct. 7 by Hamas-led terrorists embedded in Gaza that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 others hostage, according to The Associated Press.
This story will be updated.
