Pro-Palestine protesters demand Penn State divest from Israel amid national trend

Pro-Palestine protests seen across the nation this week arrived at Penn State on Thursday, with several groups coming together for a day of events that included a rally in front of Old Main.

Penn State students, faculty and community members walked from the HUB lawn to Old Main for the rally, where they called on the university to divest from their “material interests in Israel.” Furthermore, they called for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.

In an Instagram post, groups including Penn State Students for Justice in Palestine and Student Committee for Defense and Solidarity, said they “will not stand for a university, administrators and boards of trustees who put profit and reputation over the lives of people in Palestine and the will of their students.”

The call to cut financial ties with Israel has been a rallying call at protests at college campuses across the country, with activists saying the financial support makes their schools complicit in the war in Gaza.

The group at Penn State around noon Thursday was small in comparison to many of those other campuses nationally that have seen hundreds of people participate. About 40 people were at Old Main for an hour for the rally, and then walked to the HUB lawn. People were invited to stay on the lawn until the evening. Several events were planned throughout the day.

A few speakers took the microphone at Old Main, including Roua Daas of Penn State Students for Justice in Palestine. Daas co-led the rally and chants.

“Penn State admin has chosen to remain invested in companies and war profiteers that make money off of the death of our people. They have chosen to continue academic partnerships with Israeli institutions and Israeli companies that continue to further the violence against our people,” Daas said. “The money that is being invested, the money that is going toward the deaths of our people is our tuition money. This is money that should be going toward our housing, our food, our education.”

In response to a request for comment, Penn State spokesperson Lisa Powers said “All individuals have the right to express viewpoints, as they had the opportunity to do so today.”

The crowd often yelled “Shame” and booed throughout the rally. At one point, they all faced Old Main — where the president’s office is located — and chanted, “Penn State admin, you can’t hide. You are funding genocide.”

A press release outlined the groups’ concern with Penn State’s Applied Research Laboratory and the technology it researches and produces.

“Additionally, pro-Palestine student activism on universities has come under attack by Administrators, from Columbia to Barnard and even to Penn State in recent years,” the release states. “The coalition of organizations demands that Penn State Administrators divest from their material interests in Israel and stop harassing pro-Palestine students. Students and workers do not want their labor and money going toward the genocide of Palestine.”

Aaron Kaufman, Marcus Family Executive Director of Penn State Hillel, said events like Thursday’s have an impact on Jewish students at Penn State. Some protests this year have included imagery of swastikas and chants that have since been classified as hate speech, he said.

Since October, he said Jewish students have at times been uncomfortable to outright fearful.

“The events that have been happening throughout our country this year since October have a real impact on the Jewish community and ... the Jewish community at Penn State is not immune from that. And that impact is incredibly negative in terms of students feeling singled out, targeted, excluded,” Kaufman said.

Penn State is the latest campus to see these types of recent events, joining other protests across the nation including University of Maryland, American University and Purdue University. Other colleges, like Harvard, Brown University and Michigan State University, have seen protesters set up encampments on campus. More than 400 arrests have been made across many campuses, according to the New York Times.

Powers said the university has been monitoring the national landscape and local activities.

“Our institution is committed to the security of our campus and the safety or our community and, as needed, enhances safety measures,” she said.

One police officer was seen walking around Old Main at noon, and a few others were watching the rally from the windows inside the building. At least one officer was patrolling the HUB lawn in the early afternoon.

A “May Day” protest is planned for 2 p.m. Saturday at the Allen Street Gates in downtown State College. In a press release, several groups – including the Student Committee for Defense and Solidarity, People’s Defense Front, Penn State Students for Justice in Palestine, United Socialists at Penn State and Deep Roots Collective – said they’ll be commemorating May Day by “uplifting the ongoing struggle for Palestinian liberation and opposing the US-supported genocide perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinian people.”