Our Encampment continues, and seems to be growing. A good source of what’s happening on an hourly basis is the Chicago Maroon’s timeline reporting, which you can find here (reports are divided by day). Yesterday there was more graffiti painted on University buildings, and the raising of a Palestinian flag (which has since been removed) at the University’s largest flagpole in front of the Administration building. I’ll first quote some of the manyt Maroon reports from yesterday (indented), show their pictures (credited) and then show my own videos and photos.
From the Maroon‘s account of yesterday’s incidents:
May 2, 8:18 a.m.
Two UCPD officers on bicycles spoke with members of Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) about the orange mesh barriers that UCUP organizers placed around the encampment last night.
The officers told FJP that the orange barriers must be removed, describing them as “safety hazards.” The officers said that Facilities Services—accompanied by UCPD officers—would arrive in 15 to 20 minutes in trucks to take down the barriers. The faculty organizers then asked if encampment members could remove the fencing themselves.
At 8:25 a.m., UCUP organizers began removing the barriers.
— Eva McCord, Co-Editor-in-Chief; Zachary Leiter, Deputy Managing Editor; and Peter Maheras, News Editor
The removal of the barriers, which I think were intended to enclose the encampment and keep outsiders out:
May 2, 10 a.m.
The quad encampment has now been in place for 72 hours. The Maroon estimates that roughly 150 tents are on the quad.
— Peter Maheras, News Editor
May 2, 1:45 p.m.
The University has offered encampment organizers a one-hour meeting with University President Paul Alivisatos and Provost Katherine Baicker in exchange for the immediate closing of the encampment and a promise of no further disruption, according to an email sent to UCUP by Dean of Students Michelle Rasmussen and obtained by the Maroon.
According to a message reviewed by the Maroon, UCUP said they would not disband the encampment and are in the process of formulating a response.
Subjects of the meeting would include “topics related to the University, Israel, and divestment.” The meeting would be conducted privately with no video or audio recording, but up to 15 student observers and a faculty adviser could be present in addition to the organizers.
The University has long declined to discuss divestment, claiming that such a policy would violate its stance on institutional political neutrality.
The email also said that Alivisatos and Baicker would be willing to participate in a public forum with the University community to discuss “the many viewpoints related to the Israel-Hamas War and divestment.”
— Zachary Leiter, Deputy Managing Editor; Peter Maheras, News Editor; Katherine Weaver, Deputy News Editor; Austin Zeglis, Senior News Reporter; and Nathaniel Rodwell-Simon, News Reporter
There is no way on Earth that the University will divest from Israel; divestment has always been a matter for those who control the University’s finances, and is not subject to political or ideological control. None of us even know how the funds are invested. The protestors will lose on this one, and since that is their primary demand, this means that their whole purpose has been thwarted from the outset.
Here we have another arrant violation of University policy. Was anything done about it? Of course not!
May 2, 1:48 p.m.
After a rally scheduled for noon was delayed, Deans-on-Call repeatedly emphasized to UCUP that any chanting after 1 p.m. would be considered a violation of the University’s policy on protests and demonstrations. The policy permits “music, amplified sound, or other loud noise… [only] between noon and 1:00 p.m. and after 5:00 p.m. on weekdays.”
At 1:40 p.m., encampment participants began a series of chants with megaphones, including “Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest.”
The chants were amplified over a set of loudspeakers set up at the encampment and chant leaders encouraged demonstrators to be as loud as possible.
– Anu Vashist, Managing Editor; Zachary Leiter, Deputy Managing Editor; and Katherine Weaver, Deputy News Editor
Protestors did more prohibited actions, blocking passages through the Admin building and raising the Palestinian flag:
May 2, 4:20 p.m.
Protesters are surrounding the quad entrance of Levi Hall and occupying the passageway that runs under the building from South Ellis Avenue to the quad. Protesters are preventing pedestrians and press from walking through.
Nine UCPD officers are on the South Ellis Avenue side of the Levi entrance, blocking protesters from going through the opening and exiting the quad.
Protesters continue to chant “Free, free Palestine” and “Viva, viva Palestina.”
A group of protesters have raised the Palestinian flag on the flagpole on the quad. Around the base of the flagpole, about 10 protesters stand with their arms interlocked. The American flag ordinarily on the pole was taken down for inclement weather about an hour ago.
— Zachary Leiter, Deputy Managing Editor; Peter Maheras, News Editor; Tiffany Li and Katherine Weaver, Deputy News Editors
To ensure that it would be hard to take down the flag:
May 2, 6:32 p.m.
Protesters have taped down the flagpole’s halyard, the rope used to raise and lower the flag.
Earlier today, after UCPD had removed the American flag from the flagpole in front of Levi Hall because of rain, demonstrators raised a Palestinian flag in its place.
“This isn’t even permanent. It’s inconvenient, and that’s the point,” one protester commented.
— Maroon Staff
Finally, more vandalism: painted graffiti:
May 2, 5:04 p.m.
“UC FUNDS GENOCIDE” has been painted on the left side of Kent Chemical Laboratory’s front door. The doors of Kent were briefly locked and have since been unlocked. There are currently two UCPD officers stationed outside the doors.
The Palestinian flag remains at full mast on the flagpole. There are currently eight protesters around the flagpole with their arms linked to form a barricade.
– Eva McCord, Co-Editor-in-Chief; Anu Vashist, Managing Editor; Tiffany Li and Katherine Weaver, Deputy News Editors
The University’s strategy, at least seen from the outside, seems to me like a “do nothing and hope the encampment will disappear by attrition” tactic. This is almost surely doomed to failure. At some point, unless the University cancels graduation, the encampment will have to be dismantled. Given the President and Dean of Student’s statements that these multiple violations of University policy are time-limited, I think the time is about up.
Now my own videos and photos.
From several days ago. The protestors tend to encircle people trying to take pictures, holding up kiffeyehs and cloths to block their view. This even happened to me; I was completely encircled and blocked when I tried to escape. There was no way to get out except by contacting bodies, at which point the protestors would scream that you were “touching them”. I don’t know how I got out, but I did, and it was distressing, which of course is what the perps of these “kiffeyeh cirles” intend:
Two professors held class outside near the encampment. This seems to me like a violation of academic freedom, as it’s a demonstration of solidarity with the Encampment:
And, of course, there’s the ubiquitous chanting. Much of it, like this, is amplified, but often occurs outside the time period when amplified sound is permitted. This constitutes yet another of the dozen or so violations of university regulations that the administration ignores.
Scenes of protestors:
More chanting. I can’t quite make out the first chant, which sounds something like “If we don’t get it. . . bust it down.” But please give your interpretation below:
Views of The Encampment; note the protestors blocking several people:
More blocking:
And some chalking on the sidewalk:
During the afternoon, the Chabad Jewish group set up a counter-table with facts about Israel, and also played Jewish music to counteract the chants. First, a view:
And then the “dueling music”:
Another violation of university regulations, free expression, and even criminal law is the protestors’ removal of the Jewish students’ banners (set up by the Maroons for Israel), something done every night. They also tear down Israeli flags displayed legally. Each of the blue banners costs about $100, and the protestors must have trashed about a dozen of them. Again, nothing is done to sanction the protestors for this triple violation. The Maroons for Israel, however, persist, and keep putting up the banners, which are non-aggressive:
The display of Palestinian flags affixed to lightpoles is, I believe, illegal, as you can’t do that without permission, and no permission was given. The entire encampment, of course, is one big violation of the university’s “Time, Place, and Manner” regulations for free speech.
More violations by the protestors: affixing stickers to the poles on which the pro-Israel banners are legally hung:
I believe this man was broadcasting the call to prayer from inside the encampment to those on the outside. The singing is lovely, but again violates university regulations for amplified sound. This all, of course, prevents studengs from studying in the Quad, something they often do on nice days.
How long will this last? Who knows? The University’s strategy, if they have one beyond merely reacting to stuff like hoisting the Palestinian flag, is a mystery. Severa; dozen of us faculty wrote a letter to the President and Provost and sent it to the Chicago Maroon, who apparently said they’d publish it. I have a copy, because I signed it, but I will give the Maroon the precedence of publishing it first. If it’s not up in a few hours, I’ll simply post it here.
Stay tuned.
I think the thing to do is get someone to go join the soy latté & keffiyah cult as a hoax. Test if the antagonists’ operation that was flown in is entirely a fabricated mystical manipulation (R. J. Lifton, Thought Reform…, 1961, ch. 22).
The null hypothesis is :
The 2024 Spring Campus Protests Did Not Take Place
(After Baudrillard’s The Gulf War Did Not Take Place).
Raising the Palestinian flag requires a response. Does UChicago have an active greek system?
https://www.gofundme.com/f/pi-kappa-phi-men-defended-their-flag-throw-em-a-rager
They did some counterprotest by putting up an American flag and playing music, but I don’t think they tried to take down the flag.
When the British left India, the night before the takeover, a group of British soldiers when to the fort where the Black Hole of Calcutta is. There was a flag pole there. They hauled down the Union Jack, then cut down the flag pole.
There are north and south passages around Levi to Ellis. Are they both blocked? That would be supremely annoying.
Of course, at this point the University Administration loses all credibility when it comes to punishments. I would expect to be able to add graffiti anywhere with no repercussions.
No comment on the alleged spitting incident covered by the Maroon updates? Anybody who has followed your writing for a while will instantly know that the accusation is hogwash, but I found it interesting that the Maroon named the accused (you) and the person you were with, but did not name the accuser. How is that sound journalism?
My lips curled in disgust to have learned of that claim. When all one has are lies, that is yet one more sign of having lost the moral high ground.
That they said that about Jerry is disgusting but not unexpected.
You got me. You’d think that once I denied it (and anyone who knows me knows I’m incapable of that), that people would not take it as gospel truth. Even the odious P.Z. Myers is reporting it as pretty nearly true. There is no truth at all in it, and it’s just one of the many lies believed by the protestors.
Yeah, I thought that was a real classy post from Myers.
One issue that I’m not sure has been addressed and certainly not appreciated by protestors is how Jews and especially Muslims in the Middle East will view the “support” Palestine (Hamas?) is getting from around the world. Would seem to justify violence (the likely interpretation in the ME?) and promote resistance by Muslims to anything less than the expulsion of Jews, such as a peace agreement. In exploring the issue of propaganda, I found out that the Nazis actually spread much misinformation about Jews (e.g., Protocols of Zionist Elders) in the ME during WW II via pamphlets and radio broadcasts in Arabic. At least some of that misinformation, such as the Protocols, can be found still today in the ME.
I understand that “Mein Kampf” is still a best-seller in the Middle East!
While I have not been a big fan of Chabad over the years, I am coming around as they take the point. From what I can read on their large signs (set up off the sidewalk so not blocking traffic it appears), these are exactly the facts that need to be brought out. A proper accounting of some history is welcome at an Enlightenment-respecting institution such as UChicago.
Thanks for these continuing ground truth updates.
Later edit: just watched the video and cannot believe guy is laying tefillon in the midst of all this.
The “plan” to let the protests die on their own is a risky one. If the protestors get wet, tired, or hungry for snacks, they may indeed go away. But if they are supported with cover from the elements, food, and media coverage, the encampment can grow large enough that it cannot be removed without outside help—the police. Once there are enough people in the crowd, there will be a few knuckleheads who lose their cool and start throwing punches. This is how riots get started. Once a crowd reaches critical mass and needs to be dispersed, violence becomes inevitable.
I suppose the University administration is hamstrung by not having the Chicago Police on their side. In the encampments so far cleared, the police moved in at the administration’s instruction. Those protesters arrested and identified who were students could then be expelled. Presumably, UChicago knows the police will not obey that instruction, so they dare not issue it.
The alternative is that the UChicago’s administration is itself bitterly divided over whether the University’s conduct rules should be enforced by external police, or whether the protesters should be indulged and actively encouraged because of the cause they support, or because some faction believes in the veto of the raised fist as a form of freedom of speech in order to get there more deviously.
Encampments have popped up at university campuses all over Canada, in defiance of forthright admin announcements not dissimilar to that issued by Dartmouth. The difference in Canada is that the police will not break up protests or blockades on private property that aren’t a threat to public safety, even if the property owner requests their assistance. This is not any fault of the universities. It’s just the way the law works here.
The Dorian Abbot letter is admirably concise and to-the-point. Needless to say, at various institutions faculty letters are being concocted to support anti-Israel campers and to oppose their removal as (you guessed it) “McCarthyism”. In the future, anthropologists studying the tribes of academe will have a field day tabulating the representation of different departments amongst the signatories of these contrasting statements. [Uh oh, forgive me for writing “field day”, when I should have written “practicum day”.]
Why aren’t these bratty protesters expelled?
The email Alivasatos sent to the University community this morning (reproduced in the Maroon) concludes as follows: “On Monday, I stated that we would only intervene if what might have been an exercise of free expression blocks the learning or expression of others or substantially disrupts the functioning or safety of the University. Without an agreement to end the encampment, we have reached that point.”
Those words sound to me like the prelude to closing this thing down by whatever means are necessary, but I guess we’ll have to see. So many words from so many Presidents have been hollow.
The feeble-minded may be divided into:
(1) Those who are totally arrested before the age of three so that they show the attainment of a two-year-old child or less; these are the idiots.
(2) Those so retarded that they become permanently arrested between the ages of three and seven; these are imbeciles.
(3) Those so retarded that they become arrested between the ages of seven and twelve; these were formerly called feeble-minded, the same term that is applied to the whole group. We are now proposing to call them morons.
And now you have (some) students. We have ours in France too — their education costs parents less than in the US, that’s little consolation.
Maybe those encamping should be provided the opportunity to visit Iran for a semester to learn more about life in a whole country that supports Hamas and the end of Zionism.
Shiraz University in Iran is actually offering scholarships to expelled American protesters!:
https://edition.cnn.com/business/live-news/university-protests-gaza-05-01-24/h_d4727093cf8ac7321c48e3bfafd950ea
No sh*t!
Honest question: do they have port a potties? Where are they going to the bathroom?
Thou shalt have a place also without the camp, whither thou shalt go forth abroad: and thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it shall be, when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee: for the LORD thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee; therefore shall thy camp be holy: that he see no unclean thing in thee, and turn away from thee.
Deuteronomy 23:12-14
???? So are you saying they are all digging holes or that their s**t doesn’t stink?
All I can say is if they aren’t digging holes, “outside the camp”, they are going to get dysentery which as the author of the Law knew so well, has plagued encampments since antiquity, typically causing a multiple more casualties than the enemy inflicts. The more modern norovirus spreads explosively whenever handwashing is compromised and the resulting fecal veneer builds up on people and surfaces, known as fomites.
The University of Toronto has observed people dumping what it delicately calls “biowaste” (human shit to you and me) in the vegetation that surrounds our Front Campus, and they’ve been there only a couple of days. As is usual practice, the University’s buildings are locked this weekend….and it’s going to rain again tomorrow. The admin’s concern is that the student ostensibly leading the protest is only a figurehead and has no control over the blue-collar labour union goons unaffiliated with the university who are really calling the shots.