In the 2023–24 academic year, colleges and universities across the country saw a major increase in student activity surrounding the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. This activity was sparked by Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and Israel’s subsequent invasion of the Gaza strip and continued military engagement in the region.
The protests came to a head in April and May of 2024, when dozens of campuses became the site of pro-Palestine encampments—collections of tents and other spaces occupied by students. They demanded, among other causes, that their institutions disclose and divest from investments and sever scholarly ties related to Israel, as well as take steps to support a ceasefire in Gaza. UChicago United for Palestine (UCUP), a coalition of groups which, among other demands, calls for the University to increase transparency around its endowment, divest from arms manufacturers, and cut academic ties with the Israel Institute, led many of these protests on UChicago’s campus. UCUP’s actions last academic year brought into focus the University’s professed commitment to free expression policies and a history of student protests on our campus.
November 11, 1967
Following two major protest movements on campus, the Vietnam War Selective Service protests and a sit-in in opposition to racially discriminatory housing policies in University-owned buildings, University President George W. Beadle appointed the Kalven Committee to create “a statement on the University’s role in political and social action.”
This is the origin of UChicago’s idea of “institutional neutrality.” The University’s professed stance is that it tries not to take a stand on social or political issues in order to encourage the expression of all individual opinions on those issues. The report does include an “exceptional instance” clause, which allows for the University to take political action when “the very mission of the university and its values of free inquiry” is under threat.
1980s
Divestment from Apartheid Africa
Throughout the 1980s, students led marches, set up picket lines, and wrote letters to encourage the University to divest to put pressure on the apartheid regime in South Africa. While other universities such as Harvard, Columbia, and the University of California divested in response to student protests, UChicago did not.
2008
Founding of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) UChicago
The first chapter of SJP was founded in 1993 at UC Berkeley; since then, more than 200 chapters have been established across North America. The organization’s stated mission is “to promote justice, human rights, equality, liberty, and self-determination for the Palestinian people.”
January 2015
Then-University President Robert J. Zimmer commissioned the Committee on Freedom of Expression in July of 2014 following a string of incidents at schools across the nation where students attempted to prevent controversial commencement speakers. The Committee drafted and released a document widely known as the Chicago Statement or the Chicago Principles.
The Chicago Principles reiterated UChicago’s commitment to free expression and discourse, as well as its ideas of institutional neutrality. Several colleges across the country have since committed to similar principles of free speech.
October 7, 2023
On October 7, Hamas, which the United States and the European Union have designated as a terrorist organization, launched an attack on southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages. Israel launched a counterattack the same day, which led into the present Israel–Hamas war.
October 9, 2023
Several campus Jewish organizations, including UChicago Maroons for Israel, University of Chicago Hillel, UChicago Kehillah, and UChicago Chabad, hosted a vigil on the quad for those killed on October 7.
October 16, 2023
On Monday, SJP began daily protests in the central quad, which continued for most of the remainder of the quarter. Later that day, several UChicago fraternities host an event titled “UChicago Greek Life Coming Together to Condemn Terror.”
October 20, 2023
A collection of UChicago Jewish organizations hosted a rally on the quad in opposition to the SJP protests. University officials briefly intervened when an altercation broke out between a handful of demonstrators around 12:33 p.m.
November 9, 2023
UCUP Occupies Rosenwald Hall, Protesters Arrested
The existing group UChicago United adopted the name UChicago United for Palestine; the group is made up of several pro-Palestine organizations including SJP, Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP), and the Environmental Justice Task Force. The group held a sit-in at Rosenwald Hall, which houses the Admissions office, which ended in the arrest of 18 undergraduates, eight graduate students, and two professors.
December 20, 2023
Charges Dropped Against Rosenwald Protesters
State prosecutors dropped all charges of criminal trespass against the 26 students and two faculty members who were arrested at Rosenwald Hall.
January 21, 2024
UCUP Creates Art Installation of 23,000 Flags on Quad
UCUP members and affiliates spent two days drilling holes into the frozen ground on the quad to plant 23,000 small flags in the shape of the Palestinian flag. The 23,000 flags represented the 23,000 confirmed deaths in Gaza at that time.
January 24, 2024
Israeli Consul General Yinam Cohen visited UChicago to meet with University President Paul Alivisatos, as well as with students from Hillel and Chabad, two Jewish student organizations. UChicago Jews for a Free Palestine published a letter denouncing the meeting, while some students present at the meeting with Cohen said it was constructive in addressing the antisemitism they faced.
January 26, 2024
Two days after Cohen’s visit, UCUP held a march and staged a die-in at campus coffee shop Pret A Manger. The chain had announced an expansion in Israel in 2022 and abandoned the effort in June 2024. The meeting was criticized as a violation of UChicago’s purported institutional neutrality, as University leadership had not met with any Palestinian or Muslim students despite multiple requests to address campus Islamophobia to the same degree as antisemitism.
“University leaders routinely meet with international leaders… and such meetings do not represent political endorsement,” a University spokesperson said regarding the meeting.
April 29, 2024
UCUP began their nine-day encampment on the quad on a Monday morning with signs and about 20 tents set up on the side of the center quad neighboring Levi Hall. The Maroon reported live updates each day of the encampment as it grew to 150 tents, garnered hundreds of supporters, and held daily protests and other events.
For brevity, only three noteworthy events from throughout the encampment are included on this timeline. Full coverage can be found here.
May 2, 2024
Palestinian Flag Raised on University Flagpole
The American flag, which usually flies in the center of the quad, was taken down around noon by University Facilities Services workers in anticipation of inclement weather. Before Facilities could raise it again, encampment participants commandeered the flagpole to raise a Palestinian flag, which they guarded from police attempts to remove for several hours. Before nightfall, protesters taped the flagpole’s halyard down to prevent the flag from being taken down.
May 3, 2024
Fraternity Members March on Encampment
A group of individuals associated with University fraternities marched on the encampment with American flags while playing America-themed music, with the goal of reinstalling the American flag on the flagpole. The two protests faced off in the center of the quad; as tensions rose, UCPD officers in riot gear formed a line between the groups to separate them and remained on scene for the next two hours as the counterprotest slowly dispersed. At the height of the protests, the Maroon estimated that the crowd numbered roughly 1,000 people.
May 7, 2024
After two nights of false alarms, UCPD officers raided the encampment at 4:35 a.m. on its ninth day. Protesters had only minutes to comply with orders to disperse before UCPD officers entered the encampment and began dismantling it. Once protesters and members of the press—including Maroon staff—had been pushed out of the quad, officers handed protesters slips of paper detailing the consequences for remaining on the quad.
May 15, 2024
A week after the encampment’s dissolution, members of UChicago FJP held a rally, teach-in, and die-in in front of Levi Hall, just outside of the area of the encampment. Faculty members taped signs to their chests with the names of professors and academics killed in Gaza. This date was also the 76th anniversary of the Nakba, the historic expulsion of Palestinians from the land which is now Israel.
May 17, 2024
Protesters Occupy Institute of Politics
On Friday of UChicago’s annual Alumni Weekend, a group of alumni and students organized a rally on the Midway which led to a march to the Institute of Politics (IOP). Protesters then occupied the building for less than half an hour before UCPD entered and the protest moved back outside the building. They also hung an effigy of President Alivisatos from a tree. Around 9:30 p.m., the protesters marched to the home of President Alivisatos and chanted outside. They dispersed by 10 p.m. and no arrests were made.
May 24, 2024
Degrees Withheld from Protesters
Several students received emails from the Associate Dean of Students informing them that their degrees would be withheld due to ongoing disciplinary procedures related to the encampment and IOP occupation. A petition calling on the University to award degrees to the students gathered more than 5,000 signatures in under a week.
June 1, 2024
At least 100 students walked out during the University’s convocation ceremonies in protest to both the University’s continued refusal to divest and the decision to withhold degrees from a total of five students from various departments. After the walkout, police arrested one individual, who was unaffiliated with the University, after physical altercations between police and protesters broke out at a closed intersection.
August 7, 2024
Disciplinary procedures against the five students whose degrees had been withheld—four undergraduates and one MAPH student—were resolved in July and August, and all five students received their degrees by August 7.
