Pro-Palestinian camps remain at Chicago-area campuses after 68 arrested at School of the Art Institute
Counterprotesters at DePaul’s Lincoln Park campus reportedly tried to clash with pro-Palestinian protesters. Nationwide, more than 2,500 protesters have been arrested since April 18.
In Chicago, campus encampments stayed in place through the weekend. Many organizers held scheduled programming of religious ceremonies and classes, which were sometimes interrupted by counterprotesters.
Henna Ayesh, a student organizer with Students for Justice in Palestine at DePaul, said she was proud of how the encampment responded to dozens of counterprotesters gathering nearby Sunday afternoon. She said organizers had been running deescalation training for days to prepare for such interactions and that encampment protesters remained peaceful, despite recent depictions in the media of protesters as violent.
The pro-Palestine encampment at DePaul University on Sunday. Organizers say counter-protesters tried to create conflict, but they used de-escalation techniques to maintain peace.
However, she said, the counterprotesters were “not so reluctant” to restrain themselves — a video circulating on X appears to show a student being beaten with an Israeli flag, though Ayesh said that person received medical treatment and is doing well.
“We were very peaceful, we’re using our voices, nonviolence, but it was actually the other side, the counter-protesters ... imposing that on us,” Ayesh said. “We had protesters throwing rocks and sticks at us; they were saying Islamophobic statements.”
Concerns of violence from counterprotesters and police was one reason Ayesh said the encampment has been conducting deescalation training, which directs them to avoid engaging with instigators to keep each other safe.
A similar confrontation happened when counterprotesters confronted the encampment at the University of Chicago Friday, causing brief scuffles and prompting campus police to show up in riot gear. Organizers are now asking supporters to be ready to mobilize within the next day.
University of Chicago police keep watch as pro-Palestinian protesters and counter-protesters rally at the encampment on the quad Friday afternoon.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times file
Ongoing negotiations
Despite this, protesters said they were able to get the university to agree to establish a Gaza Scholars At Risk program that would bring eight Palestinian scholars to work and study at the school. Then the university ended negotiations and issued a midnight deadline Sunday evening for the encampment to be dismantled, according to UChicago United organizers and UChicago Faculty for Justice in Palestine.
“We’re here to demand that UChicago end its material support for ongoing genocide and violence. ... Today they show[ed] that they would rather attack students, neighbors, faculty and graduate workers with police than stop funding the slaughter of men, women and children in Gaza,” UChicago United for Palestine organizer Ameera said in a statement Sunday night.
However, a University of Chicago spokesperson said it had “sent no such communication” about a midnight deadline — and that no concessions were made before talks were suspended, noting that the Scholars at Risk program already exists and that people in Gaza can apply.
“There are material inaccuracies and mischaracterizations in the information being shared on social media,” the school said in a statement. “The program is open to scholars throughout the world. All scholars impacted by this conflict are being encouraged to participate. In addition, UCPD presence on the quad has fluctuated based on needs and circumstances, and at no point did we reduce — or agree to reduce — the security presence based on negotiations.”
Five days after an encampment was established at Northwestern, the university agreed to disclose information about any investments to people associated with the university within 30 days of an inquiry; to reestablish a committee with student representatives to advise on investments; and to fully fund tuition for five Palestinian undergraduate students, among other agreements — in exchange for the encampment being reduced to one aid tent.
The 200 to 500 protesters at DePaul remain focused on pressuring the university to meet their demands, Ayesh said.
Protesters have met twice with the administration, and Ayesh said negotiations have been going nowhere. Some demands could be met immediately, she added, such as calling for a cease-fire or using direct language to describe what’s happening in Gaza, in addition to financial transparency.
“I’m a Palestinian student. I want to know where my money is being invested in; I do not want it to go to my family suffering,” she said. “They refuse to say the word ‘Palestine,’ and when they do, it’s in reference to terrorism. ... As a Palestinian student, I don’t want to be called a terrorist. I’m fighting for liberation.”
Student organizers say all of the 68 people arrested at a pro-Palestinian encampment set up outside the School of the Art Institute of Chicago have been released from police custody.
Art Institute students with the groups SAIC Students for Palestinian Liberation and SAIC United for Palestine established an encampment about noon Saturday in the museum’s North Garden, near Michigan Avenue and Monroe Street.
Organizers have called on the school and museum to disclose their investments, give amnesty to demonstrators and divest from those supporting the “occupation of Palestine.”
The Chicago Police Department says officers spent a little more than two hours negotiating with demonstrators to clear the area. About 4:30 p.m., police began making mass arrests at the request of museum officials, taking 68 protesters into custody.
A demonstrator is arrested Saturday by Chicago police officers as they cleared an encampment set up for several hours by students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to protest the Israel-Hamas war.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Protesters were told they would be charged with criminal trespass to property. The Cook County state’s attorney’s office did not respond to requests for comment, and Chicago police hadn’t released updated information as of Sunday evening.
SAIC United for Palestine said more than half the protesters arrested were held in custody for more than 11 hours. In a statement posted on Instagram early Sunday morning, the group wrote that some protesters still hadn’t been allowed to make phone calls.
The school accused protesters of stealing keys and a radio from a security guard as well as blocking emergency exits near the encampment, among other allegations. The school said the museum brought Chicago police in after talks stalled.
“We will continue to allow peaceful demonstrations,” Elissa Tenny, president of the School of the Art Institure, and provost Martin Berger wrote in a statement Sunday. “But given the escalations we’ve seen in the protests over time, we wish to notify the school community that those who engage in future activities that jeopardize the safety of our community or the public, or disrupt academic operations, will be subject to disciplinary action.”
Organizers said they “strongly disagree” with the statements released by the museum.
No arrests were made, and protesters exited the building when police entered, a university spokesperson said. The demonstrators dispersed at about 9:30 p.m.
Doctors at Advocate Medical Group say the organization has fallen short in responding to ongoing humanitarian crises in Gaza, especially compared to donated aid and calls for peace after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Around 5 p.m. Friday, a large group of protesters had surrounded the Institute of Politics. Shortly after that, a group of police officers, equipped with riot shields, burst into the building and scuffled with protesters.
The encampment at the Lincoln Park campus had been been in place since April 30. The action came after school officials said they had reached an impasse with the protesters.
Students and faculty walked out of class to gather at the pro-Palestinian encampment and call for divestment from companies doing business with Israel.
The cancellation of the end-of-school-year music festival comes days after the university said it has reached a stalemate in negotiations with organizers of a pro-Palestinian encampment.
On Tuesday, Chicago’s Jewish community celebrated Israel declaring its independence 76 years ago, on May 14, 1948. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered across the plaza. There were a few altercations, but no arrests were made.
The flags, along with signs and banners, had been placed on Deering Meadow, where a pro-Palestine encampment stood for five days before organizers reached an agreement with university administration.
The Israel-Hamas war is heightening fears of unrest, but convention leaders say they’re confident in their partnerships with Mayor Brandon Johnson, Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling and the U.S. Secret Service.
In a press conference at the school Thursday morning, students criticized university president Paul Alivisatos and shared their experiences when police began emptying the encampment early Tuesday.
Rafah has become the most recent focus of Israel’s military, which describes it as Hamas’ last holdout. Chicago-based Dr. John Kahler has seen conditions deteriorate as Gazan refugees fled south to the city.
En la madrugada del martes, agentes del campus rodearon el patio principal de la universidad y les impidieron la entrada a los estudiantes, según informaron desde el lugar de los hechos.
One protester said they were hit by an officer and taken to Thorek Memorial Hospital for treatment, according to a complaint filed with the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.
Reality on the ground is different from what policymakers understand in war rooms, far from the constant sound of bombs and drones, a Chicago-area doctor who has volunteered in Gaza writes. Thaer Ahmad, a Palestinian American, walked out of a meeting with President Joe Biden about a month ago and is calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.
After Oct. 7, chairs with the photos of hostages seized in Israel by Hamas were placed outside Am Shalom synagogue in Glencoe, waiting for the hostages’ release. “Our 248 chairs will stay up as long as they have to,” Am Shalom’s senior rabbi writes.
The group the People’s Art Institute accused law enforcement of yanking people’s hair, strangling them, and hitting people with batons and metal fences at the Saturday protest.
Around daybreak Tuesday, campus officers surrounded the university’s main quadrangle and kept students from entering, according to reports from the scene.
Según los informes, en el campus de Lincoln Park de DePaul los contra manifestantes intentaron enfrentarse a los manifestantes, pero los pro palestinos utilizaron tácticas de desescalada para mantener la paz. En todo el país se ha detenido a más de 2,500 manifestantes desde el 18 de abril.
The University of Chicago Faculty for Justice in Palestine on Monday reaffirmed support for the “peaceful, welcoming and educational space” students had created and called on school leadership to return to “good-faith” negotiations.
An official familiar with Israeli thinking says Israeli officials are examining the cease-fire proposal approved by Hamas. But the official warns that the plan “is not the framework Israel proposed.”
Police said the museum asked them to clear the encampment on Saturday, hours after organizers set up tents in the Art Institute’s North Garden which they said were intended to pressure the school regarding the “occupation of Palestine.”
On a mostly peaceful day, tensions briefly bubbled over when counter-protesters confronted the demonstrators at the university’s Edward Levi Hall. An altercation prompted campus police to respond.
Las protestas contra la guerra han invadido los campus universitarios en las últimas semanas. Los estudiantes apoyan a los palestinos en los ataques de Israel contra Gaza, denuncian lo que llaman censura por parte de sus universidades y piden a las instituciones que dejen de invertir en fabricantes de armas y empresas que apoyan a Israel.
Tensions were higher Tuesday when hundreds of New York police officers raided Columbia University and City College of New York while a group of counterprotesters attacked a student encampment at UCLA.
“I remember coming out of my apartment one day and spotting Chicago cops dragging young protesters out of one section of Lincoln Park and shoving them into trucks, while nearby poet Allen Ginsberg was chanting in a circle of peaceful protesters not far away from the radical Abby Hoffman,” remembers Dan Webb, who later became a U.S. attorney.
The nonprofit wants to open a fourth school that would double as a venue with a bar, in a “significant step forward” as it also looks to offer an affordable performance space for artists.
A tutorial on photographing sunspots, a report on a coyote at Palmisano Park and a favor request from a tug engineer are among the notes from around Chicago outdoors and beyond.
