The Case for Disruption

By Zahra Muhsin

In Martin Luther King Jr’s writing from Birmingham Jail, he cautioned against more devotion to ‘order’ than to justice. He warned against those who preferred “a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.”

Across the United States, students and faculty members are camping out on university grounds and quads with two main demands: institutional accountability and immediate divestment from Israel. Protestors aim to negotiate with their institutions to divest from funds that profit from Israel’s months-long military campaign in the Gaza Strip. Protesters also demand an immediate ceasefire, as the Palestinian death toll in Gaza rises to over 35,000 with over 14,000 children killed.1

In response to the protests, the university administration moved classes online and canceled or modified graduation ceremonies. Furthermore, student encampments have proliferated across the U.S. and the world in solidarity. 2 Protestors feel a real sense of distress when realizing how the universities make them financially complicit in funding and/or profiting from war abroad. Consequently, students are utilizing graduations and occupying physical spaces on campus to ensure their protests are seen and heard.3

The current protest may feel unprecedented. However, historically, students have been at the epicenter of incredible social and structural change–from the Vietnam War and Apartheid South Africa to March For Our Lives and the Black Lives Matter Movements. Students have a unique power to galvanize a cause and enact real material change.

Though, with the disruption, there is a real psychological fear in witnessing your peers, colleagues, and professors being arrested mere feet away from your classroom. In some universities, police have violently subdued students and faculty members.4

Students fear speaking out on this cause may subject them to lifelong consequences. Consequences include suspension, job loss, and in some cases, visa restrictions. 5 This is a precarious and dangerous precedent to normalize.

Subsequently, post-secondary education is again under a microscope. Students are bumping against the limits to their freedoms on campus as well as the hopeful possibilities of their collective efforts. Nevertheless, students realize that they are indeed important stakeholders at their universities. Through this process, university

leaders are now more willing to negotiate with their students. From meetings and negotiating sessions, students are chipping away at that previously ambiguous relationship between student and institution.

On public forums, there is more curiosity and a call for transparency regarding university endowments and investments. Students demand universities to disclose their financial records. This is not a linear process but thousands of students are in it for the long haul. In a few universities, administrations have agreed to some of the protests’ demands. 6

Ultimately, the protesters view the repercussions as a sacrifice in making their voices heard. The Israeli military campaign has destroyed every university in Gaza and subsequently squashed the education sector of the Gaza Strip–a point student and faculty protesters appeal to in their demands.7

So, while their peers abroad no longer have a campus to return to, American university protesters have taken up the mantle. They hope to enact a change they want to see in the world–starting at their campuses.

At LAS, we work diligently to break down systematic racism and barriers to education. Campus and societal disruptions impact our work as well. This reality requires careful consideration and acknowledgment of the students, campuses, and communities we serve and to be dedicated to lifelong learning.

Sources:

1. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

2. Pro-Palestinian campus protests are going global

3. Palestine Encampment Map Columbia students occupy academic building

4. Brooklyn Protest Dartmouth Professor Annelise Orleck was arrested but not silenced

5. – University Professors Are Losing Their Jobs Over “New Mccarthyism” On Gaza – For international students, protesting on campuses has higher stakes – Harvard Students, Faculty Denounce Suspensions of Pro-Palestine Protesters

6. – Some Bay Area Universities Reach Deal to End Encampments, but Students Say Their Fight Continues – What we can learn from 4 schools that have reached agreements with Gaza protesters

7. UN experts deeply concerned over ‘scholasticide’ in Gaza