In Maryland’s Democratic primary, 10% of people who went to the polls opted to vote “uncommitted” rather than support President Joe Biden, according to the latest numbers from the State Board of Elections. . 

“Although ballots are still being counted, the ‘uncommitted’ vote count in this year’s Democratic presidential primary election is already tens of thousands of votes higher than in the 2020 elections,” the group Listen To Maryland said in a press release sent out Wednesday. In the days and weeks leading up to the May 14 primary, the group organized to get Marylanders to commit to voting “uncommitted.”

People who are part of the “uncommitted” movement want to pressure Biden to end U.S. backing of Israel’s assault on Gaza. Critics argue that Biden’s ongoing military and diplomatic support for Israel’s relentless war is costing him votes from younger Americans that will be crucial to winning the November election. 

Biden and former president Donald Trump won their respective primary races in Maryland, Nebraska, and West Virginia, advancing as the likely nominees for the Democratic and Republican parties.

Trump has thus far escaped accountability for seeking to overturn his 2020 election loss and is reportedly preparing for a repeat this year.

This development occurs as new polls show Trump leading Biden in five crucial swing states that may decide the presidential election. Biden is losing ground among young voters — who have mobilized to demand Biden do more to stop the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza. 

A recent poll by the left-leaning research firm Data for Progress found 7 in 10 likely US voters support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

To read more about the “uncommitted” movement, check out the Beat’s previous reporting here. 

Hopkins Encampment Ends

Meanwhile, on May 12, Johns Hopkins University students announced they had agreed to end their two-week-long Gaza solidarity encampment. 

The deal, confirmed by the university, avoided mass arrests and provided amnesty for students but fell short of their key demands for the school to cut ties with companies profiting from Israel’s war on Gaza.

“In no way are we satisfied with this end to our demonstration. This agreement is only a first step toward our demands in the longer struggle for decolonization,” stated the Hopkins Justice Collective, which helped organize the protest. “Similar agreements that concluded other encampments, such as those at Brown and Northwestern University, achieved shifts in the divestment movement but failed to reach total divestment or demilitarization.”

“We are grateful to the many members of our community—faculty, staff, and students—who helped us navigate this moment. It is my fervent hope that at Hopkins, we can continue our focus on the important work of a university – to engage in dialogue and learning with one another regarding challenging and complex issues such as these,” Hopkins President Ron Daniels said in an email to Baltimore Beat.

The following afternoon, dozens of students, faculty, and community members rallied in support of an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

The encampment was one of hundreds of demonstrations related to the Israel-Palestine conflict in recent weeks, which have been overwhelmingly in support of Palestinians. Student protests in particular have spread in recent weeks on campuses to press their schools to cut ties with companies that sell weapons to Israel. Nearly 3,000 people have been arrested in the past several weeks of student-led protests, NBC reported.

Gaza has faced nearly nonstop Israeli bombardment in the seven months since Hamas’s October 7 attack that killed 1,200 Israelis, many of them civilians. At least 35,000 Palestinians have been killed, the majority of them women and children. 

“We need to speak up more because it is in that silence that we see more war crimes being committed,” Montgomery County Delegate Gabriel Acevero, who visited the encampment to express solidarity with the students, told Baltimore Beat. “We see more disregard for the preliminary ruling by the International Court of Justice that said that there is plausible genocide in Gaza.”

In recent days, students have staged demonstrations at graduations across the country, including UC Berkeley, Pomona College and Virginia Commonwealth University. Students at Duke University walked out on the commencement speaker, comedian Jerry Seinfeld, over his support for Israel. Tamara Rasamny, one of the Columbia University students arrested during protests at their school, spoke out in solidarity with Gaza during graduation.

Since October in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers have killed 500 Palestinians and Israeli settlers have carried out nearly 800 attacks. Israel has continued to expand Jewish-only settlements in the occupied territories, which are considered illegal under international law, and a major obstacle to peace, yet continue to receive financial backing from the US.

Aid groups have accused Israel of indiscriminately targeting civilians, medical staff, and civilian infrastructure, all in violation of international humanitarian law. Gaza, one the most densely populated areas in the world, is largely reduced to rubble; the UN estimates it will take 80 years to rebuild the homes destroyed in the war. 

Israeli officials say they are minimizing civilian casualties and that they are trying to free hostages who remain in Gaza. Thousands of Israelis, including some families of the hostages, took to the streets in recent days accusing the Israeli government of thwarting negotiations to bring home the hostages in order to prolong the war. Meanwhile, right-wing Israeli activists blocked shipments of aid from reaching Gaza.

On Friday, the Biden administration said it would continue to supply weapons to Israel despite finding the close ally was using U.S. weapons in likely violation of international humanitarian law requirements for protecting civilians.

In contrast, the U.S. immediately halted funding for the United Nations Palestinian Relief Agency (UNRWA) after Israel alleged employees had colluded with Hamas, noted Husam Zomlot, Palestinian ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, who sought the probe of Israel’s conduct in the war, said Israel was preventing food from reaching Palestinians. The U.N. says Gazans are experiencing “full-blown famine.”

“That’s why we have hundreds of thousands of Palestinians that have nothing to do with Hamas on the verge of starvation,” Van Hollen told the Associated Press.

The Hopkins Justice Collective remained steadfast in their calls for an end to the Israeli occupation, saying in a statement, “The [Israeli military] continues to bomb the only safe zone left in Palestine. Universities continue to fund the ongoing apartheid genocide and settler-colonial occupation that Palestinians have endured since 1948. Meanwhile, there are no universities left in Gaza. The only true victory is the liberation of Palestine and the end to settler colonialism everywhere.”

The protesters faced increasing pressure to disband ahead of a scheduled counterprotest Monday, which was canceled after the deal was announced. When expressing concerns for student safety, Hopkins evoked another decades-old protest movement: 

“[A] student dwelling in a semi-permanent shelter to protest South African Apartheid suffered serious burns when another student set the structure on fire,” Daniels said in an email on May 2. In the 1980s, after students erected a mock shantytown on campus to protest Hopkins’ support for the apartheid government in South Africa, it was firebombed by fraternity members. In May 1986, three Hopkins fraternity brothers were charged with arson and attempted murder for setting a fire that injured one student protester.

That years-long campaign eventually successfully pressured schools like Hopkins to divest from apartheid South Africa. Anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela, who was jailed for decades and went on to serve as president of South Africa, thanked student protesters for helping to bring down that country’s white supremacist regime.

Critics of the current protests reject parallels to the anti-apartheid movement. But Mandela compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians with South Africa’s treatment of Black South Africans, and urged Israel to end the occupation in order to secure peace.

“Talk of peace will remain hollow if Israel continues to occupy Arab territories,” Mandela told Israel’s Foreign Ministry during a visit in 1999. “I understand completely well why Israel occupies these lands. There was a war. But if there is going to be peace, there must be complete withdrawal from all of these areas.” 

The post Vote Uncommitted Sends Message to Biden + Hopkins Encampment Ends with Deal appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

At least nine Goucher College students involved in a pro-Palestine encampment on the campus received emails on May 14 placing them on probation and threatening their suspension if they did not agree to comply with the campus’s demonstration policy by the next day.

“As has been repeatedly communicated to you and our community, any Goucher student has the right to free expression on our campus, however, this does not mean you have the right to violate College policies,” Goucher College President Kent Devereaux wrote in an email shared with Baltimore Beat.

The demonstration policy on the private college campus requires that protests occur during business hours only and that students and employees request approval from the administration before holding a demonstration on campus.

One student organizer, who spoke with the Beat anonymously, said that student negotiators who received the sanction emails were told in the private negotiation meetings that they would receive amnesty for violating the demonstration policy. 

The student also said that some of the students who received sanctions were not camping at the encampment but had been involved in activism on campus otherwise. 

Another student organizer involved in the encampment said that the sanction could result in the loss of a degree for some seniors who are scheduled to graduate on May 24.

A professor at Goucher College confirmed that the encampment was still up as of Tuesday evening, before the sanctions were sent out.

The encampment at Goucher College has been quietly carrying on since April 22, with Students For a Free Palestine calling on the administration to acknowledge the genocide against Palestinian people in a written statement; compile and make accessible an annual report on the university’s endowment investment portfolios and financial statements; remove Israel from a list of approved study abroad programs; and create a space for anti-Zionist Jewish students who don’t feel supported by the college’s Hillel organization, among other demands.  

Students and administrators had been negotiating on the demands for the last week but had different interpretations of their success. In an email sent to the campus community on May 10, Devereaux said they had reached “acceptable paths forward on nine of the 10 topics under discussion.”

Students For a Free Palestine released their own statement on May 13, saying that they had only come to an agreement on one of the demands: the disclosure of Goucher College’s investments. They also announced that Devereaux had doubled down on the demand for students to remove their encampment and set a deadline of 11:59 p.m. that night. 

“As a gesture of good faith I have already extended the deadline for the encampment to come down twice. We will not extend the deadline a third time,” Devereaux wrote in an email to student negotiators on May 13. 

“Failure to do so will risk everything that we have negotiated in good faith up to [this] point and could result in the imposition of sanctions on participating students,” Devereaux wrote.

Goucher College did not respond to a request for comment earlier on Tuesday.

Devereaux had previously threatened disciplinary action against Students For a Free Palestine after an April 29 sit-in in an administrative building. 

In his email to the college community, Devereaux described the sit-in as “hostile,” and claimed participants “verbally attacked or threatened staff members leaving Dorsey Center, pounded on windows, kicked walls, and shoved their way through doors past campus security personnel.

That characterization was disputed by students, faculty and student newspaper coverage, which described the sit-in much more mildly.

“Around 12:32 pm, the group attempted to enter the indoor area of the College Center, but was initially denied. After pushing as far into the entrance as they were permitted, the faculty blocking the doorways eventually gave way,” Olivia Barnes and Sam Rose, reporters for The Quindecim, the school’s independent newspaper, wrote.

“An open mic began at 12:45pm, providing a forum for anyone there to speak their mind. Enough students were packed into the lobby that many had to wait outside in order to provide a path to the door.” 

Devereaux warned students participating in the sit-in and continuing the encampment that they could face a number of consequences, including “losing the ability to reside on campus, loss of scholarship support, or possible suspension or termination from the College.”

The president had stopped short of threatening to call police on the student encampment, as has been seen on college campuses across the country. The Appeal reported that as of May 7, nearly 3,000 students had been arrested while protesting Israel’s genocide in Gaza. 

The post Goucher College president threatens sanctions on students participating in pro-Palestine encampment appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Despite threats of disciplinary action, pro-Palestine demonstrators encamped at Johns Hopkins University remained there the following day. 

Representatives for the university handed out forms on Wednesday, May 8, asking demonstrators who had been camped out on the area known as “the beach” since the week before to agree to leave and not return. If they did so, the school officials said, they would “defer taking conduct action” against them.

“We refuse the University’s scare tactics,” the Hopkins Justice Collaborative said via a press release sent out Wednesday afternoon. “After yesterday’s meeting with the administration, which produced a miserable offer to the encampment, this move from the University reads as despicable and fear-mongering. The encampment has yet to receive any word from the administration about resuming negotiations.”

In a statement to Baltimore Beat, a JHU representative said, “We are pursuing other avenues for those who remain and would remind everyone that participation in the encampment is a trespass.” 

Dozens of college campuses have launched protests amidst growing calls for a ceasefire in Gaza. The student movement is seeking to pressure institutions to cut ties with Israel over its war that’s killed over 40,000 Palestinians in the last seven months and is continuing to kill civilians.

The anti-war protests persist as Israel threatens a full-scale invasion of Rafah, a city on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt where 1.4 million Palestinians — more than half of the territory’s entire population — have sought refuge. The United Nations has warned that hundreds of thousands of civilians could die if Israel invades Rafah.

Under increasing pressure from young activists in the streets and within his own administration to protect Palestinians from Israeli human rights violations, President Joe Biden on Wednesday threatened to halt additional military aid to Israel.

“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah … I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities – that deal with that problem,” Biden told CNN. Last month, Biden approved a $15 billion weapon shipment to Israel over the objections of over 250 human rights organizations.

Israel blames Hamas, the political and military organization that controls the Gaza Strip, for civilian deaths. Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis and captured 240 hostages during its deadly surprise attack on Oct. 7. 

Earlier this week, Hamas agreed to a ceasefire deal, which Israel rejected, reportedly because it called for a permanent ceasefire. Amid negotiations, Israel seized the Rafah border crossing, cutting off the main artery for food and humanitarian supplies into the region. 

“If the crossing is not urgently reopened, the entire civilian population in Rafah and in the Gaza Strip will be at greater risk of famine, disease and death,” a UN official told the Washington Post.

Meanwhile, northern Gaza is already experiencing “full-blown famine,” said World Food Programme executive director Cindy McCain. McCain is the widow of late Republican Senator John McCain.  

A May 8 poll from Data for Progress, a left-wing polling firm, found 70% of Americans and 83% of Democrats support a ceasefire in Gaza, 54% of Americans and 68% of Democrats supported suspending arms sales to Israel for blocking aid to Gaza. A majority also said they believed Israel is committed genocide in Gaza, including 56% of Democrats. 

At the Hopkins encampments, activists say they remain committed to their protest in solidarity with Gaza as the conditions there grow more dire. Organizers say they are concerned the school will use force to evict them. The Baltimore Police Department has thus far found no reason to intervene against the encampment. 

On May 7, representatives from seven Baltimore-area colleges held a joint press conference to collectively urge their schools to end ties with Israel. 

“We organize in protest of the systemic violence against Palestinians, and all people, in recognition that peace cannot be achieved without freedom from oppression,” read the statement from students at Johns Hopkins University, Towson University, the University of Baltimore, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), and Goucher College.

“There are no universities left in Gaza. It is our duty to recognize our position of privilege and refuse to be complicit in genocide,” the letter continued. “The students of Baltimore condemn the notion of “neutrality” in fighting for social justice and implore our universities to use their institutional power for the liberation of Palestine.”

In a statement, JHU said the university is “continuing to work to bring the encampment to a close given the serious risk of conflict and harm to the university community, as seen here already and at peer institutions around the country.”

On May 3, the Johns Hopkins Krieger School of Arts and Sciences (KSAS) Faculty Senate wrote a letter urging JHU President Ron Daniels to engage with protestors and not use force to disband the camp.

“[G]iven the non-violent nature of the protest, and the willingness of students to use this opportunity for education and training, we urge President Daniels to continue to follow principles of dialogue, engagement and de-escalation,” they wrote. “Wesleyan and Oberlin both are permitting encampments. We see no reason why it should be necessary to address the encampment at Hopkins through police action.”

According to a recent report from The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, “the overwhelming majority of student protests since October — 99% — have remained peaceful.”

Daniel Levy, an Israeli peace negotiator under two former Israeli prime ministers and president of the U.S./Middle East Project who has turned into a fierce critic of the Israeli government,, said the protests are making an impact. 

“People should not feel disheartened. What they are doing is having an impact: the fear of how this could play out politically. And so, I would say, in these crucial moments, those efforts should be redoubled because they are meaningful,” he told the independent news program Democracy Now! 

The post Despite threats from Johns Hopkins University, Pro-Palestine Demonstrators Remain appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Baltimore Beat has learned that officials at Johns Hopkins University are asking students who have been protesting there to leave the area by 6 p.m. today — and not to return.

People have been gathered at the school’s Homewood campus since last week, part of a wave of protests calling for an end to genocide against Palestinians that has swept college campuses in the United States and elsewhere. 

Student organizers of the encampment received the letter shortly after 3 p.m. The letter, written by Jennifer Calhoun, associate vice provost for Student Affairs, Student Living and Community Standards, says that students there are violating the school’s code of conduct. It says that if they leave now, JHU will “defer taking conduct action” against participants in the protest.

“Going forward, you will not participate in any protest or demonstration activities that violate the Student Conduct Code or university policy. Should you violate the Student Conduct Code or university policy in a future protest or demonstration, conduct charges that would have been brought regarding the encampment related activities since April 29 will be initiated,” the letter reads. “This conduct deferral will not be part of your student record and will not affect your academic career at Johns Hopkins University.”

The letter also asks the signee to pledge to “not in any way interfere with or disrupt any end-of-academic-year or commencement-related activities.”

Organizers of the JHU protest said they met with school officials Wednesday to discuss their requests — including that the school divest from companies that organizers said assist in the Israeli occupation of Palestine — but that the discussion was not successful. 

In addition to that request, protesters have asked Johns Hopkins University to disclose its “investments and academic complicity” in Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, including “weapons and military technology developed at Hopkins,” and end its partnership with Tel Aviv University. 

“The Administration did not approach the table with an offer that engaged our demands. The University offered a timeline that would merely ‘consider’ our PIIAC [Public Interest Investment Advisory Committee] proposal for divestment in October of 2025,” the Johns Hopkins Collective said in a press release. “With every passing day, the violence of one of the most well-documented genocides in world history accelerates.”

“Today, at 3:12 p.m., the encampment received papers threatening individual students to reveal their personal identification and affiliation with the Palestine Solidarity Encampment. This was paired with an additional threat that the encampment would be swept at 6 p.m. today,” the Johns Hopkins Collective said in a press release sent out a little before 5 p.m. Wednesday.

They said they have not heard any information from university officials about resuming negotiations. They asked that people who stand in solidarity with the demonstration report to the campus at 5 p.m.

This story will be updated.

From Issue 39 of Baltimore Beat:

As this issue went to print, the people gathered on the area of Johns Hopkins University known as “the beach” said they were going into day 7 of their occupation of the area. Despite the cold and drizzly weather, on May 5, a cluster of about 35 small, enclosed tents remained. Larger tents — the kind you might find at a cookout or summer festival — created a semicircle around the enclosed tents. Signs hung in the area listing the occupier’s demands and calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

They began the occupation to highlight the plight of Palestinians in Gaza. People in the area have been under constant assault by the Israeli government since last October, when Hamas carried out an attack that left 1,200 Israelis dead. Over 200 were kidnapped. 

“People who sympathize with Israel say the attacks are warranted to eliminate the threat that Hamas poses to the Israeli people,” this outlet wrote this past January, as we reported on a pro-Palestine protest in Annapolis. “However, many people have rallied around Palestinians, saying that the incessant bombing, which has killed over 25,000 Palestinians — including a large number of children and infants — constitutes genocide and is only the latest act in a long history of settler colonial violence.”

On Thursday, May 2, Johns Hopkins University president Ron Daniels issued a letter to the group Hopkins Justice Collective and student protesters asking them to end the encampment. He said the school had health and safety concerns, and that the protest was not helpful. 

“An encampment of this nature cannot help but reduce the capacity of those within it to see the common humanity of those who are outside its perimeter,” he wrote. 

The Hopkins Justice Collective, the student group organizing the action, released a statement the next day saying they felt that Daniels’ statement mischaracterized them and their mission.

“Daniels invokes the vague language of ‘risk’ as a rhetorical tool against the nonviolent encampment as a threat, perpetuating fear of the Baltimore community. His language enforces a false binary between ‘non-affiliates’ and ‘affiliates.’ Johns Hopkins University is not a self-contained institution,” they wrote.

They said the framing was a distraction from their demand of the school: that the school divest from companies like Elbit, Blackrock, Lockheed Martin, and Google,” who they said help support the current genocide in Palestine. 

The same day, members of Johns Hopkins University’s Krieger School of Arts and Sciences Faculty Senate also responded to Daniels’ words.

“A number of faculty, including KSAS Senators, have visited the protest as observers; we have seen that the encampment has largely been civil and emphasizes the types of engagement that many faculty seek to develop in our students,” they wrote.

They said they have witnessed organizers’ adherence to the principles of non-violence and have used the space to highlight learning.

“We commend President Daniels for his commitment to take seriously some of the protesters’ demands, and his broader commitment to the principles of freedom of expression. Particularly given the non-violent nature of the protest, and the willingness of students to use this opportunity for education and training, we urge President Daniels to continue to follow principles of dialogue, engagement and de-escalation.”

The post Johns Hopkins University Moves to End Pro-Palestine Encampment appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Notify Someone 

Before you head out, tell someone.

Fill out an arrest support form (found on BALT’s website). Make sure you leave a physical copy with someone who is not going to the protest.

Jail Support Hotline

410-855-4222

Write this number, along with a number for family/friend, on your body.

Have a Plan

Be prepared.

Bring water, snacks, notepad and pen. Any essential meds in case you are arrested.

Secure your Tech

Don’t give them data!

Turn off all fingerprint/face ID security and tracking.

People Over Property

Always

Try to keep yourself and other bystanders safe.

Value Black Leadership

Before you head out, research the organization(s) leading the effort.

The post Baltimore Action Legal Team’s Tips for Protesting appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Activists and organizers who set up an encampment at Johns Hopkins University said that school officials threatened to call the police on them if they didn’t leave last night. They said that school officials also threatened them with academic sanctions.

“We have been clear that the consequences of violating our policies and creating unsafe conditions include academic discipline, which is determined by University officials, and trespass, which is handled by local law enforcement,” a representative for the school said in an email to Baltimore Beat.

Organizers launched the encampment on Monday, April 29.

“The negotiation team offered the following concessions and guarantees in order to allow the encampment to remain overnight: respect for campus quiet hours, offers to take down semi-permanent structures, offers to keep supplies and materials off-site, freedom of movement for students and non-participants, a written guarantee of nonviolence, and continuous presence of de-escalators on-site,” organizers said via a statement from the Hopkins Justice Collaborative.

“The University Administration released a public statement claiming an agreement was reached with our negotiation team to limit the hours of our encampment. This is a false statement. No agreement was reached. In addition, they stated in the email that they met with students for several hours—this is also untrue; negotiations lasted for one hour. What is most egregious is that the message stated that they had concerns over the ‘health, safety, and welfare’ of students. This is in clear contradiction of their threat last night when they admitted that they were willing to risk the safety and wellbeing of students by calling in the BPD and sending students to jail,” the statement read.

One student who stayed overnight and identified himself as TB spoke to Baltimore Beat by phone from the campus on Tuesday morning. He said school administrators threatened to call the Baltimore City Police if the people gathered did not leave. He said that they asked officials if they were willing to risk the safety of students to do so, and the officials didn’t seem to care. 

TB said he felt an obligation to remain on campus, and as long as others were with him, he would stay there as long as he needed to. 

“We are saving the Palestinian people, speaking up for them since they cannot speak up for themselves at the moment,” he said. 

TB asked people to continue to gather at the university to continue to highlight the plight of Palestinians.

“Please join our struggle to fight for the human rights of the Palestinian people to exist,” he said. “We invite you to struggle and fight for the human rights of the Palestinian people.” 

“All out to JHU: We need your consistent urgent support!!!” read an Instagram post by the organization Students for Justice in Palestine at Johns Hopkins University Tuesday morning. “We are not letting Johns Hopkins shut down our encampment. We are still here. There have been no arrests.”

“We’re here to urge the university to sever its financial and academic links [in Israel] and its involvement in the ongoing genocide in Palestine,” Sarah, a Hopkins undergraduate, told Baltimore Beat. They chose not to provide their full name due to concerns about being targeted for their pro-Palestine stance.

The encampment had places to get food, supplies of face masks and tables offering free books and newspapers. People spread out blankets, and some sat under tents.

Throughout the evening, activists chanted, “Disclose, divest; we will not leave until our demands are met,” and “Free, free, free, Palestine!”

At around 8 p.m., a Baltimore City Police Department helicopter made tight circles around the encampment. A smattering of police officers stood around the perimeter of the area where people had gathered.

By 10 p.m., six hours after the encampment’s launch, demonstrators had ignored multiple orders to disperse. Instead, they distributed water and food as they prepared to spend the night to ensure their demands were met. 

Representatives for organizers met with Hopkins officials, and by 3 a.m., some decided to abide by the university’s request that they leave and return the next day. Others said they felt a strong commitment to remain on campus no matter what. 

Over 34,000 Palestinians have been killed during the more than six-month-long Israeli assault, which has been supported by the U.S. government with weapons shipments and diplomatic support. Politico reports 20 State Department lawyers are urging a halt of the flow of arms to Israel because it may be using U.S.-made weapons in violation of international law. Meanwhile, humanitarian experts warn that a famine is developing in Gaza because Israel is blocking food deliveries.

“I was moved to see the courage, moral clarity, and conviction that the student protestors displayed today; this encampment has been established with a clear understanding of how to keep participants safe, and how to keep the space inclusive, thoughtful, and disciplined,” Hopkins English professor Drew Daniel, who visited the encampment, told Baltimore Beat in an email. 

The protest is part of a national movement of campus occupations urging universities with substantial endowments to cut financial ties with companies that support the Israeli occupation. At several other universities, hundreds of students and faculty have been arrested nationwide, often violently, after officials have ordered police to clear the protests.

“I want to encourage my fellow faculty members to show up and show solidarity with our students as they speak out against what is happening in Gaza, and to lend their voices to the growing calls from our students to hold Hopkins accountable for its investments in corporations that profit from this conflict,” said Daniel, who was vocal in his support of the student protests against the Hopkins private police force in 2019. 

“Consider Emory University, for example, where police used tear gas and were aggressively handling students, throwing them to the ground and arresting them. Rubber bullets have been fired at student occupations. We’re here to ensure that doesn’t happen,” they said.

Dozens spread out blankets and set up pop-up tents at Hopkins Beach, a large grassy area on the Hopkins Homewood campus, and created protest signs.

Over 100 Hopkins faculty and staff wrote an open letter to the university, urging it to allow the protests to continue.

“We call on you to continue fulfilling your responsibilities to protect peaceful protesters, uphold academic freedom, and resist any pressure to criminalize demonstrations. In recent weeks, several universities have allowed extensive protests and have managed to keep everyone safe,” the letter states.

The organizers’ additional demands include a Hopkins boycott of Israeli academic institutions, condemnation of the deaths of Palestinians and a call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. They also demand that the university denounce the widespread repression of pro-Palestine speech in the United States, particularly on college campuses, and reaffirm its commitment to free speech without fear of reprisal.

Supporters of Israel, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have attempted to brand the campus protests as antisemitic.

Sarah, who is Jewish, rejects this notion. “There are many Jewish organizers, including myself, who have consistently supported Palestine, been arrested for the cause and are here to declare that Zionism is not part of our Jewish identity.”

At the Hopkins protest camp, racism, bigotry and antisemitism are strictly prohibited, as outlined in a code of conduct given to participants.

“Antisemitism has no place in this encampment,” Sarah noted, highlighting that Muslim students have faced harassment on campus for expressing pro-Palestinian views.

Organizers say they were inspired to start their own campus occupation by both the historic national wave of student protests and Hopkins’ legacy of successful campus protests.

In 1986, a years-long student campaign pressured Hopkins into divesting from corporations that did business with the white supremacist government of South Africa.

“Students once camped for nine days to protest apartheid in South Africa, and they successfully pushed the school to divest. We are part of that legacy,” Sarah explained. 

“The demand to divest is not going to go away, and I hope the administration listens and responds in a manner that lives up to its stated mission to generate ‘knowledge for the world.’ The people of Gaza are a part of that world, and Hopkins needs to act like it,” Daniel said. 

Additional reporting by Lisa Snowden. 

The post Occupation at Johns Hopkins University aims to protest on behalf of Palestinians appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Chants of “Free, Free, Palestine!” and “Money for jobs and educations, not for war and occupation” echoed across the Johns Hopkins Homewood Campus in Baltimore on Wednesday, Apr. 24, as hundreds of students, faculty, and community members decried the mounting death toll in Gaza. 

“We’re gathered here today to declare our shame and disgust at the state of Israel’s oppression of Palestine,” said one speaker, who declined to give their name, citing the ongoing harassment of Pro-Palestine activists. 

The groups Hopkins Justice Collective and Students for Justice in Palestine organized the action, which is part of a movement that’s spread to dozens of college campuses, calling on their schools to stop investing in companies that profit from Israel’s war on Gaza.

“We refuse to accept that endowments from Johns Hopkins are going towards weapons that slaughter these precious Palestinians,” said a speaker. Others called for a ceasefire and for the creation of an independent Palestinian state. 

Across the country, protests on college campuses have grown and videos of the brutal arrests of students and professors have gone viral. Pro-Palestinian activists have also faced allegations of rampant antisemitism that have largely not been substantiated with evidence. 

“We recognize their willingness to put their bodies on the line and the risk they’re taking on in the face of mass arrest, evictions, and suspension into silence for false accusations of antisemitism for supporting Palestinian resistance and decolonization,” said another speaker at the rally, who also declined to be named.

The movement appears to have already secured concessions. On Apr. 26, Portland State University announced it was pausing ties with airplane and weapons manufacturer Boeing, citing student protests that raised concerns Israel used the company’s weapons to commit atrocities in Gaza.

Activists at Hopkins are considering launching their own occupation—a tactic with a storied history on campus. In 1986, Hopkins students launched a nine-day sit-in to demand the school divest from companies that did business with apartheid South Africa. In 2019, students occupied Hopkins’ Garland Hall for over a month to demand the school abandon its bid to create its private police force.

Universities have faced growing pressure to divest their sizable endowments—over $10 billion in the case of Hopkins—from companies that harm public health and the environment. Inspired by its success in bringing down the then-apartheid government of South Africa, in 2005, Palestinian civil society groups endorsed the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement which calls for institutions to divest from Israeli companies. In 2017, Hopkins became one of the first institutions to divest from thermal coal.  

Organizers said the primary aim of Wednesday’s march was to raise awareness of the human toll of Israel’s war on Gaza. The official death toll has surpassed 34,000, the majority of whom are women and children, with thousands more buried under rubble. Aid groups and humanitarian organizations have warned of impending famine; the destruction of homes, civilian infrastructure, hospitals, and universities has left Gaza close to “uninhabitable” for its 2.2 million residents.

A recent Gallup poll found a majority of Americans now disapprove of Israel’s actions, and Pew Research noted that younger Americans are more likely to sympathize with Palestinians than older generations. 

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden approved an aid package containing $26 billion dollars to Israel, despite growing concerns by State Department officials that the close U.S. ally is violating international law in Gaza. 

“We are deeply disturbed by the silence of people in power across the world, from the U.S. government to the Johns Hopkins administration,” a student said at the rally.

Police have arrested hundreds of peaceful demonstrators, including at New York’s Columbia University, the University of Austin, the University of Southern California, and Emory University in Georgia; others have also faced harsh disciplinary measures, including expulsion. 

“They want to silence us so we don’t stand up in solidarity with the Palestinian people. It’s our moral obligation to keep fighting back against this repression. They want to keep us from speaking out against genocide,” a speaker said at the protest. 

20-year-old Hopkins student Simcha Leischmann, a Jewish member of the Hopkins Justice Collective, said there is growing support to launch a protest encampment.

“We’ve had people coming up to us today asking, ‘When is the encampment? Was that supposed to start today?’ said Leischmann. “We’re hearing those requests and we’re planning something that is going to keep people safe while we can still make our specific demands.” 

Students at Rice University in Houston labeled their campus occupation as an art installation to avoid drawing the school’s ire, the Houston Chronicle reported.

Organizers say they are developing demands they will present to campus administration. 

“It’s very likely going to be a specific demand, that Hopkins divest from two to three weapons companies to make it a little more feasible on a quick timeline,” Leischmann said.

Pro-Palestine activism on campus has not yet reached the level witnessed at schools such as Columbia, the epicenter of the current protest movement. But activists expect increased participation ahead of a potential Israeli ground invasion of Rafah, where over one million Palestinians have sought refuge. 

“There were some horrible massacres that were uncovered at Nasser Hospital, and the situation that the people there are enduring is just getting worse and worse. And we were just astounded by the collective silence,” said Fatima, a Muslim member of Hopkins Justice Collective and Students for Justice for Palestine.  

Speakers also highlighted how, in the past, student protests have pressured institutions, including Johns Hopkins, to divest from companies that profit from human rights violations.

Hopkins divested from South Africa’s white supremacist government after a years-long campaign that included the creation of mock shantytowns on campus to highlight the conditions facing Black South Africans. In May 1986, three Hopkins fraternity brothers were charged with arson and attempted murder for a firebombing that injured one student protestor.

Figures like Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have argued that the Pro-Palestine activists are antisemitic and their protests are not protected by the First Amendment.

In a statement, independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish, rejected Netanyhu’s attempts to paint anti-war protestors as antisemitic. “Antisemitism is a vile and disgusting form of bigotry that has done unspeakable harm to many millions of people. But, please, do not insult the intelligence of the American people by attempting to distract us from the immoral and illegal war policies of your extremist and racist government,” said Sanders.

Instances of antisemitism and Islamophobia have surged since the Oct. 7 attacks, in which Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 240 more, but no evidence links student protests with antisemitism. 

A 2021 poll by the Jewish Electorate Institute found Jewish voters in the U.S.  were concerned about antisemitism, with a majority believing it originated from right-wing groups. The poll also found that 40% of Jews under 40 believe Israel is an apartheid state, and 43% believe its treatment of Palestinians is similar to racism in the United States. 

Johns Hopkins University did not respond to Baltimore Beat’s query about whether it was aware of antisemitic or Islamophobic acts on campus. 

Still, it provided a statement that read, in part, “As an academic community, we are guided by the principles of academic freedom and support the free expression of every member of our community, including their right to protest, demonstrate and share their views. At the same time, threats, acts of hate or discrimination, including religious discrimination, harassment, and intimidation, violate university policy and our student code of conduct and are antithetical to the values of the university.”

At the rally, a student waved an Israeli flag among a handful of counter-protestors. She said she objected to speakers’ depictions of Israel’s actions, which she argued were in self-defense to the Oct. 7 attack. 

Another Jewish student said the counter-protestor was brave for waving the Israeli flag. They both said they had not experienced antisemitism on campus. The second student said they faced online harassment for supporting Zionism, which they consider part of their identity.

“I’m a Zionist and I’m very vocal about it. And I’ve been called a terrorist, I’ve been called racist,” they said. 

Barae Hirsch, a community member and recent Hopkins graduate, had a different view. 

“I’m also Jewish, I was raised Jewish, my whole family is Jewish, and I feel in complete solidarity with folks organizing for the liberation of Palestine.”

Hirsh noted that 300 Jewish activists were arrested in New York the previous night urging Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to end U.S. military aid for Israel. 

“From one Jew to another, I would say that, if you want to choose Zionism as your identity, you also take on what it means. And that means colonization, it means displacement, it means genocide. And so that’s something we all have to take accountability for,” said Hirsh.

Leischmann said she has skipped class to accompany Muslim students who have faced harassment on campus.

“I was way more worried about my friends who wear the hijab, who are visibly Muslim, than my safety. I think people weaponize their Jewish identities to paint themselves as victims. And I think we would do a lot more for Jewish safety by standing in solidarity with Palestinians.” 

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