March 07, 2024 | NEWS | By Seth Jahraus
Colorado College students are continuing to protest on campus over the conflict on the West Bank.
Casualties continue to rise in the Gaza Strip five months following the start of the Israel-Hamas war. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports the killing of over 30,000 Palestinians and over 1,200 Israelis since the war began on Oct. 7.
On Mar. 3, from noon to midnight, campus protest organizers stationed themselves on the second floor of the Charles L. Tutt Library. Palestinian flags and banners calling for CC to divest from companies that support Israel’s war efforts adorned the walls of the floor that’s typically reserved for student tutoring.
A group began the protest with 10 members before reaching approximately 30 students at the height of the gathering.
Protesters played music through a large speaker that could be heard from the adjacent floors. Each hour, the group mobilized to the fourth floor — a designated quiet space on campus. Once at the top of the building, they marched through each floor, playing loud music and shouting chants until finishing in the library basement, another designated quiet space.
Cathy Buckley, the director of CC campus safety, visited the protest twice in an attempt to deter the group’s loud music and chants. She asked students to reduce the volume of the music and to show their college ID cards. The protesters denied both requests.
A few hours later, Buckley warned protesters about potential consequences.
The former local police lieutenant said she had talked with the dean of the college, Pedro de Araujo, about how to handle the situation. In a video captured by a student protester, Buckley is seen issuing a warning to the group saying that they will receive conduct cases from the school if the disturbances were to continue.
“Since students have been organizing on campus around the genocide currently happening in Gaza, the institution has made it very clear that they don’t appreciate our demonstrations,” said one of the protest organizers who asked not to be named for fear of suspension. “They want us to be quiet and we’re not gonna’ be quiet.”
Buckley declined to comment to The Catalyst, saying the details surrounding student conduct cases are protected under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
Protesters said they were particularly hesitant to shut down the event after finding a statement by the library supervisors. The statement, which supervisors passed on to the library staff, indicated that the demonstration should be ignored as long as it remained non-violent. “The library supports students’ right to peaceful protest, even when these protests might disturb people who wish to study in the library,” the memo read.
Library supervisors later sent out a statement to library staff telling the workers to allow campus safety to handle the situation.
In a recent email to the CC community, outgoing President L. Song Richardson noted the college’s policy on student protests. “Our Freedom of Expression policy clearly states that protests and demonstrations must not ‘disrupt the normal business or activities of the college,’” she wrote. “We therefore do not allow protests in classrooms or the library.”
In response to the email sent out by President Richardson, protest organizers issued a statement to The Catalyst The statement reaffirms the protesters as “an independent student group” who sought to increase visibility and “cause outrage” regarding Palestinian deaths.
Dustin Fife, the campus’s college librarian, issued a statement to The Catalyst following the sit-in, saying, “I am focused on always improving and being prepared to better support our students and communities now and in the future.”
The dean of the college said he sees the Student Code of Conduct protest restrictions as a focal point meant to educate the student body. “If students are seeing this as a way for us to curtail… I can understand that,” said Araujo. “That is not really where we are coming from at all.”
With a clear line of what is tolerated, protesters can make the decision as to whether or not they are willing to cross it. “When we think about protests… not having any consequence or any perceived consequence for that disruption possibly defeats the purpose of a protest,” said Araujo.
Araujo made sure to emphasize that no students were forcibly removed from the building at any time.
“When I used to protest and I would go and run from the police, there were no lines,” said Araujo. “That is very different than on a college campus where the individuals who are monitoring are there to support and educate.”
Prior to the protest, the organizer mentioned above explained their general goals by putting their own intentions into three major categories: a desire to raise awareness of genocide, a desire to advocate for more visible CC investments, and a desire to disrupt the illusion of comfort found on campus.
A separate protest member, who asked not to be named for fear of potential public backlash, emphasized their hope to provoke CC to release its investment details. They said that as a private institution CC has “no obligation to be transparent” regarding their investment portfolio, a problem in the eyes of the student protester.
While facing pushback from campus safety and the administration, the protest group also encountered resistance from fellow students. Some studying in the library met the rounds of protesters with positivity, going so far as to participate in the chants as the group passed. Others ignored the organizers but took to the anonymous social media app ‘Yik Yak’ to throw shade.
Some anonymous users posted comments stating that the protests were “ineffective” and that certain protesters were “condescending to those who didn’t participate.” These posts received hundreds of upvotes from others who approved the messages.
One post, which has since reached upwards of 132 upvotes, used satire to express an opinion about the sit-in’s success: “As someone who was at the lib today for 6 hours, I gotta’ give props to the protestors. I just booked a flight to Gaza, gonna’ get involved and stop this nonsense [sic],” it read.
The protest is not CC’s first in-building divestment demonstration. Archives in the library’s special collections detail a 1986 student protest that took place inside the president’s office in Armstrong Hall. Like Sunday’s, that protest called for CC to divest, but from South African companies that supported apartheid.
“There have been efforts made by other student groups in the past to begin this conversation however, administrators have chosen not to participate,” read a statement to The Catalyst by protest organizers. The students wrote how they complied with regulations set by the library and college. The statement also alluded to a usage of “scare tactics” by Campus Safety officers during the demonstration.
“Any attempts made by the institution to retaliate or ‘hold students accountable’ for the protests will be viewed by marginalized students generally, and students of color in particular, as actions that are antithetical to the college’s stated commitment to anti-racism and therefore a true act of violence,” the statement read. “We would like to remind our campus community that student protest is not only a legally protected right but also has been a catalyst for social and political change, both domestically and internationally. Remember, no one is free until we are all free.”
The statement concludes with a lone signature: “Signed,/john doe [sic].”