NOV 7, 2024 | NEWS | By Margaret Freeman
On Saturday, Nov. 2, during Homecoming Weekend, student protesters from Colorado College Students for Justice in Palestine interrupted an alumni luncheon held on Worner Quad by projecting the names of people who have died during the war in Gaza over a speaker. Shortly after they began playing the audio, Director of Campus Safety Cathy Buckley unplugged the speakers, according to Gemma Marx ‘27 who attended the protest. Former CC librarian, Cat Finney, continued playing the broadcast from another speaker. Buckley has denied all interview requests due to potential FERPA violations.
According to the CC Freedom of Expression Policy, all demonstrations must be registered with the school along with the use of speakers. It is also a violation to “interrupt, shout down, or otherwise disrupt an event.” Failure to comply after a Campus Safety officer asks the engaged students to “stop disrupting and to leave the area” will result in disciplinary action.
According to Marx, the group was not asked to stop before the speaker was unplugged.
Following the event, CCSJP members organized an emergency student protest where advocates walked from the flagpole on Worner Quad to Cornerstone Arts Center where campus leaders, including interim president Manya Whitaker, spoke on campus updates and goals for the future. Student protesters stood on the steps outside Richard F. Celeste Theatre as alumni walked in. The student activists urged alumni to join them in their chants to get the CC Board of Trustees to divest from Israel. While most alumni continued into the theater, a few joined the students in their chants.
Pascal Gasirabo ‘89 was one of the alumni who joined. He was a major figure in the push for the school to divest from the South African Apartheid in the late ‘80s. He said the current campus protests reminded him of when he was a student and that he is in support of CC divesting from Israel because the situation in Gaza has become a “genocide” and is “unlivable.” Gasirabo was joined by a fellow alum and major figure in the movement for CC to divest from South African Apartheid, Teddy Mattera ‘88 who shared similar sentiments about the current protests on campus.
“One recognizes the similarities of what happened before, and you could only hope the university would have learned its lesson from before, but clearly, it hasn’t,” said Mattera.
Gasirabo and Mattera were part of a “Legacies of Activism” panel over the weekend speaking on the Anti-Apartheid divestment movement. They were joined by a handful of other alums and former workers at the school who helped orchestrate the movement. Kieran Hixon, who left the school in ‘91, and Finney, the librarian from ‘88-’92 who continued to play victims’ names after the speakers on Worner Quad were unplugged, also joined the students protesting.
Hixton emphasized the importance of divestment because “for an organization to want to invest in a way that reflects their values and ethics seems a really reasonable thing.”
Finney reminded alumni that “they have power and they have influence in this institution” and to “think about where they are putting their money and what they are supporting.”
2 Comments