Rutgers students launch pro-Palestinian solidarity encampment to protest Gaza war

Rutgers students pitched tents near Scott Hall on the university's College Avenue campus on April 29, 2024. (Sophie Nieto-Munoz | New Jersey Monitor)

Hundreds of students pitched tents Monday on Rutgers University’s campus in New Brunswick, joining a nationwide movement of pro-Palestine solidarity camps that have sprung up at colleges in recent weeks amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. 

Dozens of neon green and white tents popped up on the College Avenue campus after a pro-Palestine rally that drew more than 1,000 students. They called for Rutgers to divest financial holdings linked to Israel, including its partnership with Tel Aviv University. The protests are organized by Students for Justice in Palestine Rutgers and the Endowment Justice Collective.

“It’s a very peaceful movement. It’s meant to educate and organize, but it’s also meant to disrupt, and we plan on disrupting this campus until we get a response from the administration and meet our demands,” said a student organizer, who declined to give his name out of fear of retaliation from university officials, pointing to arrests and discipline students have faced elsewhere. 

More than 40 pro-Palestinian encampments have cropped up on college campuses across America where student activists are urging universities to divest from Israel, showing their support for the Palestinian people, and demanding a cease-fire. Some have turned chaotic as police arrested hundreds of protestors at colleges clamping down on the encampments. 

Few police were on scene at Rutgers’ “Liberated Zone” Monday afternoon. Students were playing music, carrying food and water bottles from cars, studying for finals, and making signs for the encampment zone. People were still arriving as of 6 p.m. Monday to pitch tents. 

Student organizers said Rutgers administrators hadn’t approached them by late Monday afternoon, and emphasized they expect the encampment to remain peaceful. They said they would remain on the lawns of Voorhees Mall until Rutgers divests — even if it means staying after the semester ends in three weeks. 

Rutgers officials said University President Jonathan Holloway has no direct role in any Israel investments but has clearly stated his personal opposition to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement and reiterated his support for the partnership with Tel Aviv University. 

“Our students want to make a difference in a struggle that has cost far too many innocent lives and that threatens so many more. I respect their right to protest in ways that do not interfere with university operations or with the ability of their fellow students to learn,” Holloway said in a message to students Monday.

Rutgers University students set up a "liberated zone" on April 29, 2024, near the university's Scott Hall on the New Brunswick campus. (Sophie Nieto-Munoz | New Jersey Monitor)

Students launched an encampment at Rutgers University's New Brunswick campus Monday, April 29, 2024, calling on the university to cut all ties to Israel and divest from companies tied to the war. (Sophie Nieto-Munoz | New Jersey Monitor)

Signs held by students during the rally held Monday, April 29, 2024, at Rutgers University against the war in Gaza. (Sophie Nieto-Munoz | New Jersey Monitor)

Students launched an encampment at Rutgers University's New Brunswick campus Monday, April 29, 2024, calling on the university to cut all ties to Israel and divest from companies tied to the war. (Sophie Nieto-Munoz | New Jersey Monitor)

Students launched an encampment at Rutgers University's New Brunswick campus Monday, April 29, 2024, calling on the university to cut all ties to Israel and divest from companies tied to the war. (Sophie Nieto-Munoz | New Jersey Monitor)

Signs at Princeton University's sit-in to demand the school divest from Israel. (Amalie Hindash for New Jersey Monitor)

Signs at Princeton University's sit-in to demand the school divest from Israel. (Amalie Hindash for New Jersey Monitor)

This is at least the second encampment at New Jersey college campuses. Princeton University students erected tents early Thursday in McCosh Courtyard in the heart of the Ivy League school’s sprawling campus, but the encampment morphed into a teach-in and sit-in after two graduate students got arrested within minutes of its start. Students face being barred from campus if they disobey police orders after a warning, the Daily Princetonian reported.

Earlier this month, Rutgers students overwhelmingly voted in favor of Rutgers divesting from companies that do business with Israel and cutting ties to Tel Aviv University in a referendum conducted by the Rutgers University Student Assembly, the student governing body. Students also previously staged die-ins to call attention to the casualties in Gaza, where over 34,000 have died since the war started Oct. 7.

Todd Wolfson is the president of the Rutgers AAUP-AFT faculty union. He stressed the union’s support for students to exercise their rights to free speech and assembly. The union has not co-signed the list of demands and is not officially part of the encampment, but called for a cease-fire and urged university officials to refrain from suppressing students’ speech, Wolfson said. 

“New Jersey and Rutgers can lead this country and show how we do this — allow our students to speak, allow our students to make demands to the university and be a model. It does not have to follow … the model of beating up students who are trying to speak their mind,” Wolfson said.

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