Sarah Lawrence College students dismantle anti-Israel camp after failed divestment demand
The Students for Justice in Palestine at Sarah Lawrence College dismantled their anti-Israel encampment after the administration rejected their divestment proposal.
The group secured promises of transparency but criticized the college's response to their protest.
Sarah Lawrence College’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine has dismantled its anti-Israel encampment after unsuccessfully demanding that the school’s administration divest from companies with connections to Israel.
The announcement was made by Sarah Lawrence’s chapter of the controversial anti-Israel student group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) in a recent social media post.
“We, the students of the Dar Wadee Al Fayoumi Occupation and Solidarity Encampment, have voted to dismantle our camp,” the SJP group posted to Instagram on Nov. 30.
Pro-Palestine students at Sarah Lawrence have been advocating divestment from Israel for more than a year, according to The Indypendent. Earlier this semester, students sent a proposal for divestment to the university administration, which it rejected.
“We needed to put things in the aesthetic language that would resonate with the administration, and an occupation is a crisis they can understand,” said one of the encampment organizers. “But more than it being about the money, it’s about saying we refuse to let our education be dependent on the profitability of war profiteers.”
In its statement, the SJP group explained that it decided to remove the anti-Israel encampment “after receiving written confirmation from the College that 1) a report disclosing the extent to which the companies listed in the Divestment Proposal are included in the College’s investment portfolio will be published by January 27, 2025, and 2) the students involved in the Dar Al Fayoumi encampment on the South Lawn will face no disciplinary conduct charges.”
“The events of the past week have energized our campus and the larger Student Intifada, and we are not slowing down,” the group continued.
Sarah Lawrence’s SJP organization continued to describe how the university administration rejected its divestment proposal, causing them to occupy the school’s “primary administrative building.”
“14 students entered the building at 4 a.m. on the 21st, barricaded themselves inside, and the 21st, occupied the space,” the group posted to Instagram. “We renamed the building Dar [Wadee] Al Fayoumi in honor of the six-year-old Palestinian boy who was killed in an anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic hate crime by his family’s landlord in Plainfield Township, Illinois on October 14, 2023.”
The pro-Palestine protesters were eventually removed by campus security. The group critiqued the administration for its decision to shut down their barricaded “occupation,” calling it an infringement on their right to protest peacefully.
“Under direction from the College, Campus Security physically forced their way into the building, pushing and nearly injuring the building, students occupying Dar Al Fayoumi,” the SJP group concluded. “We condemn the College’s directive to heighten policing and surveillance of our student body via random ID checks, expanded patrol, and the filming and harassment of students.”
“On the morning of November 21, a small group of students initiated an occupation of the College’s main administration building as part of a day of action in relation to the conflict in the Middle East,” a spokesperson for Sarah Lawrence told Campus Reform via email.
“The occupation ended at 6:30 p.m. that same evening, and all student protestors vacated the building without incident. There was no damage to the building, no harm to individuals, and outside law enforcement was never summoned to campus,” the college continued. “A small gathering of tents on the lawn outside this building was established the next day and remained in place for less than a week; this demonstration was also ended by students without incident.”
