Months after pro-Palestinian campus protests and an encampment movement rattled schools across the country last spring, student activists in Chicago say they’re facing new challenges — but don’t plan on letting up.
The nationwide protest movement began in response to the Israeli bombardment of Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, which killed 1,200 Israelis. By April, the war had killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The death toll now exceeds 40,000 people.
Students and faculty say their universities haven’t met their demands, including divesting from Israeli arms manufacturers. More recently, several universities have revamped their protest and demonstration policies on campus after many of them, including DePaul University and the University of Chicago, saw days-long encampments that ended with police raids…