(CN) — Gaza solidarity encampments at two of the country's elite universities took very different turns on Monday, with organizers at Northwestern University outside Chicago agreeing to deescalate their protest while Columbia University students in New York City risked suspension to hold their ground.
Northwestern University officials announced Monday afternoon they have negotiated terms with a number of organizations steering the encampment at the university's Deering Meadow, which began Thursday morning. The deal calls for protesters to remove all but a single first aid tent from the lawn, while allowing for continued peaceful demonstrations there through June 1. Any "devices used to project or amplify sound" on Deering Meadow must be approved by university officials going forward, and only Northwestern students, faculty and staff members will be allowed to join the protests.
In exchange, Northwestern agreed to establish an "Advisory Committee on Investment Responsibility" that will include faculty and students and will meet with the university board of trustees' investment committee. The university also committed to answering, within 30 days, any questions from faculty and students about its specific investment holdings over the last quarter.
Finally, Northwestern agreed to several initiatives meant to support the university's Palestinian and Muslim communities. These include funding two Palestinian faculty members per year for two years and paying for the full undergrad attendance of five Palestinian students, along with building a community house for Muslim and Middle Eastern/North African students by 2026.
Northwestern officials and encampment steering organizations, such as the Middle Eastern & North African Student Association and NU Jewish Voice for Peace, issued statements on the agreement Monday.
The university's comments lauded the deal as a "sustainable" path to deescalation, while also issuing an explicit threat to anyone who doesn't abide by it.
"For any demonstrators refusing to comply with the agreed-upon path forward, the University will take action to protect the safety of the community and enforce University rules and policies. These steps will include the suspension of non-compliant students and a requirement that non-affiliated individuals leave campus," Northwestern officials said.
The encampment organizers said the agreement was only the beginning of their fight, not the end. They argued the moment had come to "take stock, recharge, plan and build power," but reaffirmed that there would be future efforts to pressure Northwestern over its ties with Israel.
"We emphasize that the result of these negotiations is the floor of our progress going forward, not the ceiling. The agreement represents a commitment towards disclosure, which is a vital precondition for pushing toward divestment," the organizers said on social media. "It does not put an end to our work to continue applying pressure on the administration or the board of trustees in the coming months and years."
Meanwhile, negotiations between Columbia University and its student protesters have stalled. With no agreement reached, school officials on Monday issued a notice threatening students with suspension if they didn’t voluntarily vacate the encampment by 2 p.m. Eastern Time.
“It is important for you to know that the university has already identified many students in the encampment,” the memo read. “If you do not leave by 2 p.m., you will be suspended pending further investigation.”
In order for protesting students avoid suspension, they were urged to sign the notice to pledge “to abide by all university policies.”
“If you do not identify yourself upon leaving and sign the form now, you will not be eligible to sign and complete the semester in good standing,” it read.
But as the deadline came and went, students and the more than 100 tents pitched in the encampment remained on the university’s South Lawn. A group of faculty members, sporting bright orange vests, locked arms around the protesters in solidarity as swarms of media poured in around them.
“We’ve been asked to disperse, but it is against the will of the students to disperse,” Columbia graduate student Sueda Polat told journalists outside the encampment. “We do not abide by university pressures. We act based on the will of the students.”
Despite the deal struck between organizers and administration at Northwestern, many students there are more in line with Polat and other Columbia students than the leaders of their own protests. In an anonymous statement Monday, several Northwestern students criticized the Monday agreement at their campus as undemocratic and immaterial.
"The deal does not include any material divestment from the Israeli war machine. Apparently, divestment at Northwestern currently only means 'looking into deals with Starbucks and Sabra,'" the students said in the statement.
"By losing the encampment ... which has drawn tremendous community support despite attempts to curtail its growth, we lose our leverage, letting the administration set the terms of our resistance and allowing NU to whitewash its reputation and continue to invest in genocide," the students added.
When the Northwestern encampment launched last week, one organizer said protesters had no intentions of leaving Deering Meadow until university administrators agreed to a list of demands outlined in the so-called "Northwestern People's Resolution." The resolution, which the student government approved last Wednesday, calls for the Big Ten school to divest from any holdings that benefit Israel and its military, end the Northwestern Israel Innovation Project and cut ties with Israeli institutions that perpetuate violence or apartheid against Palestinians.
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