PRO-PALESTINE PROTEST CAMP BY VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY STUDENTS ENTERS 2d MONTH
CONLFICT THERE SHOWS ANTI-BDS LAWS ARE DRIVING SOME PROTESTS. CAMP SET-UP AFTER SCHOOL OFFICIALS EXPELLED 3, DISCIPLINED 22.
Protesters at Vanderbilt University outside the chancellor’s office on Mar. 26. Photo credit: Vanderbilt Divest Coalition via Instagram.
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This is a developing report. Check back for additional news.
A student protest camp at Vanderbilt University that started with a dramatic sit-in of its president's office entered its second month on Friday.
At the same time other colleges from coast to coast, and back, are having their students arrested by the score for protesting what Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt) charged on CNN on Sunday was "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians by Israel.
"VDC marks 30 days of our Palestine Solidarity Encampment," the Vanderbilt Divest Coalition said in a social media post on Saturday. "And we need your support to continue our push for Vanderbilt to disclose and divest from death."
The Vanderbilt Divest Coalition, started Feb. 9, represents 18 student groups numbering more than a 1,000 students, it says.
Supporters of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement work "to end international support for Israel's oppression of Palestinians and pressure Israel to comply with international law," the founding BDS group says. It does that "by forcing companies, institutions and governments to change their policies."
In March, Vanderbilt students gained 400 more than the 200 signatures required by university law to start a student referendum amending Vanderbilt Student Government rules. The proposed amendments would bar student organizations from spending funds to buy products or services from companies “complicit” in Israel’s on-going occupation of Palestinian land.
More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in revenge for a cross-border raid into Israel by the Palestinian militia Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. The raid killed about 1,139 Israelis—many police and soliders. Most of the Palestinians killed, about two-thirds, are women and children. Another 77,575 have been wounded. Thousands are amputees. People are starving, some to death.
The divestment ballot initiative at Vanderbilt was scheduled to be voted on Mar. 25, but school officials canceled it, the student newspaper, The Hustler, reported.
School officials said that since the university receives state contracts, it is bound by a Tennessee state law prohibiting it from boycotting Israel, they explained in a statement. Student groups, the school claimed, were covered by the law.
Tennessee's anti-BDS law was passed in 2022, in response to advocacy and campaign donations from pro-Israeli special interests groups. A total of 37 states have similar anti-BDS laws, according to the Columbia University Law Review.
Most federal courts have ruled anti-BDS laws violate the First Amendment, but one federal appeals court found the one it reviewed did not.The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal. Whether anti-BDS laws are constitutional remains an open question in most states.
The students at Vanderbilt lacked the cash needed to fund a constitutional challenge in federal court to the Tennessee law.
Deprived of their First Amendment rights to boycott, by a private university enforcing a state law enacted at the behest of a foreign country, Israel, 27 young American students pushed past a security guard and entered Vanderbilt's iconic clock tower building, Kirkland Hall, on Mar. 26.
Once inside, they sat down on the floor at the entrance to school Chancellor Daniel Diermeier's office and demanded a meeting. While they waited, they chanted protest slogans.
"Let us vote! Let us vote!," they chanted, video posted on social media by the Coalition shows. Diermeier refused to meet the students, they said.
University police refused to let protesters use the bathroom to urinate during the sit-in, they said. Some, presumably all men, peed in bottles, photographs showed. One woman pulled her soiled tampon out on the spot.
"Let them pee! Let them pee!," protesters outside chanted, video shows.
After 21 hours, the protesters inside ended their sit-in.
Five people were hauled away in handcuffs by police, Vanderbilt said in a Mar. 27 statement. Three were charged with assault on the guard they allegedly pushed past to enter the building. One was charged with vandalism.
The fifth was a local journalist attempting to enter the building to cover the protest, Nashville Scene reporter Eli Motyck. The charge was dismissed at the prosecutor's request. Davidson County District Attorney Glenn Funk told reporters through a spokesperson: "This office will not prosecute a reporter for peacefully doing his or her job."
All the students who occupied the building were immediately suspended, Vanderbilt officials said. After preliminary administrative disciplinary hearings, three were expelled, one suspended and 22 placed on disciplinary probation, The Hustler reported. Students have the right to appeal, and all are.
Vanderbilt is the first school to expel students for protesting for the Palestinians, the Coalition says.
Students have camped on the lawn demanding the school allow the BDS referendum since Mar. 26. After the arrests and suspensions, they added amnesty and reinstatement of expelled comrades to their list of demands.
Vanderbilt did not respond to an emailed invitation to comment.
However, Chancelor Diermeier did defend his school's handling of the protests in a Wall Street Journal op-ed and during an appearance on MSNBC on Apr. 25.
"This has nothing to do with free speech," he said. "This was just a blatant violation of university rules."
Chancellor Diermeier, born in Germany, added: "And when you violate the rules, there are consequences."
But during their sit-in protest in March, students accused the chancellor of deception.
“Diermeier, you’re a liar, you set free speech on fire,” they chanted.
Motycka's Nashville Scene reporting revealed Vanderbilt's rules for "Demonstrations, Dissents, and Protests" grew under Chancellor Diermeier from 186 words to almost 1,400. The word soup means whatever school bureaucrats want it to mean.
For example, in denying protesters permission to circulate a flier explaining the BDS movement to other students, Dean Neil Jamerson cited numerous alleged deficiencies in their application, according to the new rules.
“Your postings failed to include the name(s) of the individual(s) posting, date posted, and were not posted in designated spaces in accordance with the ‘Notices, Posters, Banners, and Printed Announcements’ policy,” he wrote.
Instead of working collaboratively with the students to correct alleged deficiencies, Dean Jamerson rejected their application and he threatened the students with disciplinary action if they submitted another one with errors, intentional or accidental: “Note that future policy violations can be referred to Student Accountability to address on an individual basis."
172 Vanderbilt faculty signed an open letter protesting almost everything Chancellor Diermeier has done, including canceling the BDS referendum and having students arrested and punished.
The faculty letter also criticized the university for rules restricting "student expression to a dwindling number of bulletin boards, locations, and approved time slots, with implications that should alarm the Vanderbilt community."
Tellingly, 51 tenured professors were so scared to sign their name they only did so anonymously.
After reporter Motycka's arrest, Chancelor Diermeier dictated more new rules. These require journalists obtain permission before visiting the campus—or risk arrest.
Jack Petocz was one of the students expelled for occupying Diermeier’s office.
The 19-year-old freshman said protesting in high school was what got him into Vanderbilt on a merit scholarship for activists and organizers in the first place. His college essay detailed walkouts he organized in rural Florida opposing Gov. Ron DeSantis’ anti-LGBTQ policies.
“Vanderbilt seemed to love that,” Petocz said. “Unfortunately, the buck stops when you start advocating for Palestinian liberation.”
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