An estimated 250 people took part in a rally Friday afternoon on Lehigh University’s campus, capping a week of calls for solidarity with Palestinian people.
The crowd chanted demands for the Bethlehem school to make public how its finances are invested, and to divest from any recipients with ties to Israel.
With echoes of the campus unrest that helped turn American opinion against the Vietnam War more than 50 years ago, the participants voiced outrage at Israel’s now-7-month-old campaign against Hamas in Gaza.
The war began Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked southern Israel, abducting about 250 people and killing around 1,200, mostly civilians. Israel says militants still hold around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others. The Israeli response has driven around 80% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million from their homes, caused vast destruction in several towns and cities, and pushed northern Gaza to the brink of famine. The death toll in Gaza has soared to more than 34,500 people, according to local health officials, and the territory’s entire population has been driven into a humanitarian catastrophe.
“We’re gathered here to stand in solidarity with people in Palestine, and as part of that we’re asking Lehigh’s administration to disclose their financial investments and to divest from Israel and private companies that benefit from the aggression happening,” said organizer Lauren Gilmore, an English doctoral student from Washington State.
About 500 students, faculty and alumni have signed a petition, according to Gilmore, that supports the demands on what the protesters refer to as Lehigh’s $2 billion endowment.
The rally follows campus actions at Lafayette College in Easton that drew warnings from the administration there about potential violations of the school’s code of conduct. Students from both Lafayette and Lehigh were vocal in speaking out at city council meetings last fall and again earlier this year, demanding support for a ceasefire in Gaza.
At Columbia University in New York, a two-week standoff between pro-Palestinian protesters and college administrators came to a head on Tuesday, with officials anxiously monitoring whether the fallout would spark more protests on college campuses around the country or quell what has been a growing movement.
There were no plans for an encampment at Lehigh, like those that have roiled universities across the United States, Gilmore said. Rather, the demonstration on the Lehigh lawn just downhill from the under-renovation University Center was the culmination of a week of peaceful activities that included art-making, film screenings, an interfaith vigil and a Palestinian cultural festival.
“We will continue to escalate here at Lehigh, we will continue to take prolonged actions like this week until our university listens to our demands,” warned Ciaran Buitragio, a computer science junior from San Francisco who is active with the Student Political Action Coalition on campus. “We are currently in negotiations with our administration, they are sitting there, they are seeing this, they are watching you right now.
“So I want them to hear you say: Divest, disclose, we will not stop, we will not rest,” he led those gathered in a vigorous chant.
Lehigh University police kept watch from all sides during the demonstration that lasted about 40 minutes, and which was followed by a march through the campus and brief occupation of Packer Avenue.
A statement earlier in the week from Lehigh University read: “We are in communication with student demonstrators to support a peaceful campus environment and their right to respectful free expression, while minimizing disruption to our educational mission.
“Our priority is the safety and well-being of our Lehigh community. We continue to encourage our community to express themselves in a way that is respectful to all; words and actions that contribute to a hostile environment or threaten to disrupt our mission are not acceptable.”
Aisha Memon, a junior studying mechanical engineering and third-generation Indian-American from Connecticut, called the Israeli response to the Hamas attack “unconscionable by any metric.”
“When I watch what’s happening right now I feel the need to do something, and this is given my privilege at an institution like this and the ability to organize and use my voice as an American to influence either our representatives and our university to, honestly, to divest — to make sure that our funds, my tuition money, isn’t being used to fund genocide,” she told lehighvalleylive.com.
Under trees in full, new foliage, a breeze at one point blew over black cardboard caskets set up at the base of a flagpole commemorating industrialist Asa Packer’s founding of Lehigh in 1865. An overturned Lowe’s bucket became a drum to punctuate the chants echoing off the campus’s stately buildings: “Lehigh, Lehigh, you can’t hide, you must condemn this genocide. ... Israel, Israel, stop the slaughter, Gaza must have food and water. ... Not another nickel, not another dime. No more money for Israel’s crimes.”
“When is the last time you have seen 200 campuses around the country erupt in protest?” asked Buitragio, who kicked off Friday’s demonstration. “I can only think of a handful of times. You have the Vietnam War movement, you have the anti-apartheid movement, perhaps Occupy Wall Street. Every single one of those times, the students were on the right side of history, and today we are all on the right side of history.”
Cory Fischer-Hoffman, identifying herself as a member of Jewish Voice for Peace and Jewish Mothers Against War Crimes as well as a “proud anti-Zionist Jew,” drew cheers in saying those assembled “are united against Jewish hatred, Islamophobia, anti-Arab racism and all forms of oppression.”
“It’s impossible to comprehend this much death, this much rubble, this much hunger,” she said, harkening back at one point to Thursday’s interfaith meal on the campus lawn — a feast denied to so many starving in Gaza, she said. “We need an immediate and permanent ceasefire, humanitarian aid to Gaza, and we need to put an end to these cycles of violence by ending Israeli apartheid and occupation.”
Lehigh English Professor Amardeep Singh spoke at the rally, seizing on the role institutions of higher education play independent from government, industry and the military.
“I would argue that’s an important part of what universities are, in fact, for — to be a place where you can say things that make people in positions of power uncomfortable, where you can challenge the status quo and put pressure on public opinion to change,” he said, continuing later: “Change happened in the 1960s as widespread campus protests eventually led to a shift in public opinion about the Vietnam War, it can happen again today. Indeed, I believe, it needs to happen.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com.