More than 40 University of Maryland community members participated in a sit-in and vigil on McKeldin Mall Wednesday to honor people killed in Gaza in recent weeks and call on this university to divest from defense contractors.
This university’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, Anti-Imperialist Movement at UMD coalition and Jewish Voice for Peace chapter organized the daylong event that included speeches, workshops and prayer.
The event comes after Israel launched a surprise wave of airstrikes on Gaza on March 18 that killed more than 400 people, the Associated Press reported Tuesday. March 18 was one of the deadliest days in Gaza since the war began, the outlet reported.
Senior biology major Hershel Barnstein said he attended the event because of the recent attacks on Gaza that took place when students at this university were on spring break.
“Today is about honoring those martyrs and continuing the struggle for liberation,” Barnstein, a board member of this university’s Jewish Voice for Peace chapter, told The Diamondback.
This university said in a statement to The Diamondback that the event was “planned in accordance with university policy and took place without incident.”
Demonstrations supporting Palestine have increased at this university since Hamas killed at least 1,200 people in Israel and took about 250 hostages in an Oct. 7, 2023, attack, according to the Associated Press. Israel declared war on Hamas the next day and has killed more than 50,000 people in Palestine since, the Associated Press reported Monday.
Israel and Hamas reached a temporary ceasefire agreement in January that included the release of dozens of Israeli hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, according to the Associated Press. The agreement expired on March 2, the Associated Press reported.
[UMD students will vote on divestment from defense companies in April’s SGA election]
Mason Loeffler, a member of this university’s chapter of the Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines, told attendees about Israel’s violence in Gaza in recent weeks and emphasized the importance of remaining committed to activism.
“We see these struggles across the globe that take solidarity movements from all types of people,” Loeffler told The Diamondback. “The Palestinian people ultimately need the support from all over the globe.”
Loeffler said he hopes this university and its endowment foundations will listen to students’ calls to divest from weapons manufacturers and companies “complicit in human rights violations” across the world.
Earlier this month, this university’s Student Government Association passed an emergency bill to hold a nonbinding campuswide vote during April’s SGA election on whether to call for the University System of Maryland Foundation and the University of Maryland College Park Foundation to divest from certain security, military and defense companies, The Diamondback previously reported.
Event organizers handed out flyers throughout the day on Wednesday to encourage students to vote “yes” on the referendum ahead of the SGA election, which is from April 1 to 3.
“It’s obvious that this school has a problem with listening to its students, but we’re here to remind them who really has the power,” Barnstein said in a speech. “The Palestinians are counting on us to take meaningful action.”
The university system foundation referred to its website about sustainable investment in response to a request for comment.
According to the university system foundation’s website, the foundation said it will only consider divestment inquiries from a university’s president’s office or an “official governance entity,” such as the SGA.
The UMCP foundation referred to this university in response to a request for comment. The University System of Maryland referred to the university system foundation in response to The Diamondback’s request for comment.
[UMD community members relieved, uncertain after ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas]
Some event attendees also criticized U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent actions targeting student protesters supporting Palestine.
In January, Trump signed an executive order to direct federal resources to “prosecute, remove or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators” of antisemitism on college campuses. Trump also threatened to “deport Hamas sympathizers and revoke student visas” in a fact sheet attached to the order.
The Trump administration also some universities under investigation and threatened funding for allegedly allowing antisemitic protests on campus, the Associated Press reported March 4.
Students for Justice in Palestine board member Daniela Colombi said she hopes this university will continue to protect free speech.
“We also want the administration to know that we’re not disappearing,” Colombi, a junior astronomy and physics major, said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has taken several college students across the nation who participated in protests supporting Palestine into custody, the Associated Press reported. The agency cited invalid visas as the reason for the arrests, the outlet reported
Colombi said Wednesday’s event was important because it offered a place of community for students after recent changes in federal policy. This university must protect its students amid threats to federal higher education funding and student organizers being taken into ICE custody, Colombi said.
“We’re still around,” Colombi said. “We’re not going to cower in fear, but we hold [this university] to the expectation that they will also protect us as human beings, as students, because criminalization of political thought is not acceptable, whatever the circumstance.”
