BRYN MAWR COLLEGE – Students of Bryn Mawr College have begun their encampment in solidarity with Palestine, joining Haverford and dozens of other US universities.
At 8 AM Saturday morning, students gathered outside Dalton Hall, waiting for the Board of Trustees, who are on campus for the third of their yearly meetings. This demonstration is the latest in a series of protest organized by Bi-Co Students for Justice in Palestine. Today, organizers demanded that Bryn Mawr College both divest from Israel and publicly endorse a ceasefire.
According to protest organizers, Board of Trustees Chair Cynthia Archer revealed during and Endowment Education Session earlier this month that Bryn Mawr College invests about 5 million dollars, or 0.5% of the endowment, in Israeli technology. Additionally, Bryn Mawr College President Kim Cassidy has still not publicly acknowledged the passage of a ceasefire resolution, despite it gaining over 89% approval from the student body.
SJP organizers intend to camp out on Bryn Mawr’s campus until their demands are met.
By 8:40, student organizers received word that the board had canceled the breakfast they were supposed to have prior to their meeting, seemingly to avoid the demonstrators. Bryn Mawr Alum Dounya Ramadan gave a speech to the attendees. She preached the historical importance of protesting and talked about a family she knows who live in Palestine, reciting a poem in honor of the family’s young son. Around this time, members of admin and Campus Safety came outside of Guild to notify organizers that the Board of Trustees meeting had been moved online. Student representatives and admin would join from Guild via Zoom. Board of Trustee members would join from their hotel.
Hoping to make their chants heard to the people in Guild, the demonstrators circled the building. They chanted, “Anassa Kata, Kalo Kale, how many kids did you kill today?”, invoking the traditional Bryn Mawr chant. At 9:20 AM, organizers got the chanter’s attention and one read out the guidelines of the encampment before saying “bottom line, we’re being a huge inconvenience to them [the Board of Trustees].”
At 9:30 AM, protestors were allowed to head over to Merion Green and begin setting up the encampment. Signs publicizing the SJP demands read: “1. DIVEST $5 MIL HOLDINGS FROM ISRAELI TECH 2. ADMIN ENDORSE CEASEFIRE RESOLUTION AS DEMANDED BY 89.7% OF VOTING STUDENT BODY”. The other sign reads “LIBERATED ZONE.” As of 10:00, students are occupying the lawn, preparing for speaker events and other direct actions.
The Bi-Co News has reached out to Bryn Mawr College Campus Safety for comment.
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