BRYN MAWR — A rally of over 500 students, faculty, and staff gathered on Merion Green in support of the pro-Palestinian encampment, or “The People’s College for the Liberation of Palestine” at 4:00 p.m. this Thursday. The rally was planned after Bryn Mawr College President Kim Cassidy sent out an email to students, faculty, and staff stating that the encampment had to be moved before the end of the day in preparation for the May Day pole dance, an annual tradition at the college.
In the email, President Kim Cassidy maintained: “While we understand that students in the encampment do not want to celebrate May Day in the traditional way, they do not have the right to deny that experience to their peers. For many students, it is a deeply meaningful experience in which they should have the choice to participate fully.”
To this, an organizer at the rally on Thursday responded: “Feeling comfortable on this campus is not a human right. Life is a human right.”
In an attempt to avoid recognition from administrators and potential disciplinary action, protest organizers wore masks, sunglasses, and even wigs. Student reaction to the threat of disciplinary action as a consequence of the encampment has been generally negative, with one student calling it a “violation”. The student, who asked to be kept anonymous because of this threat, claimed that Bryn Mawr prides itself on its self governance but “when it comes time for students to actually get the chance to speak for themselves and something that they believe in, they try to weaponize it against us”.
The rally was attended by both students of Haverford and Bryn Mawr College, with one attendee telling the Bi-Co News that “the Bi-Co solidarity [at the rally] is really cool.”
A Haverford student organizer, who wished to be kept anonymous for the same reason as the student above, said “We’re definitely seeing how Bryn Mawr is being able to effectively mobilize so many people, … and we really thought one of the best uses of our people power is to support the organizers at Bryn Mawr as much as we can…. At the moment our main focus is to show as much support for Bryn Mawr’s efforts and helping move the needle over here, but we are still considering what can happen at Haverford.”
Haverford professors were also in attendance. Chair of Comparative Literature Maud McInerney, a member of Faculty for Justice in Palestine, was asked about the now-defunct Haverford encampment, saying ” I think the students at Haverford were very strategic in deciding to hold their encampment over the weekend of the Board Meeting, and I think that that did not go unnoticed, let’s put it that way. I think that combining the two encampments … gave us bigger numbers, and that’s just got to be effective… I don’t think it’s a question of letting up the pressure. If it just moved over here for the moment, you know, it may move back anytime. We’re stronger together when the two colleges work together, I think that’s the most important thing.”
Speaking on administration’s choice to discipline students for using chants like “from the River to the Sea” and “Long live the Intifada”, McInerney stated, “We can’t police words. Actually… that’s the beginning of how fascism starts. We start telling people, ‘you can’t say this,’ ‘we can’t think that,’ … resistance is just a word. I think that this policing of speech is actually one of the most sinister things I’ve seen yet.”
During the rally, Haverford Mathematics and Statistics Professor and member of Faculty for Justine in Palestine Tarik Aougab got up to speak to the crowd. He praised students at the “People’s College” for standing against the war in Gaza, stating: “If you look at every war that America has been in, the 19-20-21-22 year old college students are right about every one, and the Harvard educated pundits are wrong about every one.”
Bryn Mawr College staff was also in support of the rally. One staff member, who requested to remain anonymous due to job security concerns, told the Bi-Co News: “I have never seen anything like this before… I think it’s great that students are doing this.”
One campus safety car was present at the rally with two officers standing near the vehicle. The officers informed a reporter from the Bi-Co News that there had been almost no communication between administration and campus safety, and they were only there to ensure that the protest remained “peaceful.”
After an hour and a half, the rally was officially disbanded. Organizers encouraged protestors to return for other programming later on in the week.
