Startling group chat messages exposed by the Chicago Thinker reveal that on Wednesday, May 1, Students for Justice in Palestine at The University of Chicago (SJP UChicago) plans to emulate recent protests at Columbia University. It becomes the latest development in a wave of protests at colleges across the country, including Yale and New York University, as tensions around the Israel-Hamas war rise.
Demonstrations at Columbia began last Thursday with pro-Palestinian students and protesters pitching tents in key campus spots, resulting in about 100 arrests by the New York Police Department. Administrators at the university have since announced that it will transition to hybrid classes for the remainder of the semester. The decision comes amidst grave concerns expressed by Jewish students. In one video posted on X, a masked protestor appeared to shout “Go back to Poland!”
At UChicago, SJP protestors are aiming to take over the university’s Main Quad and camp out for an extended period. A Telegram group chat details their plans to occupy campus buildings and get arrested for trespassing in order to draw attention to their cause. The demonstrations will last “at least for… two nights.”
The texts also reveal that National Students for Justice in Palestine is playing a crucial role in organizing the protest. Members of the group are offering media support and are sharing experiences from their involvement in the events at Columbia.
SJP UChicago’s strategy takes further inspiration from similar events at California State Polytechnic University, where students barricaded themselves in a university building on Monday evening. Police have been unable to remove them and the occupation has forced administrators to temporarily close the university, meaning students are to enter school buildings for classes or work. Students occupying the building published advice for other protestors. Leaders in the SJP UChicago group chat summarized these points and are encouraging people to replicate them.
“1. Occupying buildings is more effective
2. Being in buildings gives us lots of materials (tables, unhinged doors, chairs) to use as barriers
3. We’d be a lot more defenseless and easy to scatter if we occupy the quad
4. Being inside frays the police across the building and its entrances
5. Could also be more comfortable for campers bc shelter, bathrooms, water, etc
6. Come prepared with goggles, gas masks, etc.”
According to a statement from UChicago published on December 21, 2023, in the wake of the Rosenwald Hall SJP sit-in, “University policies protect the right to protest while making it clear that demonstrations cannot jeopardize safety or disrupt the University’s operations and the ability of people in the University to carry out their work.”
Multi-day building occupations violate this policy and present a significant threat to all students on campus.
SJP UChicago has organized multiple “orientations” and “trainings” to equip members for the protest. Among themselves, they demand “DISCRETION” regarding members’ identities and plans.
At Columbia, billionaire donor Robert Kraft rescinded funding after six days of occupancy. Officials at Harvard University have preemptively closed Harvard Yard in anticipation of protests.
UChicago leadership has yet to outline its strategy to protect students and staff.
If you would like to donate to victims of the war, please consider visiting the Red Cross website.
This is crazy, admin and UCPD need to step up and address this! I don’t want classes to go remote like they did in Columbia.
Where is the truth and grace, Kenzi, that your Christian faith encourages you to uphold in outing a group of resisters of a uchicago funded genocide?
Please go back to rural Missouri and don’t go on any more study abroads
you’re actually the worst person on the planet. with all of the disrespect in the world. i hate you.
you guys ruin everything that could bring even an ounce of good into this world. look in the mirror and see your shame
Cry about it. Someone got exposed attempting to shut the University down, ruining it for everybody there to actually learn, and is throwing a temper tantrum because they can’t get their 5 minutes of attention and think they’re important.
Can’t wait till they camp out and I won’t have to see their faces in class (and won’t see their faces wherever they are bc the cowards mask up). Lolz
This article provides valuable public service. I applaud you for your courage and pray for your safety and well-being. Protesting students and faculty members who shout mindless slogans and occupy public facilities are performing socially disruptive activities that are ultimately ineffective and likely to result in harm to themselves and others physically, professionally, and intellectually. We should all expect, in fact demand, students at institutions of higher learning to have constructive, evidence backed, public discourse through appropriate venues that allow all perspectives to be safely and fairly presented, with appropriate plans of cooperative action. Law enforcement agencies must also diligently examine and restrict the influence of propaganda from established terrorist groups and enemy states. Anyone violating school or public regulations must be appropriately disciplined.
I won’t blame you if you thought you had to do this!
It’s okay, and I am happy you feel safer now!
It was supposed to be an activity to get our voices heard wrt so many kids in Palestine who didn’t get to see college and freedom like we did!!
Those who believe that we shouldn’t come out in times like these, when equal humans, whose lives aren’t 0.0001% less valuable than ours, I implore you to think again!
This activity wasn’t against a group/religion/politics but against the brutal murder of women and children!
I just don’t want a future for myself where me or my children are killed in a hospital, yet people fear not coming out to protest is okay!!
This is Yellow journalism, which is unfortunate. I’ve always assumed the caliber of student at this institution as an individual who could hold off an addiction to sensationalism rather than play into personal predilections that would compel someone to write this scratch of an itch piece, and to what end? Who knows. This type of piece certainly isn’t the origin story to some future Pulitzer awardee. Which is ironic given the Columbia references here.
This is going to put student protestors in more danger and potentially create counter protests. Congrats though 💯
This is journalism, and great job on exposing these terrible loving, Islamic extremists.
Hamas is simply a fanatical religious group that stones gays, denies women basic rights and murders opponents.
Sadly, intelligent UChicago students can’t see them for what they are, and are proud to support them.
They need to be exposed and stopped so they can’t run rampant on this campus.
doesn’t even have the right info. lol. if you’re gonna right an expose at least get your facts straight!
A thank you is owned to the Uchicago Thinker and their president, Kenzi. Thank you for preventing these tuition stealing rioters from pervading campus!
You may never be aware enough to realize it, Kenzie, but you’re on the wrong side of things here. One day, far in the future, they will look at how the US Empire and its values collapsed, and they’ll point to this time period. They will see how the violent truth of the inner workings of western imperialism had finally been put on display for all to see and they will ask, just as we do today of Americans in the ante-bellum south, or in the years of Jim Crow, “how could anyone with an ounce of compassion stand by in the midst of such unjust destruction?”
From one Christian to another, I ask you to think, would Christ have sat and watch as his home city was blown to pieces? Or would he have made some sacrifices in order to do what is just in the name of God, and speak out against the violence of the Empire of his time?
Would christ have allowed Hamas to rule gaza and rape, murder and burn babies?
Cut the crap!
Do you really support the Palestinians? Their leadership has failed them over and over again. If Israel lay down their weapons their would be no country left, if the Palestinians stopped their religious fanatical warfare, they would love in peace.
The CANCEL CULTURE right is at it again! Republican SJWs would have you believe that freedom of assembly is ILLEGAL! More lies by the cuckoo conservatives!
please go back to rural missouri so that more students who would actually better uchicago could be accepted! thanks!
Instead of planning to occupy private property and disrupt other students lives, the protestors should hold debate, symposia, and orderly public speeches to explain their plight and promote their constructive ideas. Offensive slogans and negative ideas are ineffective. The parents and the society that have devoted much resources to educate them and send them to UChicago deserve better.