10/22 and 10/23 Disruption
On Oct. 22 and 23 a handful of protestors disrupted a panel event that focused on the university’s relationship with the US government, including the Department of Defense and Crane Naval base.
Starting on Oct. 22, protestors put together an action to disrupt the event, calling out the university’s complicity in the genocide being imposed on Gaza. There were flyers taped to the wall and they were also handed out to the guests attending the panel event. There were protestors shouting their condemnation of the university’s direct involvement in the massacres being imposed on Palestinians and now Lebanon.
“This university has a $111 million investment in a weapons manufacturing partnership,” one protestor said. “University government? More like an extension of the fascist government under which we are all living.”
It was also a goal and point made by the protestors to call out the panelists for the way they allowed the very students of this school to be treated as subhuman not only during the encampment last spring but on a day-to-day basis.
“You should be ashamed of yourself for how you treated students who are only begging you not to kill their families,” the protestor said. “Hundreds of thousands of people have died, first in Gaza, then in the West Bank.”
As for Oct. 23, protestors had a list of questions to ask speaker Michael Huber, the vice president of university relations and overseer of Crane and Department of Defense partnerships. These included:
Do you accept the findings from Brown University’s Cost of War project that estimates that US military activity is responsible for 60 million people displaced and 4.5 million deaths?
Do you understand how the work you do contributes to those numbers?
Do you agree with the overwhelming majority of human rights organizations that Israel is committing mass atrocities in Gaza? Do you understand how your work contributes to that?
None of these questions were answered or even acknowledged. The coordinators of the event ensured to silence the voices of the protestors by bringing attention back to the event, asking the guests to clap for the panelists — the very same people enabling the genocide in Gaza.
“Crane houses and refurbishes the 2000 lb bombs that are being sent to Israel to be dropped and destroy entire neighborhoods in Gaza, hospitals, schools,” a different protestor said.
As the protestors continued with their efforts, they were met with the vice provost for student life Lamar Hylton asking them to leave.
Once this happened, another protestor started to call for the divestment from Israel, disclosing how students' tuition dollars are used, forcing IU President Pamela Whitten to resign, and restoring a safe environment for Muslim, Arab and Palestinian students alike. Furthermore, the protestor listed off specific atrocities in Gaza that the university has helped fund and enable — such as the bombings of schools, hospitals, tents, mosques, churches, houses, and mothers, fathers and children alike.
“As a Palestinian in America, it pains me to know that even the school I pay my hard-earned tuition to enables my family and my rights to be taken away from me,” another protestor said as they were being asked to leave.
As the protestor tried to continue with the demands for the end of the complicity in genocide, Hylton separated the protestor from the panel event, ushering the entire group to leave.
As a final statement when being forced to leave, the protestor yelled to “divest and disclose,” part of our organization’s demands for IU after the turmoil they have imposed on us.
While the protestors were shut down relatively quickly, they and the rest of IUDC will not stop in their efforts to fight for divestment, restoration, resignation, disclosure and for a free Palestine.