Over 50 students at Bowdoin face disciplinary action for their involvement in an encampment that lasted from Feb. 6 to Feb. 10, according to the Bowdoin Orient. Eight of those students were suspended — their suspensions were lifted on Monday and they were allowed to return to campus.
Members of Bowdoin’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organized the encampment in response to Bowdoin’s investment practices and recent statements made by President Donald Trump advocating for U.S. “ownership” of Gaza.
Bowdoin is the first college to have a pro-Palestine encampment this academic year, according to the Orient.
On the evening of Feb. 6, students gathered outside the Smith Union building — which they termed the Shaban al-Dalou Union in honor of a Palestinian teenager who was killed in Gaza last year — for a demonstration before setting up an encampment on the first floor of the building, where they hung signs and put up tents. The Orient reported that roughly 50 protesters participated in the encampment.
“It is unacceptable that our endowment and our tax-payer money bankrolls the elimination of Palestinian life,” Bowdoin’s SJP wrote in a press release. “As Israeli aggression obliterates Palestinian homes and guns down children in Jenin, as unspeakable suffering continues in Gaza, and as America descends further into fascism, we ask — what type of institution does Bowdoin want to be? One that cowers to authoritarianism, that chooses cowardice in the face of injustice? The choice is Bowdoin’s.”
The administration responded to the encampment early in the morning on Feb. 7 with an increased security presence in and around the building. On Feb. 9, the administration notified protesters that anyone remaining in the building at 8:30 a.m. the following morning would be temporarily suspended.
The following day, students cleared the encampment amid negotiations between SJP and the administration, SJP organizers said. The exact terms remained unclear, according to the Orient.
“These past few days have been stressful and unsettling,” Bowdoin President Safa Zaki, formerly the dean of the faculty at Williams, wrote in an email to the Bowdoin community on Feb. 10. “We heard from some members of our community that these events have left them feeling vulnerable … We take these concerns very seriously as a community that is devoted to a safe and welcoming environment for all.”
SJP organizers said that, during their negotiation, Bowdoin administrators did not agree to the terms of the Bowdoin Solidarity Referendum, which the student body passed with a supermajority last spring. The referendum requested increased transparency about Bowdoin’s endowment and that Bowdoin not make future investments in certain defense-related funds. “We implore Bowdoin to take a public, institutional stand against the Israeli government’s ongoing scholasticide in Gaza,” the referendum states.
After the disbanding of the encampment, students at Bowdoin have continued protesting, including demanding amnesty for the eight students who were suspended. Over 550 alums have also signed a petition expressing solidarity with the school’s SJP.
Hearings for the students facing disciplinary action began on Feb. 21 and are ongoing.
