Protesters at Pitt demand university disclose ties to Israeli organizations
More than 2 dozen demonstrators outside the Cathedral of Learning chanted ‘Free Palestine’
Echoes of the chant, “Free free Palestine” rang out on the lawn in front of the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning, as a group of demonstrators gathered Tuesday to demand that the school disclose investments in Israeli organizations.
The group, made up of more than 20 students and others unaffiliated with the university, brought banners that said, “free Palestine,” and “genocide Joe, how many kids have you killed today?” in what organizers said was a show of solidarity with students at other universities across the country who were advocating for Palestinian liberation.
Later in the day, however, university police, with assistance from Pittsburgh officers, moved the demonstrators to Schenley Plaza, saying “the demonstration was not a registered event and was taking place in an area that is not designated as an event space.”
“University of Pittsburgh administrators communicated with the demonstrators multiple times over the course of several hours and requested that they move to a different location,” Pitt said in a news release late Tuesday. “During those conversations, information regarding the demonstrators’ rights and responsibilities, including reminders regarding space reservation guidelines and expectations of student organizations, was shared with the demonstrators.”
Tuesday’s demonstration came as Pitt students flocked to their campus polling location to cast votes in Pennsylvania’s primary election. Statewide, groups opposing President Joe Biden’s support of Israel in its war against Hamas were urging Democratic voters to write in “No Joe” on their primary ballots.
Organizers of the demonstration pointed specifically to their solidarity with multiple other campuses, including Columbia University, Yale, Tufts,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Vanderbilt University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Students called on Pitt to make a public statement condemning the “genocide in Gaza,” and asked for all ties with Israeli universities to be cut. They also demanded that Pitt divest from companies they said are “complicit in apartheid, occupation, and genocide within the Consolidated Endowment Fund.”
University divestment from companies with ties to Israel has been a key platform for pro-Palestine college students for decades, but the ongoing Israel-Hamas war has reinvigorated the issue, pushing it to the center stage of protests across the country.
The Pitt demonstration originally began inside the Cathedral of Learning before it was moved to the outside lawn, where the organizing group said in an Instagram post that the protesters plan to remain until Friday.
Boxes of snacks and stacks of books and art were spread out across the lawn while some protesters were wrapped in Palestinian flags. Campus police stood close by, monitoring what remained a peaceful demonstration.