In a makeshift tent city pitched on the lawn of Deering Meadow, Weinberg senior and member of Northwestern’s chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace Paz Baum found something she hadn’t seen on campus up until that point: a community that welcomed every aspect of her Jewish identity, including her anti-Zionist beliefs.
Others viewed the watershed five-day protest differently. Medill junior and former Wildcats for Israel President Madeleine Stern and NU Hillel Executive Director Michael Simon, worried about the encampment’s effect on Jewish students. Over the course of the week, they became increasingly concerned with what they viewed as antisemitic speech at the encampment.
NU’s 2024 pro-Palestinian encampment lasted from Thursday, April 25 until Monday, April 29 and was one of the first encampments across the country to end with an agreement. Policy changes during the encampment, direct negotiations with University leadership and a written agreement including concessions on both sides made NU’s encampment stand out from those at other universities.
“I think the encampment was a really beautiful example of so many different members of the Northwestern student body and the larger community coming together for a common cause and a common goal that we believe in,” Baum said. “Ultimately we were able to have a peaceful resolution with the University and this agreement.”
NU’s new policies restrict protests
Pro-Palestinian protesters demanded two things last year: disclosure of the University’s investments and divestment from institutions that allegedly supported Palestinian oppression.
The eventual agreement reestablished the Advisory Committee on Investment Responsibility; committed the University to answering questions about endowment investments; established a temporary space for MENA and Muslim students; and promised to support visiting Palestinian students and faculty.
Baum said she was disappointed by the lack of divestment, but that she appreciated the increased disclosure.
“I do believe that it’s really important to have that transparency,” Baum said. “And I’m really glad that the encampment led to that increased transparency in terms of Northwestern’s spending.”
Perhaps the most immediate effects of the encampment, according to both pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian activists, were felt in the form of revisions to NU’s demonstration policy; new display and solicitation policy; and new Intimidation Standard in the Student Code of Conduct — enacted in September 2024.
The new policies ban overnight demonstrations, limit “activity that disrupts classes and other functions of the University,” designate specific areas to post flyers and regulate the use of tents and light displays, among other provisions.
For Simon, the new policies represent a “positive and constructive step” toward creating a safe environment for Jewish students.
“Over the past year, we’ve seen a real improvement in terms of the environment,” Simon said. “From what I hear from many, many different students, they have felt that the (campus) is definitely more of a place that’s free of those kinds of concerns.”
Since the end of the encampment, Stern said she has observed a decrease in antisemitic rhetoric around campus. However, she said the encampment affected NU’s reputation in the broader Jewish community, causing several prospective students to ask her whether they should worry about antisemitism on campus.
Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian activists largely view the new policies as incursions into free assembly and affronts to the University’s expressed values of free speech and critical debate.
A student who participated in the encampment and requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation said they remained skeptical about the impact of the encampment, citing the lack of measurable successes for pro-Palestinian student activism since.
“Victories have been far and few between. I don’t think that really anything has been achieved except maybe more visibility,” the student said. “Setbacks have been enormous just because of the egregious new Code of Conduct and the crackdown on students who are seen in violation of the Code.”
The student also pushed back against antisemitism claims, which plagued the encampment for several days, and said that any antisemitic incidents at the encampment — which included several signs posted near Deering Meadow — were perpetrated by outsiders.
Art and art history Prof. Rebecca Zorach said the revised Code of Conduct has led to a lull in student activism on campus, especially with feelings of uncertainty and anxiety swirling around President Donald Trump’s second term.
“It became harder to keep the focus on the issue of the war and the activism around the war itself as it became more of a conversation about the University’s response to activism,” Zorach said.
Yet despite Trump’s attacks on universities, Zorach said there has been a renewal of activism in response to the federal government’s actions.
Zorach noted that there have been many statements pushing back against Trump’s narrative of rampant antisemitism on campus, including the statement from 100 NU Jewish faculty earlier this month condemning the Trump administration’s actions.
“Gaza and the plight of Palestinians in Gaza is something that has come out of focus in terms of what people are keeping on the front burner, so to speak,” Zorach said.
A legacy in the balance
Shortly after the encampment, debates erupted over the significance of the agreement and NU’s handling of the protest. On one side, University President Michael Schill defended his decision to compromise with protesters and maintain campus safety in his congressional testimony. On the other, lawmakers castigated Schill for “capitulat(ing)” to some of the protesters’ demands.
The student who participated in the encampment and requested to remain anonymous said the historical record of the event should be critical of NU’s response, noting that University police attempted to shut down the encampment multiple times.
“The University did not do a good job of handling the encampment … (it did well) compared to the universities who beat people and gassed them and arrested them, but that shouldn’t be the standard,” the student said.
Simon said the University could have prevented the encampment, or addressed it more quickly, had the now-existing restrictions on time, place and manner of demonstrations been in place at the time.
Those new policies have helped protect the Jewish community, he added.
“I think that day-to-day we are in a safe environment,” Simon said. “And I would say that is a safety that I don’t take for granted.”
Simon said he hopes students will continue to have constructive conversations on difficult issues across differences.
One year after the protesters packed up, Stern remembers the April 2024 encampment as a painful time for many Jewish students, including members of Wildcats for Israel, a student organization that aims to educate the NU community about the country.
“The encampment was very upsetting for a lot of our Wildcats for Israel members and the greater Jewish community on campus in general,” Stern said.
The anonymous encampment participant said the protest will likely be remembered much differently, whether in years or decades, than it is today. The student said the encampment could be remembered similarly to the 1968 Black students’ takeover of the Bursar’s Office — a celebrated symbol of resistance.
“People will be inspired by this movement, because it did achieve something,” the student said. “So many people were involved with all colors, all religions, all nationalities, and it was really a uniting moment for a lot of people at Northwestern for change.”
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