This is an ongoing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
More than 200 protesters gathered outside Georgetown University’s Healy Hall on April 25 before joining an encampment at George Washington University to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and demand Washington, D.C.-area universities divest from companies with ties to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The protests at Georgetown began at 10:30 a.m. with a walkout from classes before several speakers addressed the crowd of protesters. After a series of chants and speeches near the front gates, protesters marched down O Street toward George Washington University (GWU), reaching GWU by 12:05 p.m. and joining pro-Palestine activists from schools including GWU, George Mason University, American University, Howard University, Gallaudet University, the University of Maryland-College Park and the University of Maryland-Baltimore County in a tent encampment at GWU’s University Yard.
The event was the latest in a series of protests which the Georgetown chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) and Zeytoun, a Georgetown graduate student, faculty and staff organization that advocates for decolonization in Southwest Asia and North Africa — known collectively as the Divestment Coalition — have organized on campus.
Anna Wessels (GRD ’24), an SJP organizer and member of Zeytoun, said the goals of the protest — to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and urge Georgetown to divest from companies with ties to the IDF — stand in line with her personal priorities as a Palestinian American and activist.
“I’m here in solidarity with all the students in Palestine and the students across the country, who are risking their safety to stand against genocide and to call for an end to the occupation of Palestine,” Wessels told The Hoya. “I support our demands for divestment from companies that profit off of death and genocide and apartheid.”
A Georgetown University spokesperson referred The Hoya to university president John J. DeGioia’s (CAS ’79, GRD ’95) April 1 call for choices which promote life over death and justice over wrongdoing, including a ceasefire in Gaza and the return of hostages.
“In the Middle East, it begins with access to humanitarian aid, the return of the hostages, and an immediate ceasefire in Gaza,” DeGioia wrote in an email to students. “And we must recognize that so much more will be required if we can support the choices of “life…reconciliation…justice…
College campuses across the United States, notably Columbia University, Barnard College and the University of Texas at Austin, have become a hotbed for calls against the IDF’s military siege on Gaza, where soldiers have killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to a report from the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, a nonprofit advocating for the protection of human rights, and damaged over 80% of schools.
At the Georgetown rally, Fida Adely, an FSJP member, professor of Arab studies and director of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS), a center in Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service dedicated to studying the Arab world, addressed the crowd and said Israeli military action in Gaza constituted a genocide.
“No reasonable observer of the carnage in Gaza, of the killing of 40,000 civilians, the carpet bombing, the destruction of every university, of over 80% of schools, of archives, libraries, mosques, churches, essential infrastructure, hospitals, bakeries, no reasonable observer can deny that what we have seen and what we continue to witness is genocide,” Adely said at the event.
While they have praised DeGioia’s call for a ceasefire, SJP, FSJP and Zeytoun have called on the university to also divest from companies such as Amazon and Alphabet Inc., Google’s holding company, that sell technology to the Israeli military. FSJP also released a statement announcing that affiliated faculty members would boycott collaborations with Barnard and Columbia until they reinstate suspended students and student organizations and end their police response to protest there.
At the rally, Selina Al-Shihabi (SFS ’26), a member of SJP, condemned Georgetown’s administration for refusing to take stronger action in support of Palestine.
“I know many of us have sat in frustration for the past 200-plus days, wondering how a genocide is possible in front of us, in front of everyone around the world, and people are just not speaking up,” Al-Shihabi said at the rally. “But my administration doesn’t feel the same way. The administration that’s supposed to protect me, the administration and the system that has taught me since I was a child that I have the right to live, that I have the right to happiness, that I have the right to basic necessities such as food or water.”
Wessels said the large-scale student protests throughout the United States reflect widespread dissatisfaction among students with colleges’ responses to the conflict in Gaza.
“I think all of our universities have to do a lot more,” Wessels said. “I think at Georgetown, I appreciated the President calling for a ceasefire. It’s better than what most universities are doing, but we can always do more. We need to divest money out of companies that profit off of the surveillance of Palestinians, such as Alphabet and Amazon.”
At the rally, protesters linked Georgetown’s investments in technology companies to the bombings of universities and schools in Gaza.
“Disclose, divest. We will not stop, we will not rest,” protesters chanted at the event. “Louder, louder, say it more, not a conflict, not a war. Israel bombs, Georgetown pays, how many schools did you bomb today?”
Melanie White, a professor in Georgetown’s department of Black studies and women’s and gender studies program who is a member of FSJP, said she attended the event to support her students in calling for ceasefire and divestment.
“I’m here as a faculty member, as someone who’s part of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, here to support students at GU, at GW, all over D.C., all over the country, all over the world, who are leading the way, paving the path for what standing up for justice, for Palestinians and Palestine looks like,” White told The Hoya. “I thought it was really important to show my support as a faculty member and truly join this student-led movement.”
“I want to echo and project their demands, for disclosure and divestment from funding the genocide in Palestine and also echoing their demands that this is all about solidarity with Palestinians,” White added.
Brandon Wu (SFS ’24, GRD ’25), who attended the protest, said it is crucial for D.C. students to protest because their movements are more visible to policymakers.
“The fact that students in our nation’s capital are fighting and advocating, whether at the White House, whether it’s Congress, within the State Department, or even at GW signals that like we’re not, again, we want to urge our nation’s policymakers to actually give a damn,” Wu told The Hoya.
Adely said that despite the destruction in Gaza, the outpouring of student activism on campuses across the United States gives her hope.
“It is hopeful because despite the vast resources and organizational might being mobilized in the United States to censor and silence those advocating for freedom and justice, we have not been silent,” Adely said. “Students around the country are saying no, we will not be silent, we will not be complicit and we will not stand by and watch a genocide unfold.”
Rory Dixon (SFS ’25), another protester, said he felt the protest allowed students to overcome Georgetown’s often competitive environment.
“Oftentimes in our classes and our day-to-day life, we feel like we are either competing against each other because of the structures of classes, or because of just, we’re all living our different lives and all focused on our own things,” Dixon told The Hoya. “But now, we all feel like we’re fighting for a bigger cause. Like we’re united in our shared belief in justice and in life and in peace.”
Al-Shihabi told the audience that student activists have immense power to make change, saying historical movements in the past depended on student activism.
“We see it across all campuses, we see students waking up, and deciding that it’s time for change,” Al-Shihabi said. “If you look back in history, at every historical movement that has been for good, it’s always been that students stand up — on campuses, around the world and around the U.S. — and demand change, that change comes, and change comes fast.”
Kate Hwang contributed reporting.
