Pro-Palestinian students pledge to dispossess Princeton following administration's decision to terminate encampment
**Student Protests for Palestine Spread Across U.S. Universities**
Student-led protests calling for university divestment from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories continue to gain momentum across several U.S. campuses, including Princeton, Columbia, University of Michigan, and DePaul, among others.
At Princeton University, students staged a sit-in at Clio Hall in April 2024, demanding divestment from companies they claim support the Israeli occupation. Several students were arrested during these protests. However, a student-led effort in early 2025 to push for divestment from Israel failed, continuing a pattern observed since at least 2015, when a similar referendum was narrowly defeated.
Despite the lack of formal university action, some faculty members, such as Nick Nesbitt (Professor of French and Italian) and Zia Mian (Program in Science co-director), actively support the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement. However, faculty petitions for divestment have not been adopted by university committees. As of June 2025, Princeton University has not publicly announced punishments for demonstrators who disrupted campus activities related to these protests.
Similar protests and divestment campaigns have occurred at institutions like Columbia University, where facing pressure and potential funding losses, the university agreed to heightened security and anti-Semitism definitions, partly in response to campus unrest and federal scrutiny. At the University of Michigan, pro-Palestine activists vandalized the home of the provost, highlighting the intensification and sometimes confrontational nature of these campaigns. Student groups have called for boycotts, but counter-campaigns by pro-Israel students and broader community support have often kept targeted products available.
The BDS movement continues to face organized opposition, both from university administrations and pro-Israel advocacy groups. In some cases, corporate changes, such as Strauss Group selling its stake in Sabra due to boycott pressure, have been attributed to activist efforts.
CUNY students have set demands for divestment, boycott, demilitarization of the campus, and solidarity with Palestinian liberation. In New York City, hundreds of students at the Harlem campus of City College of New York (CUNY) established their own encampment for Palestine, joining four other universities in the city. Organisers drew inspiration from the 1969 CUNY student protest movement, when more than 200 Black and Puerto Rican students de-occupied campus buildings, shutting down the campus for 17 days.
Princeton University is widely considered to be more conservative than other major east coast universities, but it is not among the top 70 schools with the highest number of conservative students nationwide. Over the past six months, several students at Princeton who have expressed pro-Palestinian views have faced intimidation, including doxxing and harassment by pro-Israel groups. Princeton has a history of playing a role in the international boycott movement against apartheid South Africa in the late 1960s and 1970s.
| University | Recent Protest/Divestment Activity | Outcome/University Response | |--------------------|--------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------| | Princeton | Sit-ins, arrests (April 2024), BDS support | Divestment failed; no public discipline[1][2][3] | | Columbia | Protests, admin reforms under pressure | Increased security, policy changes[3] | | University of Michigan | Vandalism of provost's home | No policy change reported, incident condemned[3] | | DePaul and others | Sabra hummus boycotts | Boycotts mostly unsuccessful, counter-campaigns[4] |
This reflects the ongoing, dynamic tension between activist demands for ethical investment and university administrations' reluctance to take formal action on politically charged issues.
1.The media has been extensively covering the ongoing student protests advocating for Palestine and university divestment from Israeli occupation-related companies in institutions such as Princeton, Columbia, University of Michigan, and DePaul.
- In the Middle East and beyond, the news cycle has featured intensifying protests, with instances of violence and vandalism, like the vandalism of the provost's home at the University of Michigan.
- The BDS movement, a significant player in these protests, continues to face resistance, not only from university administrations but also pro-Israel advocacy groups.
- Education-and-self-development institutions like Princeton and Columbia have become a battlefield for social-media-driven activism, with faculty members such as Nick Nesbitt and Zia Mian advocating for the BDS movement, while university committees have yet to adopt their proposed divestment policies.
- Politicians and policy-and-legislation bodies have been tracking these campus protests, with some universities making policy changes in response to funding threats and federal scrutiny, like Columbia's enforcement of heightened security and anti-Semitism definitions.
- As students' demands for education-and-self-development and BDS activities have stirred debate, the entertainment industry has largely remained silent, choosing not to intervene in the political tensions between Israel and Palestine.
- The general-news landscape has become increasingly polarized due to these ongoing protests, making it difficult for academic institutions to navigate between the rights to free speech, security, and ethical investment.
