About a hundred students gathered beside the historic rotunda at UVA and on the lawn with signs protesting Israeli attacks in Gaza. Campus police said they could stay, as long as they did not take up residence, and this student – who declined to give her name – says they complied.
“Tents were prohibited, and the university strongly discouraged sleeping, so the majority of people stayed up all night,” she explained.
They sang, they chanted, they ate pizza and gave speeches. Their signs called for an end to fighting and disclosure by the university of any investments in Israel or companies that make weapons. Faculty members Robert Fatton, Susan Fraiman and Oludamini Ogunnaike were also on hand.
“What is going on in Gaza is so atrocious. You’re talking about 35,000 people killed, two-thirds of them women and kids," Fatton said.
“As faculty, we are especially dismayed by the flattening of all the universities in Gaza, and the murder of many of the faculty and students," Fraiman added.
“UVA is supposed to be a university that’s great and good, and this kind of free discussion and debate about important ideas is a part of the university mission,” said Ogunnaike.
Watching a few students blowing bubbles, Fallon expressed a hope that the university would comply with student demands and allow peaceful protests to continue.
“What has happened on other campuses is kind of a warning to what might happen. I hope it doesn’t happen, because those students are absolutely peaceful. Things get bad when the cops show up.”
He and Fraiman stressed that protests at UVA should not be construed as hostility toward Jews.
"Speaking on behalf of the Palestinians and criticizing the government of Israel is nothing that was inherently anti-Semitic," Fatton said.
“We want to have it made explicit that pro-Palestinian speech – which is so often mischaracterized as being anti-Semitic — that that is also protected speech," Fraiman argued.
On Sunday Gov. Glenn Youngkin said that protests at public colleges must remain peaceful or face the consequences.
UVA says it received a total of 19 reports related to potential antisemitism in the first four months of the academic year, and the U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation in late December after a student reported feeling unwelcome, frightened and discriminated against because of their religious beliefs.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
