The Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at Bowdoin College, a highly selective liberal arts school in Maine, launched an anti-Israel encampment overnight, taking over the school's main student union. Protesters already face disciplinary hearings.
The SJP members entered the Smith Union building around 10 p.m. Thursday, set up tents and a "community library," and renamed the building the "Shaban-Al Dalou Union," photos and videos show. Bowdoin security officials entered the building around 1 a.m. Friday to take the names and student IDs of participants. They told students who stayed in the building that they were "on a path to no longer be Bowdoin students."
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Bowdoin SJP laments the overnight security sweep.
By 8:30 a.m. Friday, those officials surrounded the building, locked the doors, and disabled key card access, preventing students from accessing the building. Shortly thereafter, Bowdoin administrators began notifying student participants of disciplinary hearings scheduled for 9:40 Friday morning, less than 12 hours after the start of the encampment, according to emails Bowdoin SJP posted to Instagram. Those hearings kicked off as protesters remained in the student union building.
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Students struggle to enter the locked Smith Union building.
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Bowdoin administrators announce disciplinary hearings.
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Bowdoin administrators announce disciplinary hearings.
The ongoing ordeal will test the resolve of Bowdoin administrators as President Donald Trump lays out consequences for students who engage in "anti-Semitic harassment." An executive order that Trump issued last week calls on federal agencies to cancel student visas for Hamas sympathizers. Trump also gave agencies 60 days to submit a report identifying "additional measures to combat campus anti-Semitism." Bowdoin has received millions of dollars in federal grants for both research and for programs meant to benefit low-income students, spending disclosures show.
Bowdoin's disciplinary action, while swift, did not prevent students from bypassing the security perimeter around the Smith Union building just past noon on Friday, setting the stage for further escalation.
The Bowdoin SJP students said they launched the encampment over Trump's call for the United States to "own" the Gaza Strip.
"This encampment is the first of its kind since the start of the Trump administration," the school's SJP chapter said in an Instagram post. "Trump has vowed his unequivocal support for Israel's genocide, most recently calling for the United States to ethnically cleanse and annex Gaza."
"As Israeli aggression obliterates Palestinian homes and guns down children in Jenin, as unspeakable suffering continues in Gaza, and as America slides farther into fascism every day," the chapter wrote, "we ask—what type of institution does Bowdoin want to be?"
The encampment also corresponded with a Bowdoin Board of Trustees meeting that took place on Thursday. Last May, Bowdoin SJP issued a "Solidarity Referendum" demanding that the school divest from Israel. It passed the student government's general assembly, which does not control Bowdoin's endowment, with 66 percent vote.
"Today as the Board of Trustees convene for their triannual meeting, we are launching the Shaban al-Dalou Union encampment," Bowdoin SJP announced Thursday. "This move comes in response to a blatant months-long stalling campaign by the College to avoid implementing the demands of the Bowdoin Solidarity Referendum."
"For months, we have been met with bad faith arguments, placation, and institutional procedure designed to slow and extinguish our desire to confront the most documented genocide of our lifetimes," the SJP chapter went on.
A Bowdoin representative told the Washington Free Beacon that that encampment participants "will be subject to the disciplinary process."