Protesters, chalk messages demand ceasefire and UMD administration action
University of Maryland students gather in Hornbake Plaza in a walk-out hosted by the Students for Justice in Palestine (Isabella Carrero-Baptista).
Protesters filled Hornbake Plaza at noon on Nov. 9, chanting, “Free, Free Palestine,” holding handmade cardboard signs and chalking messages on the floor that called for a ceasefire in Gaza and for university administration support.
The walk-out and sit-in was organized by the University of Maryland’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, who also held a walk-out at Mckeldin Mall on Oct. 31.
Speakers criticized the United States’ support of Israel and called for the University of Maryland to “defund university programs that support the Israeli state in any capacity,” one protest speaker said.
Demonstrators stood on a table outside of Frederick Douglass Square and spoke through a megaphone as they led protesters in chants like, “Stop the U.S. war machine, from Palestine to the Philippines” and, “UMD you can’t hide, you’re complicit in genocide.”
Some protestors held signs above their heads that read, “Respect existence or expect resistance” and, “End Israel apartheid.” Hornbake Plaza was covered in colorful chalked messages that said “Free Gaza” and “Fuck Israel.”
“I would really like faculty, especially President Pines, to notice the grass roots that’s going on, especially for solidarity with Palestine,” said sophomore philosophy major Matt Foos. “[I want Pines] to revise his previous statement that was kind of just broad strokes and really nothing, and to make a more affirmative statement supporting Palestinian students.”
University President Darryll Pines sent out two campus-wide emails to address the violence between Israel and Palestine in October.
“Let us support one another through this, particularly the Israeli, Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Palestinian members of our community, and their loved ones who are facing this tragedy firsthand in the Middle East,” said the first email on Oct. 9.
The second email on Oct. 13 condemned Hamas and reassured the university’s commitment to student safety.
The University of Maryland Police Department is conducting an investigation into, “hateful, antisemitic sentiments expressed at [the Nov. 9] demonstration,” said the university in a statement.
Some of the chalk inscriptions that were written on Hornbake Plaza (Isabella Carrero-Baptista).
“The offensive actions of a few should not reflect on the vast majority of protesters who were there to peacefully express their views,” the statement read. “But there is no place for any antisemitic message, behavior or action at the University of Maryland.”
The UMPD did not give further information about the details of the investigation and SJP did not immediately respond for comment on the investigation.
“We can’t think of this as a religious war between Muslims and Jews, it’s not; it’s about land, it’s about ethnic cleansing.” said senior Mariam A., who attended the protest and declined to give her last name due to safety concerns. “I feel like there’s a feeling that if you say anything against Israel, it’s antisemetic, and it’s not about that. It’s never been a religious thing, it’s about people's human rights.”
A Palestinian member of SJP who helped organize the protest, and wished to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, has personal ties to Gaza. The student worked at a hospital in Gaza over the summer and has lost family there in the past week.
“That hospital that I was working in was bombed last Friday,” she said, her voice breaking.
The student said that seeing the amount of protesters helped ease her grief.
“Right now, I feel very alone and like I’m hopeless, that I can’t really control the situation. But seeing all these people makes me feel like I’m not alone and there’s people who actually care about me,” she said.
Ethan Lott, a Reform Jew, attended the protest in solidarity with Palestine. Reform Judaism is a Jewish denomination that does not often practice Orthodox Jewish traditions in an attempt to connect with the modern world.
“It’s been a slow process of understanding that the policies and actions enacted by the state of Israel no longer represent what I, as an American Jew, feel is necessary or justified,” Lott, who is a junior computer science major, said.
He stressed the importance of acknowledging the devastation caused by Hamas when it attacked Israel on Oct.7, which his Israeli family and friends experienced firsthand.
“My heart still hurts for my people who suffered a horrible tragedy on the seventh,” Lott said. “But it hurts as well for those who refuse to see that the state that they are continuing to love and support [is] partially to blame and continuing to foster conditions where that would continue to happen again.”