Pro-Palestine protests come to Pitt State

By Dylan Waggoner

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Elliot Norman is vice president of PSU’s chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America. Norman is a member of YDSA and president of PSU’s Philosophical Society, one of three student organizations that coordinated the demonstration.

Members of the Pittsburg State University chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America, along with various other students and faculty, gathered in the PSU Oval on May 1, 2024 to protest the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Grace Garrett, a PSU student participating in the protest, said her reason for protesting was due to the mistreatment of other students protesting on other campuses.

“I was pretty active on social media and sharing things, but seeing those things happen to students and people my age really made we want to come out and support them as well, and I think that’s the case for a lot of protests that are popping up around the country,” Garrett said.

As Garrett indicated, there have been protests all over the nation. They started at Columbia University, and many students involved were arrested in the following days. In the northeast, arrests were followed by arrests at Yale University and New York University in Manhattan.

Meanwhile, protests at the University of Texas-Austin were met with riot police, and protestors clashed with police at the University of Arizona. Some of these protests have become even more violent. Pro-Palestine and pro-Israel protestors clashed at UCLA.

However, many other protests proceeded without conflict, including the demonstration at PSU.

Khamis Siam, a Palestinian professor of Chemistry at PSU, spoke at the event and said his family in Jerusalem has been experiencing increased mistreatment in Israel’s response to the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas.

“Things are tightening down quite a bit,” Siam said. “Every so many miles when you drive, there are checkpoints, and Israeli soldiers abuse them. They have them wait at these checkpoints for an inordinate amount of time. A trip that might take you five minutes by car will take you three or four hours.”

Siam said that this only affects Palestinian citizens, as Israel uses a different numbering system for Palestinian drivers and is thus able to only stop their travel without affecting anyone else.

Elliot Norman is a member of the PSU chapter of Young Democratic Socialists of America and president of PSU’s Philosophical Society, which, along with Campus Democrats, helped coordinate the demonstration. Norman said their protest had demands for the campus.

“Specifically, we are trying to get the university to disclose their investments and divest from any organization that is profiting from the conflict in Israel,” Norman said.

Universities, including PSU, benefit from endowments that are often managed by separate legal entities. Norman said his ground wants to know more about the investment of the PSU Foundation, which manages investments that fund university scholarships and research funding.

Norman said that they have made a lot of progress in getting PSU to begin the process of disclosing their divestments.

“We’ve actually made a lot of headway with it,” Norman said. “The actual president of the endowment just reached out to me … to schedule a meeting to talk specifically about its investments into Israel.”

Norman also mentioned that there would be an investment meeting in the days following the protest and that he is hoping that the protest will influence the meeting.

Amid all these protests that have been met with solidarity from sympathizers, there has also been pushback. At PSU, this was exemplified by John Best, one of few people at the event not present out of solidarity with Palestinians.

Best said he had two reasons for being present: to see what the young people were doing and to show them that there are people who disagreed with them.

“I’m here to let people know there is at least one person that disagrees with them, and there are thousands more that won’t show up,” Best said.