Statement in Support of Student Encampments
For decades Israel has used US support to maintain apartheid and attack surrounding countries. Since the Hamas attacks of October 7, the Israeli assault on the Palestinian people has had genocidal consequences. Over 34,000 Palestinians have been killed. Gaza’s universities destroyed. Hospitals razed. Over 1.7 million people are facing starvation and famine. In the West Bank, settlers and Israeli forces have been emboldened to kill hundreds of Palestinians.
Around the US, students – with the support of faculty, staff, and community members – have been forming campus encampments to challenge university complicity in Israel’s actions, and the broader investment of their schools in the weapons industry. These non-violent student encampments are challenging their universities to disclose their investments and divest from the corporations and institutions benefiting from war and genocide. Faculty at Goucher College described the encampment on their campus as embodying the university’s “legacy as a place that values innovative, brave, critical thought with the urgency it deserves.”
In the last few weeks university leaders and elected officials have made the choice to order brutal police crackdowns on these protest movements. This has resulted in thousands of arrests and dozens of serious injuries. Undergraduate students are being suspended, expelled and are losing housing. Faculty, staff, and graduate students have been violently arrested, over-charged, and had career-destroying employment actions taken against them.
At an encampment that started at Johns Hopkins University last week, the Hopkins Justice Collective (which includes students, staff, faculty, and Baltimore community members) demands are: Divest, Disclose, Boycott, Demilitarize, and Denounce. The nonviolent protest includes daily teach-ins, invited community speakers, and full days of programming.These demands and this programming are rooted in peace, justice, and democracy and are part of a long tradition of nonviolent protest on university campuses. They show the possibility of a university to be a part of the community instead of apart from the community.
Ron Daniels, JHU President, is escalating the disciplinary threats against students, and ramping up the rhetoric against supportive community members. I am worried for the safety of the people protesting peacefully on the JHU campus.
Daniels and Hopkins successfully lobbied the Maryland General Assembly in 2019 for an armed private police force that will patrol the campus and the community, a bill sponsored and passed by the Democratic majority in the legislature and signed by Republican former Governor Larry Hogan. The approval despite community and campus protests resulted in a month-long occupation that Daniels ultimately called the Baltimore Police Department to break up. Daniels has yet to assemble or deploy his private police force.
The last week has shown that there is bipartisan support for university leaders to repress dissent, to demonize students as violent and antisemitic, and to do everything to defend U.S. support for ongoing Israeli attacks on Palestinians.
As a resident of Baltimore and a Green Party candidate for Governor, I support the demands of the protestors. Campus divestment campaigns were a vital part of ending apartheid in South Africa. Daniels has invoked vigilante violence against that non-violent protest 38 years ago as a reason to end this encampment, he is telling on himself, and passively threatening students. It is his job to ensure the safety of non violent protesters.
I say this to Daniels and JHU: I implore you to resolve this non-violently and to commit to keeping the Baltimore Police from breaking up the encampment. Commit that you will not take away housing or threaten employment, especially because this will disproportionately harm low income and international students. Additionally, the use of force on this demonstration would violate the collective bargaining agreement you recently signed with TRU-UE Local 197. I implore you to honor this legal contract with your employees.
The peaceful encampment has given BPD no reason to arrest protesters. We may never know what would have happened if Hopkins already had its own armed officers to make good on Daniels' threats. What we do know is that the protest has remained peaceful not just in the absence of armed police, but because of their absence. I hope this is a teaching moment for Daniels and that he will abandon Hopkins' plans to develop its own private police force.
I stand with the students, faculty, staff and community members at Hopkins and across the state peacefully protesting, including the encampment at nearby Goucher college where students, faculty and staff are also facing severe disciplinary action and threats of police violence.
As Governor I will use every bit of leverage within the power of the state of Maryland to make sure Johns Hopkins and other universities are offering real safety to their students and the communities surrounding their campuses. I will also take every action I can to protect the rights of everyone to engage in peaceful protest.
This is not just about students or Johns Hopkins University. As Governor, I will do all I can to ensure that Maryland is not supporting war and genocide, but is instead committed to peace, justice, and democracy for all people in Israel and Palestine.