The Student Advocacy Magazine

The Johns Hopkins News-Letter presents

The STUDENT ADVOCACY MAGAZINE

April 27, 2023

From past to present, read about how students have made their mark on history

Letter from the Editors

Dear readers,

In our world today, there are so many issues that require our attention and action. From climate change to social justice, it can be overwhelming to think about how we can make a been done before, and it can be done again.

We believe that each and every one of us here at Hopkins has the power to inspire advocacy and change in the community around us.

this magazine can become a resource for you to both learn

remember that every action we take, no matter how small, is

We encourage you to think about the issues that matter to you better world for ourselves and future generations.

Sincerely,

PHOTO COURTESY OF SOPHIA PARK

FRONT AND BACK COVER DESIGN COURTESY OF STEVEN SIMPSON AND SOPHIA PARK

The history of student activism at Hopkins and nationwide

BY MICHELLE LIMPE, Editor-in-Chief

At the very core of society’s progress, activism has always been integral to sparking change. From macroscopic protests advocating for women’s rights to smaller movements concerning local issues, the freedom to assemble is ingrained in the very founding of the United States.

College students especially have always taken advantage of this right. As they transition from childhood to adulthood, undergraduates have a unique understanding of the topics that are affecting both the younger and older generations, and they have the opportunity to make an impact

Though not particularly known as an “activist university,” Hopkins has had its fair share of important milestones in activism throughout the years. In many ways, it has mirrored the trends seen in the histories of peer institutions amid ongoing tensions with the administration and movements on nationwide issues.

Emeritus Professor Stuart Leslie came to Hopkins as a postdoctoral fellow in 1981. He commented on the notion that Hopkins students are not as active compared to students from peer institutions in an interview with The News-Letter.

“It’s our smaller size, tradition and our majority STEM students,” he said. “Hopkins doesn’t really have a tradition of activism. There were antiwar protests in the ’30s and protests against or in support of civil rights issues, but they were small protests. STEM students don’t traditionally have as much of a role in protests as humanities students.”

While students may not have seemed as active in recent decades to Leslie, he highlighted that the by movements and protests.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF STUDENT ACTIVISM

While there have been many examples of youth activism throughout history, the earliest record of student activism at a U.S. university was the “Great Butter Rebellion” of Harvard University in 1766, where students protested the university for serving rancid butter.

Student rebellions sparked across many college campuses — including the University of Virginia, Yale University and Princeton University — most of which were violent and unorganized and even resulted in a few deaths among students and professors.

At this time, the students primarily used mischief and pranks as their form of protest, in 1817 to demonstrate against their university’s administration. Despite the recklessness of their organization, these early student protests paved the way for improving campus life in the future.

In the 1820s and 1830s the hottest protest topics stemmed from student dissatisfaction with faculty, issues with fraternities, unsatisfactory food options and the suppression of student rights. These early calls to action led to many reforms within U.S. higher institutions that are still present today, such as establishing student governments, expanding the diversity and availability of organizations and extracurriculars, and increasing the transparency between administrations and student bodies.

However, from 1900–1950 there was a shift in the types of issues that drove student activism. In addition to calling for change at local levels, issues. Alongside this, students began to expand their perspectives on the role of colleges as not only existing to educate students but also preparing them to be responsible and engaged members of society. They protested compulsory religious and military obligations and joined labor unions and civil rights marches.

Students even had to fight for their right to protest. The Berkeley Free Speech Movement at the University of California, Berkeley was born to oppose the restrictions set by California universities to limit political activities on campuses. In the 1960s and 1970s, students and faculty became more involved in politics and society as increased accessibility to education, which had been fought for through protest, brought in a more diverse set of voices.

Spurred on by the Kent State University shootings where unarmed protestors were shot by the Ohio National Guard, the student strikes of 1970 were notable, nationwide, concerted walkouts across universities and high schools in response to the Vietnam War. Students from over 900 colleges participated, leading to school suspensions and closures.

Alongside the evolution of protest topics, there was a shift in the manner of protest from the use of violence and gunpowder to written and spoken words. While the focus and manner of activism may have evolved, authors Frank L. Ellsworth and Martha A. Burns assert that the “essence of activism” has remained the same: “an insistent restatement of the need for both societal and institutional reform.”

STUDENT ACTIVISM AT HOPKINS

The same issues that have given rise to protests research.

They demanded increased Black undergraduate enrollment, more representation among changes to the curriculum and archives to better

campus.

Though they had been granted admission to the University’s graduate programs starting in 1907, no women were admitted at the undergraduate level on Homewood Campus until over

at the time.

“I don’t recall any big demonstrations on behalf of Baltimore with the community,”

big deal out of engaging the community but not in an

“You’re not here just to study in the classroom,”

the issues that will determine what our future looks like, and you should

The News-Letter,

PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY SHERIDAN LIBRARIES

Anti-Vietnam War protests at Hopkins

BY HELEN LACEY, News and Features Editor

More than 200 sudents and demonstrators surrounded Homewood House (now known as Homewood Museum) in protest of military recruiting on campus on April 17, 1970. The protest occurred following the events on April 16, where 40 activists blocked the entrance to Levering Hall to protest the U.S. Marine Corps recruiters inside.

University President Lincoln Gordon addressed protesters twice that day: once to promise a referendum and once to warn against a takeover. A court injunction limiting protest was issued on the same day, banning any meetings or speeches that would interfere with the normal operations of the University. Following the injunction, demonstrators began a weekend-long vigil near the library.

Gordon promised to revoke the injunction if protesters agreed to his proposed referendum. Students rejected Gordon’s proposal on three grounds, according to an article published in an April 20, 1970 edition of The News-Letter.

“1. one cannot determine the rightness or wrongness of a moral issue by voting;

2. Gordon is trying to stall the issue until the exam period through the convocation and referendum commission; 3. Gordon is using democracy as a weapon,” the article read.

An April 24, 1970 edition of The News-Letter published an article titled “Strike Suspended After President Gordon Concedes Question of Military Recruiting” that detailed the presidential response that eventually concluded the strike on April 23. An agreement was reached during a meeting between 10 strikers, the dean-designate and two vice presidents.

PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY SHERIDAN LIBRARIES

The agreement suspended military recruiting on campus unless 10% of the student body petitioned for a referendum on military recruitment before May 1, 1970. If no referendum was held before May 1, then military recruiting would be permanently banned on campus.

“In a society where transportation has broken down and there’s a crisis in pollution, in housing and a crisis in people, we should be meeting the needs of our society,” he said. “We don’t want to gloss over the fact that every conscientious citizen has to be concerned with APL’s prostitution of science in the war against Vietnam.”

The News-Letter

a discussion of the invasion with other university and college presidents.

“We implore you to consider the incalculable dangers of an unprecedented alienation of America’s youth and to take immediate action to demonstrate unequivocally your determination to end the war quickly,” the letter read. “We urgently request the opportunity to discuss these problems with you directly.”

demonstrators from getting too close. have aided in bringing these issues to the fore.

The 1986 Coalition for a Free South Africa

BY MARIA HARAR , Staff Writer

In June 1976, roughly 10,000 students in Soweto, South Africa organized a peaceful protest against new legislation decreeing that Afrikaans, alongside English, be used in Soweto high schools. Afrikaans was known as the “language of the oppressor” in apartheid South Africa. Upon their peaceful march toward Orlando Stadium, the protesters were met with heavily armed police. What started rounds of live ammunition. Hundreds of people are believed to have died and images of this police liberation movement by international forces against apartheid.

Beginning in the 1970s, a student-led grassroots movement in the U.S. demanded that universities divest their holdings in South Africa. The campaign’s objective was to damage the South African economy so that the government would acquiesce to the demands of anti-Apartheid protesters nationally and internationally. Universities are often one target of divestment, as many use their endowment

In 1986, Hopkins students created the Coalition for a Free South Africa. The group’s goal was not only to convince the University to cease investing in South African companies but also to “campaign against banks investment in and loans to

South Africa, targeting Maryland National Bank and Citibank.” These movements in the U.S. rose in response to the student protests in South Africa.

As described by the United Press International’s archives, the Coalition at Hopkins gathered at Garland Hall, prepared with anti-Apartheid signs and demands for the administration. These protests, along with a nine-day sit-in, were largely disregarded by the presiding Board of Trustees until the very lives of the students were in danger. There was at least one student report of sexual

three members of the Delta Upsilon Fraternity

Fortunately, none of the protestors were injured, and this incident drew the attention of the press.

In a 1986 article published by United Press International, Coalition spokesperson Patrick Bond stated that faculty began to side with students as well.

Indeed, it appeared Bond’s prediction was starting to come true.

In a released note from Oct. 2, 1986, former University President Steven Muller told the board that “if faculty members would join with students... such a circumstance would be non-survivable.”

Following this threat of a faculty-student alliance, the board began a selective, rather than total, divestment resolution less than a month later. In the following years, the University gradually increased divestment until they had successfully divested from all South African companies.

The work of these Hopkins students was one of many nationwide movements that pressured the U.S. Congress to pass the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986. Though President Ronald Reagan initially vetoed the act, Congress overturned that veto and followed by voting for more restrictive sanctions.

Today, South Africa has been freed from the apartheid system, and the Coalition serves as one example of student activism that leveraged change at the university level to lobby for national and international change

“We think the students and faculty would overwhelmingly vote for divestment,” he said.

PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY SHERIDAN LIBRARIES

From 1970 to today: the intersectional experiences of women at Hopkins

BY LEELA GEBO, Leisure Editor

She recalled instances when co-ed classrooms were addressed as “gentleman,” women were told they needed male supervision to play ping pong and women were medically treated in broom closets because men were already in

Women were not permitted to attend Hopkins until 1970, when 90 women were admitted to the University.

PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY SHERIDAN LIBRARIES

on the University for greater racial diversity and more attention to the demands of the Black community at and around Hopkins.

Kulkoski spoke about the strong community that formed among the women at Hopkins.

Furthermore, students are working to ensure that women and nonbinary like the Female Leaders of Color have cohosted events such as the Men and Women of Color Symposium, which functioned as a professional networking space focusing on conversations about the intersection of race and gender.

In her 1974 commencement speech, Young spoke to the future of Hopkins women.

Like the women before her, Kulkoski found success and achievement at Hopkins, even working as an intern at Blue Shield in Washington, D.C. twice a week while also enrolled in classes at the University.

Even today, there is still a strong community of people on campus organizing for increased gender equality.

Last year, for instance, transgender rights advocates on campus protested coverage. While the University did expand its healthcare coverage, students noted that not all their demands have been met.

As the University continues to change, it is crucial that administrators listen to the calls of its student advocates and create a safer environment for people of all genders, races, religions, sexualities and identities.

“We had a nice group in our dorm, and those were the women that I ended up living with after school,” she said. “We were a smaller group, obviously, so we did a lot together.”

“In the future, Hopkins women should not have to experience any more dramatic transitions,” she said. “We hope that they will be a part of the larger institution.”

What it looked like

Photo Essay: THEN

ALL PHOTOS ON PAGE COURTESY OF JOHNS HOPKINS GRAPHIC AND PICTORIAL COLLECTION

Student advocacy through the years

A summary and commentary on the anti-JHPD movement

BY ROMY KOO, For The News-letter

The Johns Hopkins Police Department (JHPD) has been at the center of police force in 2018.

In 2019, protesters chained themselves to stairwells in Garland Hall to protest the planned police force. The sit-in lasted for a month and ended with the arrest of seven people, four of whom were students. Hopkins students also marched with residents of Douglass Homes, a public housing complex near the Hopkins Hospital, and local activist organizations to protest the potential introduction of the JHPD into the community.

In 2020, the marble sign on the Merrick Gateway and parts of the Mattin Center were spray-painted with messages such as “Justice for Floyd” and “No JHUPD” following nationwide protests against police brutality. In late June of that year, students and community groups also marched to the home of University President Ronald J. Daniels and taped copies of a petition demanding the cancellation of JHPD to his front door and windows.

Following student and community opposition against the police force, the University announced a two-year pause beginning June 12, 2020. In August 2022, Vice President for Public Safety Branville Bard, Jr. sent an update to the Hopkins community on the development of the JHPD.

feedback on the Memorandum of Understanding, were disrupted by

University was forced to move the third meeting fully online.

In emails to The News-Letter, students shared their opinions on how the establishment of the JHPD would contribute to the issue of police brutality in the United States.

Junior D.J. Quezada pointed out that the University’s imposition of the cities in the United States. He maintained that the money invested by the University in the JHPD could be used for constructive and collaborative public safety solutions instead.

“It borders on hubris to claim that ‘this time will be different’ when evidence from other universities and cities around the country shows that campus police engage in the same kinds of violence that are pervasive among their non-university peers,” he wrote.

Senior Jayla Scott highlighted that an additional police force in Baltimore would create a hostile environment for residents, especially those in East Baltimore.

She explained how her family’s experiences with incarceration have shaped her perspective.

“I am an abolitionist because I’ve seen my mother, father, and older brother all in jail and I’ve seen how incarceration destroyed their lives,” she wrote. “People are genuinely scared for their lives at the prospect of this police force because of all the potential harm it can cause.”

Scott argued that previous discriminatory practices of the Baltimore police aimed at Black people indicate a higher risk of danger for the Black community, who would be under the jurisdiction of the JHPD in addition to the Baltimore Police Department.

“Baltimoreans will no longer feel safe going to a restaurant knowing that JHPD will be patrolling that area because JHPD is not about public safety.”

seen as outsiders and potential criminals”

She further criticized the University’s commitment to building a novel police force with model police accountability.

get this super accountable and ‘respectable’ police force when the citizens of Baltimore don’t?” Scott wrote. “It’s just unfair that some people in the city are getting this fancy security and ‘safety’ through Hopkins while others won’t be. Safety shouldn’t be segregated.”

Junior Dominick Solis recalled that the security alert issued on Oct. 27 regarding an armed robbery on San Martin Drive resonated with him because this was the route he often takes to class.

Scott claimed that Hopkins Public Safety has tried to hyperbolize crimes around campus.

“The University has done a good job at fearmongering within the last two years through the public safety announcements. The wording of many emails seeks to make certain crimes seem more serious or dangerous than they actually are,” she wrote.

Solis expressed mixed feelings about the JHPD. He acknowledged that the implementation of the JHPD would make him feel safer around campus. student safety.

“Hopkins increasingly acts like a real estate developer,“ he wrote. “The JHPD will allow Hopkins to protect their property investments around

“The University needs to be much more vocal about the implementation of

Quezada believes that the University has already decided to impose this police force according to its plans and that they designed a communication strategy working backward from that goal, despite opposition.

Scott specified that University resources could be used to expand on-campus parking spots for students to reduce the number of car-related crimes around campus. She also noted that crimes such as carjacking and petty robberies happen due to the poverty of the Baltimore community.

faculty has been substantial in working to stop the establishment of the JHPD. Since the 2018 referendum, there have been statements released by student organizations, rallies, teach-ins, disruptions to University events, legislative action, walkouts and many more kinds of activism.

“JHPD was imposed on the Hopkins community. Nobody asked the people on campus what they wanted. JHPD is another experiment on the Baltimore community. The consent of the people who will actually be policed has never been gotten,” she wrote.

Junior Jake Szeszko noticed that he had heard little news about the JHPD from the University aside from a few emails.

The University finalized its Memorandum of Understanding with the on Homewood, Peabody and East Baltimore campuses tentatively in the fall of 2023 and spring of 2024.

PHOTO COURTESY OF AASHI MENDPARA

An overview of graduate student activism at Hopkins

BY SHIRLENE JOHN, News and Features Editor

“For those of us who have been around since the earlier days, the last six months have been pretty surreal — especially to go from a series of years in which the hope that we were going to win the union started to fade to then, suddenly, there was a super majority of people on campus who were signing union cards,” he said.

“We knew that, despite the fact that we were running the institution together with faculty members, we didn’t really have a voice in this decision, which

PHOTO COURTESY OF TRU-UE

“We realized that we needed a body that would be distinct from the University-funded and supported bodies,“ she said. “The decisions would be taken by graduate students, and that was how the idea of starting a graduate student union emerged.”

various issue-based campaigns, including one for better health care for graduate students that they won in 2018.

Agarwal highlighted how this campaign built trust among graduate students, as they started believing that the union could improve their working conditions.

“We realized that people were angry and we were trying to channel that anger into something constructive, like an issue campaign that resonated with people deeply and that would actually structurally change the very inequitable balance of power,” she said.

wanting to reach the most diverse range of people in the instittion,” she said.

Agarwal similarly detailed how organizing brought graduate students across departments together.

“People were very nervous about [organizing],” she said. “The health care campaign was monumental in organizing, talking to people, listening to them about their fears, addressing their fears and giving them a concrete way in which they could see that ‘I can do something’ to participate in improving graduate students’ conditions.’”

coverage, to their health insurance plans in 2018.

“We do that by forming a union and institutionalizing our role in shaping our working conditions.”

She stressed that unions have a broader role than simply raising the wages of workers.

“Not every member of TRU-UE agrees perfectly on all of these issues or feels the exact same way politically about all of them,” she said. “What’s important is that we’ve created a space for a dialogue on those issues and for thinking through how we can transform the way that the University is run.”

“All that organizing requires is that you have a vision, a clear campaign strategy and a group of people that is willing to do the work and put the hard hours in to move people and win” she said.

Speak Out Now: In Baltimore and beyond

BY ALIZA LI, Voices Editor

Speak Out Now is a socialist group that advocates for active participation in ending capitalism through revolution. According to their website, a socialist system means the “common ownership and sharing of the world’s resources and productive capacity under the democratic control of the world’s peoples,” rather than the exploitation of labor and the ownership of profit by a small number of capitalists.

with chapters in the San Francisco Bay Area, New Jersey and Baltimore. Many of the active members of the Baltimore chapter are

In an interview with The News-Letter, several years.

“The end goal, though, is to reach everyone, especially in workplaces,” she said.

As a whole, Speak Out Now primarily targets large workplaces, distributing pamphlets and newsletters on a frequent basis. Chow hopes

. We are often the strongest supporters [of] the biggest change,” she said.

“

PHOTO COURTESY OF ALIZA LI

Speak Out Now often plans its activities in response to recent events, such as its climate strike on Earth Day in 2022. This event was used to encourage discussion around the campus about the role of capitalism in causing climate change.

Other activities conducted in recent years have included an International Women’s Day event, where they handed out free bread and roses.

“[They were] symbols of the working-class, socialist movements that fought for not only the

By handing these items out and hosting political discussions and collaborative activities, Speak Out Now hoped to inform people about the historical roots of International Women’s Day and open up a larger conversation on socialism and the global changes the group wants to make and believes humanity deserves.

Particularly, Speak Out Now hopes to encourage people to question existing power structures and seek an alternative model.

Chow went on to emphasize the importance of keeping sight of the goal of their work.

“We are always keeping an eye on the future and the long-term focus, which is to organize the working class to create [the] change they see as necessary and, ultimately, to lead to a revolution to abolish capitalism,” she said.

In an interview with The News-Letter, John Burns, a member of Speak Out Now since 2020, shared how he got involved with the how important it is that people take action.

Burns described that involvement is more than just attending events and ultimately is about building collective power.

“Everything we own is produced by the work of people. Millions of hands of strangers exchanging things to keep this world running. Society will cease to exist if we don’t work. Building collective power is a process to help people to see that we hold the power to change our society,” he said. “We need to organize outside of the system in order to make the changes we want to see.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF MICHELLE LIMPE

The push for greener universities

BY MOLLY GAHAGEN, Editor-in-Chief

several social issues, including apartheid in South Africa and the unethical practices of tobacco manufacturers. For a little over a decade, student activists have found a new cause around which to mobilize and demand divestment: climate change.

The fossil fuel divestment movement, which primarily calls for universities to remove their endowments’ investments in gas, coal and oil companies, began on U.S. college campuses in 2011 with Swarthmore College. Since then, over 100 U.S. colleges and universities have divested, ranging from public institutions like the University of California system to members of the Ivy League like Harvard University.

Divestment movements have evolved over time and used a variety of approaches to enact changes, including mobilizing stakeholder groups within universities and launching formal legal complaints. Now, many of these movements also aim to prevent fossil fuel companies from contributing to research funding, emphasizing the importance of academic integrity and independence.

DIVESTMENT INITIATIVES

Refuel Our Future (Refuel) — a student-led, fossil fuel divestment campaign — has been active at Hopkins since 2011. The group has previously staged a sit-in at Garland Hall, hosted Fossil Free Fridays and participated in national, divestment-movement initiatives.

In 2017, the University announced its intention to divest from thermal coal following the recommendation of the Public Interest Investment Advisory Committee — composed of undergraduates, from fossil fuels.

Former Refuel organizer Rohit Sivananthan reflected on how thermal coal divestment increased the University’s status in an interview with The News-Letter.

Since then, Refuel has continued to advocate for complete divestment

Maryland attorney general on the basis that the University violated its Sivananthan highlighted how this is a new approach within the divestment movement.

“Three or four years ago, it would have been crazy to suggest that climate change companies were culpable of anything by law, but that’s not crazy anymore,” he said. “Universities are nonprofits, and they benefit from that in their taxes... Nonprofits have two financial responsibilities: One, to serve the greater good... and two, they have a responsibility to themselves

In recent years, the divestment movement has also turned its attention to research funding from fossil fuel companies.

In an interview with The News-Letter , co-leader of Fossil Free Stanford Zoe Edelman discussed the background of the group. There has been an active fossil fuel divestment at Stanford University since 2012. Stanford divested from coal in 2014, but the Board of Trustees and faculty senate voted against divesting from oil and gas companies in 2020. In February 2022, Fossil Free calling for Stanford’s divestment from fossil fuels.

Edelman summarized the two current fronts of the divestment movement at Stanford: the University’s endowment and research funding at the new Doerr School of Sustainability, the latter of which faced criticism for openly accepting fossil fuel funding for research and concerns about its academic integrity.

In an interview with The News-Letter, former Refuel organizer Elly Ren noted that the likelihood of Hopkins divesting depends on the actions of its peer institutions.

“Some of the faculty are directly speaking about divestment when referring to their own research and how they strive not to accept fossil fuel money,“ she said.

“Hopkins was very late to the party, and it didn’t really hurt them,” he said. “I feel like their reputation [gained] from it.”

Divest Princeton began in 2013, and, in 2022, Princeton announced it would divest its endowment from publicly-traded fossil fuel companies and “dissociate” from 90 select fossil fuel companies.

Alex Norbrook, a student coordinator for Divest Princeton, spoke about the timing of Princeton’s decision to divest in relation to other members of the Ivy League in an interview with The News-Letter.

“Princeton does not lead, it follows,” he said. “Despite what it may try to pretend, it follows the lead of other Ivies, and they really take it to heart when people call attention to the fact that other Ivies are beating them out.”

The group’s campaigns have included strikes, demonstrations, referenda and a formal complaint to the state attorney general. These strikes have often been in coordination with alumni and faculty members.

Despite divesting, Princeton has continued its partnership with BP, a global energy company, to support the Carbon Mitigation Initiative. Norbrook criticized this partnership on the basis of academic integrity.

“This is kind of a damning research partnership. It undermines academic integrity at Princeton... [which is] supposed to be independent,” he said. “It’s not supposed to be influenced by any conflicting interests [like] corporations.”

CHALLENGES

Edelman stated that the students’ focus on academic and career

“Especially at a school like Stanford, where there’s so much draw to engage in extracurriculars that in some way boost your future career goals... a lot of people need to focus on postsecondary aspirations, but it can be really hard to get students to be involved in activist organizations,” she said. “We’re definitely a smaller group, but the members who are pretty active and engaged are very dedicated.”

Echoing Edelman, Sivananthan cited Hopkins students’ academic focus as a factor that has made recruiting members challenging. According to him, the meager school spirit has contributed to the lack of activism on campus.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, Divest Princeton’s priorities shifted, as described by Norbrook.

“In terms of the student-organizing side, there was a bit of a hit from COVID-19,” he said. “That allowed a lot of research and digging in we’ve had is to grow the movement and try to build a broad base of support at an Ivy which isn’t known today for its particularly rambunctious, activist scene.”

Similarly, Ren highlighted that the transience of the student body and the pandemic presented barriers to expansion.

“People graduated, and it’s hard to keep momentum with these campaigns,” she said. “Another big thing was COVID-19. Having to organize online and dealing with the pandemic... made it harder to raise awareness in the student body, but we did do a lot more internal work.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF RUDY MALCOM

The hidden parts of political activism: A look into Hopkins Students for Justice in Palestine

BY LUBNA AZMI, Senior Staff Writer

The organization has had two focuses: education and direct action.

Although these events show SJP’s power, they also illustrate a barrier to student organizing — discontinuity, which explains the sporadic moments of SJP’s activism work. Discontinuity from being consistent.

One of SJP’s current leaders, sophomore Adham Labwam, has been active since his freshman year. In an email to The News-Letter, he discussed SJP’s rebuilding period and his view of political organizing.

“Fortunately SJP on campus is reaching a young college-aged audience who are the most passionate about social issues like Palestine,” he wrote. “An important thing is understanding the audience and knowing what’s effective to reach them... One of the goals of political organization is making the discussion of your cause commonplace in whatever setting you’re in.”

Throughout its campus history, SJP has accomplished just that — making discussion of Palestine commonplace. SJP’s quieter moments are not the only part that helped them accomplish this. Labwam and others attribute their successes to SJP’s past. That is part of why preserving organizing history is so important: To push for a better future, organizers must learn from their predecessors.

This feeds into a common thread throughout SJP’s history — that collaboration is essential. Partnerships with other organizers, like Palestinian leaders, Brown’s Black Freedom work, Hopkins Feminists and SAPP were necessary to push SJP’s movements forward. The University’s SJP needed the support of others to be successful, just as others needed SJåP for the same reason.

What does this highlight? A joint struggle is necessary for the blooming success of any single freedom movement. It is important to acknowledge that the growing roots of one movement intertwine with the roots of others and that if movements want to win their own battles for liberation, they need to rely on each other.

Lubna Azmi is affiliated with Students for Justice in Palestine.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ADHAM LABWAM