By: Emily Nixon and Emily Suhr
On Oct. 23, United4Israel, a Brooklyn College (BC) club, held a vigil during common hours on the West Quad for the Israeli victims of Oct. 7, 2023, which prompted a heavy police presence and a counter-protest by Brooklyn College Students for Justice in Palestine (BCSJP) and Brooklyn College Student Union (BCSU).
Attendees for the vigil signed in at a registration table hosted by the Tanger Hillel Place and were given wristbands to show they were part of the event. Israel flags lined a segment of the lawn, as well as signs showing faces of those lost on Oct. 7. Kosher food was provided to attendees as they mingled amongst one another.
President of United4Israel, Shelly Zebak, discussed the objective of the memorial.
“The goal of the event was to provide a space for the campus community to remember innocent people who were murdered on October 7th, honor the living hostages who have been returned, and remind one another that even in grief, we are not alone.”
A counter-protest by SJP was scheduled to start at noon outside the West Quad gate on Bedford Avenue. Protestors brought drums, signs, and chanted as the memorial proceeded.
BCSU members felt that while the counter-protest was brief, it had successfully managed to do what it sought to do: gather attention.
In a joint statement from SJP and BCSU, they shared their end goal of this protest.
“The night before this event, Students for Justice in Palestine shared a flyer promoting an emergency counterdemonstration, intended to recognize the true cost of the genocide that Zionist clubs failed to acknowledge.”
“Zionist events can not go undisrupted!” said the announcement by BCSJP. “Show up in numbers! Bring posters! Bring flags!”
School safety, public officers, and additional security were stationed at the main entrances, as well as on campus. Students without a photo attached to their digital ID were not allowed to enter campus, leaving some waiting outside the gates until the memorial was scheduled to end at 2 p.m.
“I was leaving James after my class at 12:15. They wouldn’t let me directly on the Quad,” said Magali Ramos, a BC student and member of BCSU. “I was trying to question the officer why we can’t go out that way, and he just wasn’t engaging with me. He was kind of just like, ‘Go.’”
Security personnel were in place and restricting access to the West Quad before the counter-protest had begun, according to Ramos.
“West Quad […] was shut down even before [BCSU] started protesting,” said Ramos.
While both events were still happening, the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) announced through an Instagram story that a picture on students’ digital IDs would be mandatory for all future events on West Quad.
Students, such as Ramos, pointed out that the security measures for the vigil broke the Henderson Rules, specifically the first rule, which states that “any member of the academic community” cannot “interfere with the institution’s educational processes or facilities […].”
The Henderson Rules are the “code of conduct” for students and staff at BC.
“What they were doing, in terms of redirecting students and shutting down the gates, […] they were disrupting student activity and student life, and that’s violation of everything Henderson Rules,” said Ramos. “The Henderson Rule Violation should be given to the [United4Israel] event because they effectively shut down an entire section of campus for one event, disrupting student life before [the] protest was even happening.”
Students like Shania Clarke, a member of the BCSU, felt like the increased security presence was “aggressive” and shared avenues to report the violation of the Henderson Rules with other students.
“The approach was definitely aggressive from Public Safety and NYPD,” said Clarke. “There were other students concerned about them having to go into class at the time, and I just told them, like, ‘As a student, you can report that. They [security] are obstructing or stopping you from pursuing your education or class.’”
The amount of protection afforded to the United4Israel event was a point of suspicion to students like Clarke.
“There is a power dynamic in play here that I think should be heavily followed and looked into,” said Clarke. “If they had that much influence to close down an entire section of campus while also having your own security and campus security, there needs to be a question of, ‘How far does this influence go?’”
“For something that short of an amount of time, it was good,” said Clarke. “I think that, like, a lot of people are interested, and they just want to know more.”
As the protest dispersed, memorial attendees and protestors began to shout at one another outside the gate.
“Who are you protecting?” a counter-protester yelled. “It’s disgusting. The people who are adults, who are not students here, look at what side you’re on.”
Following the dispersion of the counter-protest and the end of the memorial, majority of security operations on campus readjusted to the appropriate safety level.
For more information about BCSU, BCSJP, and United4Isreal, please follow their respective Instagrams: @brooklyncollegesu, @bc_sjp, and @united4isreal.