Pro-Palestinian encampment protests: Is UWindsor ready?

As pro-Palestinian protestors set up encampments at colleges and universities across Canada and the United States, a like-minded organizer in Windsor said Wednesday her group had no plans to follow suit.

“To follow the footsteps of other activists groups is not a problem for us,” said Windsor4Palestine founder Rasha Zaid. “But it's going to be in a way that's going to benefit us as a community.. It shouldn't be just like, oh, let's do whatever they're doing.”

Zaid said she felt pride seeing so many people standing up for the same cause as her – encouraged to see them exercising their right to protest.

“They are no longer fearful of speaking for innocent people, which is very courageous in my eyes,” Zaid said.

The right to protest was flagged on campuses across the U.S. as police moved in on protestors at several institutions – in some cases using policies preventing tents to act.

Toronto Metropolitan University professor Maral Karimi, who obtained a PhD in Social Justice Education from the University of Toronto, said police shouldn’t have moved in such a way.

“My guess would be that when those bylaws were put in place, it was to make sure that students have proper housing and they don't use the university grounds for the unhoused and kind of keep things safe and orderly,” Karimi said. “Most universities have the right to protest.”

Those protesting at post-secondary institutions are demanding the schools disclose investments and divest from companies they understand to be contributing to Israel’s efforts in the Gaza war.

Karimi said no one should be surprised to see university campuses serve as the backdrop to this movement.

“We send our best and brightest to these spaces to teach them how to think critically,” she said. “So it is their job to go in there and interrogate everything that they hear in the public sphere.”

At the University of Windsor, assistant law professor Irina Ceric said she would not be surprised to see tents pop up.

“There's been some really interesting organizing being done by students at the University of Windsor, so it certainly wouldn't surprise me to see some of those students set up an encampment or some other sort of action in solidarity,” she said.

University officials did not provide comment on whether or not the institution was prepared should such a protest spark up.

However, the school has a policy forbidding “habituating on University of Windsor property,” including in tents, without written prior approval.

A similar policy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison allowed police to move on protestors Wednesday.

Ceric said police action in these moments seems to be helping the cause – not squashing the movement.

“I think we're going to see a few more in the next few days,” she said. “This has become a global movement.”