Johns Hopkins University students are continuing to camp out in tents on the main lawn to call for Palestinian liberation and divestment from companies with ties to Israel.
Friday marks the fifth day of the encampment. Student protesters spent the day praying and reading Palestinian poetry over a speaker.
One student organizer, who requested anonymity for safety, told WYPR that protesters have formed a negotiations team to meet with school leaders going forward.
She also said protesters are “not rushing the process” to fulfill their demands — or take down their tents.
Hopkins Justice Collective, the student group organizing Pro-Palestine efforts, shared their formal proposal with university leaders on Friday.
Flyers surrounding the encampment site list five demands for university leaders, including: divesting from weapons companies like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, cutting ties with the University of Tel Aviv and ending the Department of Defense partnership with the university’s applied physics lab.
Next to the protest site on Friday, a few Jewish students set up a table to garner attention on the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas on October 7.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a counter-protest,” said one student, who requested anonymity out of safety concerns. “We are here to show our presence and to show that we are proud. And we care very deeply about our people, especially the ones that are still taken hostage by Hamas in Gaza.”
The university’s Pro-Palestine encampment started Monday, after student organizers held a march on campus last week to gauge potential turnout. A university spokesperson told The Baltimore Banner Tuesday that administrators support protests between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m., but protests outside of those hours would result in disciplinary action.
After three days of overnight protest, Hopkins President Ron Daniels sent an email Thursday to the Hopkins Justice Collective calling for the immediate end of the encampment, which he said “contravenes multiple university policies and codes.”
Daniels wrote that he finds the encampment “problematic” because it “creates conditions that are risky to the health and safety of you and others in the community.”
In a Wednesday press release, Hopkins Justice Collective organizers said the university “has no place to speak on health and safety, as a so-called leader in public health education that has done nothing but enable one of the largest public health and humanitarian crises of our time.”
Student organizers established their own safety system: designated de-escalators in bright yellow vests that circle the site each day.
Daniels said in his letter that he thinks safety threats will “only increase with time.” He also said he has received reports of “concerning incidents, including physical assault and vile hate speech.”
University officials did not respond with elaboration on these incidents in time for publication.
But the anonymous Jewish Hopkins student tabling for hostages on Friday said the encampment “has not been peaceful.”
She said she hasn’t been on campus all week. But she said she’s heard chants from protestors like “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — which is displayed on some signs surrounding the encampment.
Since October 7, there has been debate over the meaning of the chant and whether it’s antisemetic — with Palestinian supporters saying it represents a call for peace, while Jewish citizens say it's about abolishment of their holy land.
“Being Jewish on campus right now, it's not scary, but we have to be very aware of our surroundings,” the student, a senior at Hopkins, said.
Simha Fleischmann, a Jewish Hopkins student and Pro-Palestine protest organizer, told WYPR at the rally last week that they’ve faced more backlash from Jewish peers than any external antisemitism.
“I think what's been happening to visibly Muslim students on this campus has been a lot scarier than anything that's ever happened to me, or that I've heard of happening to self-identified Zionists on this campus,” they said.
Hopkins’ chapter of the American Association of University Professors sent a letter to Daniels and the board of trustees Wednesday urging them to protect students’ rights to peaceful protest.
“The peaceful protest currently underway at Johns Hopkins does not defame, threaten, deface, or harass,” the letter says. “We urge you to abide by our university’s Statement on Academic Freedom and follow university precedent by tolerating peaceful protest on campus at any time, and allowing an encampment that does not interrupt the functioning of the university – and to do so without threats of discipline or police action.”
Police told a local news outlet Tuesday that they have “no plans to engage solely to shut down this valid protest” unless it escalates to “credible threats of violence.”
At the end of his email Thursday, Daniels wrote that he remains “open to further meetings toward a peaceful resolution.” But he also warns that leaders will “take additional steps as necessary” to protect campus safety, “including moving forward with appropriate disciplinary and legal actions.”
