More than 100 pro-Palestinian protesters gathered at Emory University on Tuesday evening, calling on the university to divest from companies based in Israel.
”Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest,” the group of protesters chanted on Emory’s quad. Tuesday was the sixth day of protests on the campus.
Emory President Gregory Fenves is facing pushback from students and faculty after 23 people — including 15 students and one professor — were booked into the DeKalb County Jail on charges related to the protest. The Georgia State Patrol and Atlanta Police Department were invited to campus to assist Emory police, and used pepper balls, chemical irritants and at least one Taser on protesters.
Emory’s Faculty Senate approved a motion last Friday for a vote of no confidence against the president, which faculty are voting on this week. Additionally, Emory’s College Council voted no confidence in the president on Monday evening. Graduation at Emory is May 13.
Protesters on Emory’s campus have also included the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) in their calls for divestment. In this Georgia State University program, local police agencies and Israeli forces have trained together.
Bella Montealegre, an Emory senior and member of Students for Socialism at Emory, believes the calls to divest from GILEE and Israel-based companies are inherently linked.
“We call for that to be removed because we believe that any system that learns from Israeli apartheid will only learn to repress us further in these streets and continue to advocate not only for the justice of those in the colonized or oppressed world, but also for our own liberation,” Montealegre said.
SFS plans a walkout Wednesday in Emory Village.
A group of Jewish students is organizing a counter-protest Wednesday evening on Emory’s campus. In a flier circulated among Emory community members, the organizers encouraged people to come out and “Stand for Israel” and “Stand against antisemitism.”
