The Student Movement for Palestine Is Not Going Away

In 2024, at the height of Israel’s US-backed genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, one of the most widespread waves of college campus protests since the Vietnam War exploded across the United States. Then came the repressive backlash. Over the past two years, we’ve seen a harrowing assault on free speech and the right to protest from the federal government and Zionist organizations, and universities themselves have ramped up their own internal surveillance and repression machines, weaponizing them against their own students, grad students, and faculty.

Life, learning, and activism on American college campuses looks very different today than it did in 2024, but the student-led Palestine solidarity movement is not going away. As a new school year begins, we speak with four students at different college campuses across the University System of Maryland (USM), who are all organizers and members of the USM Divestment Coalition for Palestine, about how the movement is maintaining its demands and adapting its tactics in 2026.

Additional links/info:

• USM DIvestment Coalition for Palestine website, Instagram, and Linktree
• Diamondback Staff, The Diamondback, “USM students call for divestment from defense companies at Board of Regents meeting”

Credits:

• Audio Post-Production: Alina Nehlich

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