The Diag is a large open space in the middle of the University of Michigan's Central Campus. Originally known as the Diagonal Green, the Diag derives its name from the many sidewalks running near or through it in diagonal directions. Many of the University's most frequented buildings are situated around the Diag, including West Hall, Randall Lab, the Shapiro Undergraduate Library, the Hatcher Graduate Library, and Angell, Mason, Haven, and Tisch Halls, among others.
Campus protest or student protest is a form of student activism that takes the form of protest at university campuses. Such protests encompass a wide range of activities that indicate student dissatisfaction with a given political or academics issue and mobilization to communicate this dissatisfaction to the authorities and society in general and hopefully remedy the problem. Protest forms include but are not limited to: sit-ins, occupations of university offices or buildings, strikes etc. More extreme forms include suicide such as the case of Jan Palach's, and Jan Zajíc's protests against the end of the Prague Spring and Kostas Georgakis' protest against the Greek junta of 1967–1974.
In the U.S. state of Oregon, enforcement of local, state, and federal law on public university property is delegated to a number of security, public safety, and police agencies.
Students for Justice in Palestine is a pro-Palestinian college student activism organization in the United States, Canada and New Zealand. Founded at the University of California in 2001, it has campaigned for boycott and divestment against corporations that deal with Israel and organized events about Israel's human rights violations. In 2011, The New York Times called it "the leading pro-Palestinian voice on campus". As of 2024, National SJP has over 350 chapters in North America.
Portland, Oregon has an extended history of street activism and has seen many notable protests.
The COVID-19 pandemic was confirmed to have reached Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon on February 28, 2020.
A series of pro-Palestinian protests were held in the United States on April 15, 2024.
Pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses started in 2023 and escalated in April 2024, spreading in the United States and other countries, as part of wider Israel–Hamas war protests. The escalation began after mass arrests at the Columbia University campus occupation, led by anti-Zionist groups, in which protesters demanded the university's disinvestment from Israel over its alleged genocide of Palestinians. In the U.S. over 3,100 protesters have been arrested, including faculty members and professors, on over 60 campuses. On May 7, protests spread across Europe with mass arrests in the Netherlands. By May 12, twenty encampments had been established in the United Kingdom, and across universities in Australia and Canada. The protests largely ended as universities closed for the summer.
On April 29, 2024, approximately 100 University of Oregon students established a camp on the Eugene campus to support Palestinians in Gaza and demanding action from administrators. As part of the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses, demonstrators requested for the university to divest from “the state of Israel, Israeli companies, and any weapons or surveillance manufacturing.”
On April 24, 2024 an occupation protest began at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles, California. The protest was a part of pro-Palestine protests on university campuses campaigning for divestment from Israel. USC cancelled their main commencement ceremony over safety concerns about protests. The encampment was cleared by the Los Angeles Police Department on the morning of May 5.
On May 6, 2024 University of Amsterdam (UvA) students established a pro-Palestinian protest occupation on the Roeterseiland campus to support Palestinians in Gaza and demand action from administrators. This became the first in a series of pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses throughout the Netherlands. On May 7, 169 people were detained when the police used a bulldozer to break down the barricades after the protesters refused to leave.
The pro-Palestinian campus occupations at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands were a series of occupation protests, as part of the broader protests against the Israel–Hamas war. On 13 May 2024 protesters created an encampment, similar to other campus protests in the Netherlands, the United States and other countries. On 20 May a second encampment was established next to the universities' administrative building. On 5 June after the occupation of another university building, police cleared the encampment. The protesters demanded that the university board divest from Israel over its alleged genocide of Palestinians and invasion of the Gaza Strip, and to support Palestinian students and universities. The protests included walkouts, daily marches, temporary occupations, as well as vandalism.
On May 15, 2024, a crackdown on a pro-Palestine encampment at University of California, Irvine resulted in an occupation of the UC Irvine Science Building by the protesters. UCI police put out a mutual aid call and received a response from at least 16 law enforcement agencies from around Orange County. Hundreds of officers responded and forty-seven protesters, including students, UCI employees and others were arrested. Student participants were suspended for up to 14 days.
In 2024, an occupation protest was started by students on the University of Washington campus, in Seattle, Washington.
On April 25th, students at University of Pennsylvania began an encampment to protest the ongoing Israel–Hamas war and to call for divestment from Israel. The occupation, named the "Gaza Solidarity Encampment," was part of a series of 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses. On May 10th, the encampment was raided and protesters were arrested, ending the occupation.
Pro-Palestinian protests at the University of Texas at Austin began on April 24, 2024, organized by the Palestinian Solidarity Committee in response to the ongoing Israel-Hamas War. The protests have included sit-ins, marches, and encampments on campus, calling for the university to divest from companies linked to Israel's actions in Gaza. The demonstrations escalated when university officials, with support from local and state law enforcement, intervened to disperse protestors, leading to multiple arrests and sparking criticism over the suppression of free speech on campus. Despite arrests and clashes with police, the protests have continued, drawing significant attention and raising debates about civil liberties and the role of university administration in managing campus protests.
