US students on their campus protests

Protester Danny Dow, UC Berkeley (Wash Post)

As pro-Palestinian protests [and anti-Israeli and Zionist Jewish genocide demonstrations] spread to college campuses across the country, the lives of many students have been upended.

Some have jumped into protesting for the first time, while others are watching on the sidelines, their own thoughts about Israel's war on Gaza and Palestinian civilians is still evolving.

• [Israel has already killed or maimed 100,000 Palestinians, mutilating and murdering about 15,000 children. These numbers do not all of the injuries and the devastation to those being ethnically cleansed by bombardment and forced relocation.]
• Right-wing conspiracy theory: Jewish billionaire George Soros is paying activists to head campus protests
• I was taught to protect my virginity at all costs. Instead, I decided to seduce my town's star athlete
• Study shows most children grow out of gender confusion

Many say a feeling of unease, and fear, has settled in as bucolic campuses are transformed into an ideological battleground. Some are wary about what students and civil rights leaders have decried as an overly aggressive police response. Others are concerned the protests have emboldened antisemitic viewpoints.

Here are the stories of five students in the middle of a spring of upheaval.

Sofia Ongele

Campus encampment (Jabin Botson/Wash Post)

Protesting isn’t new for Sofia Ongele. She organized her first demonstration at the age of 15 and credits her father and grandparents with instilling her with a sense of social responsibility.

Over the last week, she’s joined fellow Columbia University students at the encampment on the school’s west lawn, participating in pro-Palestinian demonstrations and listening to speakers. Ongele, 23, said she is proud of how students have banded together.

"I love being in and around the encampment,” she said. “I’ve never seen something that is such an outright show of solidarity and mutual aid in my entire life.”

But the increased police presence around campus has been uncomfortable, she said. She described calling the university’s public safety line to ask about a way to navigate campus without encountering riot police, only to have the call abruptly disconnected.

“I don’t feel particularly safe just walking around the area, because of the sheer number of cops,” said Ongele, a senior studying information science.

She said the university’s response feels contradictory.

"The university wants us to learn about protests and social movements – people like MLK did participate in civil disobedience – but not to take that knowledge and apply it to something that really, really matters,” she said.

But the growing wave of demonstrations sparked by the Columbia protests has made her hopeful for college students around the country, who she said now share a common sense of purpose.

“It’s been beautiful to see,” she said. More: What students say about the protests rocking their campuses

• Monica Campbell, Alisa Shodiyev Kaff, Christopher Hoffman, Washington Post via msn.com, 4/26/24; CC Liu, Sheldon S. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly