In the year following GW’s pro-Palestinian encampment, officials bolstered campus security and continue to weigh stricter protest policies, which experts say signal that GW is prioritizing order over free expression.
Officials in August said they heightened campus police patrols and security guard presence and fenced off University Yard in an apparent effort to avoid a repeat of last spring, when the Metropolitan Police Department arrested 33 participants at the pro-Palestinian encampment that occupied U-Yard for 13 days. Some students say the securitization makes them feel safer, while others and experts in policing and social protest say GW followed a national trend of universities criminalizing free expression following waves of student protests.
Across the country, universities have tightened protest rules, instated stricter punishments for demonstrators and locked down campus spaces, seemingly attempting to quell future demonstrations after pro-Palestinian students mobilized to form pro-Palestinian encampments nationwide last spring. GW was no exception.
When students returned to campus in August, officials unveiled an updated plan to boost safety and security, which included retaining fencing that blocks off U-Yard and limiting the space’s access to between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m., but since removed the posted hours from the plan’s website. During demonstrations this year, officials have closed U-Yard, even during its open hours, and stationed GW Police Department officers or security guards at its gates, including during Friday’s demonstration commemorating the one-year anniversary of the encampment.
The plan also increased GWPD patrols and added 24/7 security in Kogan Plaza and U-Yard.
“They are making it increasingly difficult for us to do the work that we do,” a representative from Students for Justice in Palestine at GW, who requested anonymity due to fear of retribution from the University, said. “That’s also not stopping us. We’ll still continue doing the work that we do, but I think it shows they are afraid of what students are demanding.”
Pro-Palestinian student protests simultaneously chilled nationwide over the last few months, with about 950 protest events in the fall 2024 semester, compared to more than 3,000 in spring 2024, according to Harvard University’s Nonviolent Action Lab.
University spokesperson Julia Garbitt said GW also utilizes security cameras and video monitoring in common areas and where “increased security is needed.”
She said GWPD maintains a strong relationship with MPD and calls upon their services “when needed.” MPD has assisted GWPD in blocking off streets during campus demonstrations this year.
Garbitt declined to comment on which changes officials made in response to the encampment.
GW began weighing draft protest policies last month that would prohibit demonstrations that make “excessive noise” and disrupt University operations, which officials collected community feedback on through April 18.
Officials suspended SJP and Jewish Voice for Peace through the fall 2024 semester and placed them and seven other student organizations on disciplinary probation until May 2025 for their reported involvement in the encampment. The University also indefinitely banned SJP from hosting events on campus last month.
The SJP representative said it appears as if officials are “capitulating” to “increased pressure” to quiet pro-Palestinian demonstrations out of fear of losing endowment investments and federal funds from President Donald Trump, who cut $400 million in federal funding from Columbia University over pro-Palestinian campus protests.
The changes also followed a January 2023 federal civil rights complaint and congressional scrutiny accusing GW of tolerating antisemitism — including a House Committee on Education and the Workforce investigation last year and several representatives visiting the encampment. A U.S. Department of Justice task force said in February that GW is one of the 10 universities it would visit to gather information on antisemitism.
Garbitt said the University “works closely with” District and federal partners to regularly assess security and “enhance safety measures” on GW’s campuses.
“We remain committed to maintaining a safe environment that supports open dialogue while adapting security measures as needed to protect our campuses and community,” Garbitt said. “Our goal has always been, and will continue to be, to best meet the safety and security needs of our entire campus community.”
The SJP representative said they weren’t surprised to see heightened security measures this year after the encampment because they said officials “only” respond with securitization to demonstrations by organizations in the Student Coalition for Palestine.
“It also shows GW wants to punish student organizers more than it wants to foster a happy community, as everyone agrees those fences in U-Yard are the worst,” the representative said.
But some Jewish students who felt targeted by the protests praise the changes for helping to restore safety and order.
Junior Geena Seflin, a member of the Jewish Student Association, said she’s noticed the heightened police and security guard presence on campus this academic year, particularly during student protests, which would make her feel “much safer” in the event that a “physical issue” arises, though she said she hasn’t ever worried for her physical safety during campus protests.
About 97 percent of nationwide campus demonstrations over the war in Gaza have been peaceful, according to an analysis by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a nonpartisan, independent nonprofit.
“I appreciate the effort that they did put in to protect the well-being of Jewish students on campus,” Seflin said.
Junior Aidan Cullers, the co-president of the Jewish Student Association, said the University’s proposed policy to prohibit “excessive noise” during demonstrations would be beneficial in clarifying demonstration policies and maintaining a productive learning environment where all students feel secure.
“I actually do believe that would be helpful,” Cullers said of the proposed policy to prohibit “excessive noise” in demonstrations. “I think one of the things that Jewish students have really been asking for, and I think students probably even asked for, is a clear and consistent set of rules from the University.”
As universities like GW heighten security, experts on higher education policing and social protest say the security policies may suppress student activism and hamper free speech rights.
Clifford Stott, the director of the Keele Policing Academic Collaboration at Britain’s Keele University, said securitizing campuses after encampments deepens distrust between students and officials.
Stott said because University officials cited trespassing as the reason why MPD cleared the encampment, they led students to question the “legitimacy” of official and law enforcement decisions, since U-Yard, though private property, has historically functioned as a public space for community members. In turn, a “polarization” grew between students and officials and campus police, he said.
He said officials then reacted with increasing security, fencing and surveillance, which could signal to students that any protesting could lead to disciplinary action.
“It doesn’t trust its student body, so instead of trying to reengage that student body and reconstruct trust, it’s chosen to fall back on a securitized response that’s premised around fences and surveillance,” Stott said. “But actually, it should be dialogue-based.”
Robert Cohen, a professor of social studies at New York University, said by increasing campus policing and security guard presence post-encampment, universities like GW and NYU appear to be “criminalizing protests” and signaling that they are “favoring order over liberty” since student demonstrations have been overwhelmingly peaceful.
Cohen said universities’ restrictions on the “time, place and manner” of protests, which stipulate how and where students can protest on campus, used to be minor and had a “legitimate purpose,” like stating that a protester can give a speech in a campus plaza and not in the middle of class. But he said university leaders have now used the restrictions to suppress freedom of speech by calling most demonstrations disruptive just because they’re noisy.
“They’re always unpopular, but they sometimes raise important issues,” Cohen said of student demonstrations. “If you’re going to silence them, it’s going to not only inhibit democracy on campus, but I think it also inhibits democratic thinking in the country at large.”
Ryan Saenz contributed reporting.
