About 40 students and community members gathered in Potomac Square Tuesday afternoon to protest President Donald Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in D.C. and urge officials to declare GW a sanctuary campus during a walkout campaign across four universities in the District.
The protest, part of a broader walkout organized in tandem with Georgetown, Howard, GW and American universities by the activist group Free D.C., lasted just under an hour. It began in Potomac Square before protesters marched to University President Ellen Granberg’s F Street House, calling on University officials to keep federal law enforcement — including Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers — off GW’s campus and demanding that Trump end the National Guard deployment.
The demonstration came on the eve of the expiration of Trump’s invocation of Section 740 of the D.C. Home Rule Act, which federalized the Metropolitan Police Department and triggered a month of heightened federal law enforcement presence throughout the District. Although the 30-day period expired Wednesday, National Guard officials last week announced Trump extended their deployment orders in the District through the end of November.
Hundreds of students, staff and faculty walked out of class at American University, the largest of the four demonstrations that day, while demonstrations at Georgetown and Howard drew a similar crowd size to GW’s protest.
A little over a dozen students left their classes at 1 p.m. with some gathering in Potomac Square and others gathering in Kogan Plaza after organizers moved the original gathering spot from Kogan to Potomac Square earlier in the day. At about 1:10 p.m., a Free D.C. organizer directed the roughly 20 protestors in Kogan to move to Potomac, joining the dozen students already gathered there.
Protesters passed around signs that read “GWU, stand with D.C., not with Trump” and “I.C.E off our campus.” One protester, who was not a student, held a sign that read “National Guard costs $1.1 million a day, free D.C. — stop waste.”
Speakers, including GW students, organizers and local D.C. officials, called on the University leadership to denounce the deployment of the National Guard in the city and Trump’s invocation of Section 740, along with guaranteeing the University will not allow federal law enforcement on campus. They also lead chants, including “When D.C. is under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!” and “Say it loud, say it clear, immigrants are welcome here.”
Karan, one of the speakers and a sophomore who only identified himself by his first name, said as protesters gathered in Potomac Square that students were protesting to stand with D.C. and not with Trump, before leading students in chants.
“We’re essentially coming together, walking out with all these other campuses across D.C. to show that we will not stand with Trump and fascism,” he said to the crowd of protesters.
One organizer, who did not provide their name, told the crowd that they were marching to the F Street House to bring their demands that the University stand with D.C. and not the Trump administration, directly to Granberg. They said they wanted University officials to explicitly express support for the District’s sovereignty and guarantee that federal law enforcement, including immigration enforcement, will remain off campus.
A coalition of student groups in April also launched a petition demanding that Granberg declare GW a sanctuary campus to protect international students from federal immigration enforcement after federal agencies terminated a small number of international students’ visas at GW.
Outside of the F Street House, protesters chanted further and had multiple guest speakers, including Ankit Jain, one of D.C.’s shadow senators. Jain said the 13 bills Congress is considering that would reform aspects of D.C. governance, like policing, the court system, education funding and treatment of unhoused people, are an attack on D.C.’s sovereignty.
“Tomorrow the president’s big crime emergency is coming to an end,” Jain said. “But our fight has just begun.”
Maras Lawson, a senior majoring in American studies and political science who joined the protest, said Granberg and University leadership should not cooperate with federal law enforcement, adding that she’d like to see officials reaffirm their commitment to free speech by defending against the surge in law enforcement in the city. She said officials often tout GW as one of the most politically active universities in the country — including by spotlighting GW’s free Nelson Mandela campaign in the 1980s — but has recently restricted free speech by erecting fences around University Yard.
“It’s absolutely ridiculous to come to GW touting all of the things that Granberg was touting about what she was going to do for here, and our campus and free speech, and the way she’s treated students and denied students free speech on their own campus,” Lawson said.
Mack Schroeder, a D.C. resident who lives in Shaw, said even though he is not a GW student, it’s crucial to support students protesting against the federal intervention in D.C.
“I’m just happy to be here supporting the GW students, and I hope they continue this activism,” he said.
Keith Campbell of Bethesda, Maryland, came to the rally holding a large sign that read “Release the files! Best friends forever” with a photo of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein next to Trump in the shape of a heart.
Campbell said the military should not be deployed against it’s own people, adding that it should be local law enforcement policing D.C., not the federal government. He said that he’s talked to National Guard troops in D.C. and said many of them do not seem to believe they needed Trump to deploy them to the District.
“They’re mostly bored, man, they don’t have much to do,” Campbell said. “They’re just sitting around.”
The protest ended just under an hour after it started with students and organizers dispersing right before 1:50 p.m.
Aidan Farrell and Elijah Edwards contributed reporting.
