a Princeton student explains why he’s currently part of a hunger strike – Mondoweiss

On May 3, seventeen students at Princeton University began a hunger strike demanding that the administration meet with them to discuss financial disclosure, divestment from Israel, and amnesty for the thirteen students arrested during a recent campus sit-in.

Three days later Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber met with student activists, but they walked away disappointed. After the meeting he sent out a campus email claiming he was in “direct conversation” with the protesters, but organizers say this is a lie.

“We spoke of the urgency of the situation in Rafah, where 1.5 million people shelter with nowhere to go as bombs rain down on them. We spoke of the health and well being of the hunger striking students, who have committed their bodies entirely to Palestinian liberation,” said the Princeton Gaza Solidarity Encampment in a statement. “One of our students shared the experience of her family’s village in the West Bank being violently attacked by settlers, of facing mass displacement and murder, and Eisgruber did not care. Eisgruber refused to hear us.”

“Eisgruber has done nothing for our community, and we know that history will not be on his side,” it continued. “Princeton’s legacy is genocide. It is already soaked with blood. It is built on stolen land, on the backs of the enslaved, and now, it is built on the rubble of Gaza.”

Mondoweiss spoke with hunger striker David Chmielewski, an undergraduate senior in the English department at Princeton involved in the campus movement for Palestinian liberation about the situation.

Mondoweiss: Can you talk about your demands and the meeting you just had with the university president?

David Chmielewski: One of our central demands is to drop the disciplinary and legal charges against the people involved at the sit-in of Clio Hall. Something that’s important to make clear, and that’s been made abundantly clear by faculty letters in support of the students, is that the sit-in was entirely peaceful. The students were not posing a threat to anyone’s safety and were not trespassing.

The administration has tried to make it seem like it was a disruption of public order, but we know this is far outside of the precedent of how the university has responded to sit-ins. Historically, there have been sit-ins that lasted much longer at more central university offices, and those students have not faced legal or disciplinary action.

What we’re asking the university to do is quite simple. It’s that they be consistent with their own precedent.

We can’t speak to the exact details of conversations that we’ve had, but the university has failed to meet this demand, so the hunger strike will continue.

What has Palestine activism looked like at Princeton leading up to the encampment?

We have a really robust community and it’s incredible because it goes across different struggles. There are people at the encampment who have been motivated by struggles for economic justice. Last week we had a May Day march come and visit. This was a march for workers and immigrant rights who came to be in solidarity with our encampment. They know there’s a link between economic justice and justice for Palestinians.

We have people who have fought for racial justice on campus who are also involved in this cause. The really incredible thing is that there is a broad range of people across the university devoted to this cause. You can see that in the amount of departments represented and the faculty who are supportive of the student movement.

Part of the rhetoric that the university is trying to push is that being pro-Palestinian or being pro-divestment on campus is somehow a fringe position, but that is clearly not true. In the wake of the Clio Hall sit-in there were a number of cultural groups and religious groups that released letters condemning the actions of the administration, VP [Rochelle] Calhoun, and President Eisgruber. If you pool all those affinity groups you’d probably get the majority of the campus represented.

So we have a broad coalition and a coalition that’s excited to push for divestment.

Let’s talk about the divestment demands. What are Princeton’s connections to what’s happening in Gaza and what are the protesters asking for?

We have a list of demands that have been published by Princeton Divest Now. They include some very clear actions.

There are some specific Zionist organizations the university is affiliated with that we’d want them to limit their partnerships with or cut partnerships with.

There’s also specific study abroad programs, like one at Tel Aviv University, that we want to cut.

Our research team is continuously working on trying to identify which companies the university is involved with that are connected to Israel’s occupation. Of course, the issue is that the university fails to disclose its endowment investments properly, which makes it more difficult to identify specific targets. That’s why disclosure and divestment are two key goals.

We also have specific asks for buildings with Palestinian affiliations and hosting more Palestinians and students on campus.

There’s a specific list of clear demands and we hope the university realizes how reasonable they are.