Kinda seems like the buildings already close them in but alright, UW. Credit: anonymous

This afternoon the University of Washington propped up police-guarded barricades at all entrances of the Quad. This marks the UW’s first crackdown on student protesters after six days of peaceful camping. While a UW spokesperson told The Stranger that the barricades are a “temporary effort today,” the spokesperson did not address protesters’ primary concern, the presence of police. In other similar protests across the country, police presence has led to arrests, violence, and encampment sweeps. While the students are taking precautions after UW’s flex of power, they maintain they won’t leave their tents until the administration caves to their demands.

For several days, student protesters have expressed concern over Charlie Kirk’s scheduled campus appearances. Kirk is the founder of Turning Point USA, an organization that promotes conservative politics at US schools. Students worried the event would bring right-wing agitators to their encampment. The encampment, once a group of 20 or so tents relegated to one corner of the lawn, has exploded in size over the past week, taking all four quadrants with at least 100 tents and even more canopies. 

All the while, the occupation seems to have remained relatively peaceful. Students told The Stranger that they want to keep it that way. They said the encampment should be about their three demands: materially and academically divest from Israel, cut ties with Boeing, and end repression of pro-Palestinian students and faculty. Police violence against students is “connected” to state violence against Palestinians, but “the focus really needs to be on Palestine and ending the genocide,” media liaison Gina Liu said last week.

To keep the peace, the United Front for Palestinian Liberation (UF) and other groups supporting the encampment protest asked the UW to cancel Kirk’s campus events, which included tabling at the HUB lawn at 12:30 pm and a talk at the HUB Ballroom at 6:30 pm.

UW claimed it could not cancel the event—one of UW’s registered student organizations (RSOs) invited him and they are “free to extend invitations to guest speakers.” According to the ACLU, barring speech at a public campus, no matter how offensive, violates the Constitution. 

UF asked if the administration could at least move the event to a different part of campus, since the encampment sits just a short walk away from one of the events. 

In an email to the administration, UF wrote, “We ask this out of concern for student safety and with the knowledge that administration cares to take steps that will reduce the potential for conflict or violence that could result in harm to students.” 

UW did not move the event and instead propped up metal fences, guarded by a handful of police officers, at all six entrances to the Quad around the time Kirk started his debate event on the HUB lawn. 

Cops stand inside the barricade around the Quad.

“Our priority is the safety and security of our campus community,” UW spokesperson Victor Balta said in an email statement. “There are multiple events on campus today and this evening that could draw attendees with strongly opposing viewpoints. We recognize that tensions are especially high due to events around the world, and our hope is that people with opposing views refrain from seeking confrontations and avoid antagonizing one another.”

Balta said the barricades are a “temporary effort today,” but did not specify under what circumstances UW would close the gates. Balta also did not comment about police presence. 

Students said they would have been fine with barricades, but they claim the UW only offered them contingent on police presence. In a statement on social media, UF wrote “[UW admin] claim that this is a protective measure, but we know that police do not keep us safe.”

Cops did not keep protesters safe in UCLA when pro-Israel counter-protesters attacked their encampment. Instead, the Los Angeles Police Department let counter-protesters beat up students for more than two hours. Governor Gavin Newsom said the “limited and delayed” response was “unacceptable.” Cops have shown up to other demonstrations across the country in riot gear, shooting rubber bullets and spraying tear gas into crowds of students. Civil rights groups say their response has been excessive. 

For now, students are holding down the fort and continuing their scheduled programming. A media liaison told The Stranger that they bolstered their security team in anticipation of counter-protesters, but have not encountered more activity than usual. Only a few people counter-protested Kirk’s event, which he claimed as a victory. 

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Tuesday afternoon, students appeared to practice forming a defensive line with makeshift shields. A student told The Stranger that the encampment protesters have not had to form a line against the police or counter-protesters, and they hope they never have to, but seeing what happened at other schools, they are preparing for the worst.

Hannah Krieg is a staff writer at The Stranger covering everything that goes down at Seattle City Hall. Importantly, she is a Libra. She is also The Stranger's resident Gen Z writer, with an affinity for...

35 replies on “UW Sends Barricades and Cops to Gaza Encampment Protest”

  1. At UCLA, the cops have permitted far right Proud Boy Magats to look the other way while they terrorize these encampments with fireworks and pepper spray and physical abuse and assault the protestors. Similar to Kyle Rittenhaus, they look the other way while they enable violence against peaceful protestors and put agitator plants in these events to invalidate them and give the police an excuse to attack liberals. The most antisemitic folks of all are framing the peaceful encampments as antisemitic in order to have license to attack them. This is the greatest assault on free speech and the Constitution yet in a preview of the fascist police state Trump would bring to life. Police should be there to protect the protestors’ rights to petition and assembly and speech and not to be harrassed and assaulted by them or anyone else. To do so is a betrayal of the badge and uniform and to become merely a thug in a suit.

  2. Myself, I already lived through one “Kent State” already.

    I don’t need another “Kent State”.

    Cops have no business on a college campus.

    Cops have no business busting up a peaceful freedom-of-speech demonstration.

    Send all the cops to Dunkin Donuts, where they belong.

  3. I’m surprised both Hannah and the protestors devoted so much thought to Kirk. He’s just trolling for attention. If you don’t give him any, he will go away.

  4. You really need to stop using the term “conservative” to describe fascist traitors. There’s nothing “conservative” about violent White Nationalist thugs.

  5. Regardless of where you are on these protests, ask yourself: would you have the same reaction if this was a group of pro life protesters behaving in exactly the same way?

    Still want the police to arrest them? Still think the police should stay away?

  6. “Students

    worried the event

    would bring right-wing

    agitators to their encampment.”

    hopped-up on steroids

    auditioning for El trumpfster’s

    Brownshit Brigade they may prompt

    silly ol’ Joe to call out the National Guard

    my gawd this guy’s outta Touch

    equating anti-Nutnyahoo with

    anti-Semitism whilst IGNOR-

    ING the Nazis who Attacked

    NON-Violent Protesters at

    UCLA . I’m Rapidly losing

    my Confidence in Joe

    yet

    Look

    at the

    Alternative

    8/22’s

    Joe’s day

    of Reckoning

    buckle up

  7. The irony here is that Turning Point USA is one of the most explicitly anti-Jewish white hate groups, irrespective of their geopolitical stance on Israel as a country. Anyone who criticizes UW protesters’ real or perceived anti-Zionism while cheering on Charlie Kirk or Candice Owens is not a serious opponent of anti-Semitism.

  9. I think we need

    to differentiate be-

    tween ‘peaceful’ and

    NON-Violent protest while

    there are those who see vandalism

    as Assault or Violence can too easily

    equate the two as being the Same Thing

    which it

    Ain’t.

  10. Goebbels said to accuse the enemy of that which you are most guilty. In this case, Johnson and the far right are doing exactly that in projecting their antisemitism in order to enable it. The corporate media is complicit in this vile calumny.

  11. @3: I like the way the story repeatedly reads as a prelude to some tense confrontation, or even outbreak of violence, but each time, all of the suspense somehow just fizzles out.

    The article starts by informing us of a “crackdown,” but that turns out to be merely the police putting up barricades. We read how the encampment “exploded,” but that was just another protest group setting up tents. (However, it was “taking all four quadrants,” implying some kind of organized operation to conquer the space.)

    Then we get a long sequence on the protesters trying to get a right-wing agitator’s visit cancelled or moved (yay free speech!), but the event takes place anyway, and … nothing unusual happens.

    This article has more build-ups to non-climax than would a laboratory report from the early ‘90s, describing issues encountered during development of medication to treat erectile dysfunction.

  12. where do i send my thank you card for 4 more years of trump? i cant wait for these folks to make a mess of the DNC in chicago. let’s drive enough mid-of/the roaders to the GOP. half these ‘campers’ wont vote at all in Nov. this is more pathetic performative posturing. enjoy that stacked Supreme Court, kiddo’s

  13. When you consider that UW has already said they are not going to part ways with Boeing and their money, and that any statement calling for a ceasefire would have zero influence on Israeli policy it’s safe to say that the protest has failed.

    Maybe the students time would be better spent studying for finals.

  14. I have no problem with the encampment. They have a right to protest, and landscaping is cheap. I’m sure there’s some uptight alumni who are screeching about cherry trees or graduation or something, but that’s beside the point.

    As long as things stay peaceful and nobody gets hateful, let it go. It will eventually dwindle away.

  15. @lds:

    “where

    do i send

    my thank you card

    for 4 more years of trump?”

    send one to Wormtongue

    cap’n ahab and all the

    rest who cheerleaded

    Us into a genocidal

    Complicity — hell

    WE sponsored it

    send one to all

    US Taxpayers

    too. thanks!

  17. @22, 23:

    good point cap’n:

    I was Excessively Violent

    to my Lawn yesterday* and

    you oughtta See the limbs I

    removed from some Trees! just

    like our 2,000lb Bunker Bustin’ Bombs

    removing Limbs (and Lives!) from Gazans

    except

    it looked

    so much Better

    afterwards! probably

    how the nutnyahoos of

    this World see Palestine now?

    *I MOWED that

    Sumbitch Down!

  19. Violence exists on a spectrum, and the accountability for selective acts of violence against property or grass should not be met with disproportionate corporeal violence against everyone affiliated with a protest in kind through unreasonable force.

  20. speaking of (the) English

    they gave us* these Manicured Lawns

    Weed-free Perfection brought to

    you by Big Chemical & Roundup

    and a Language engineered to

    Favor its weaponization for

    the Nefarious – like Fran

    Kluntz, Rush the Oxy-

    Moron & the Newt

    Gingrich (& others)

    who’ve Split this

    country for

    Political

    Gain.

    *And those

    Geo-political

    Lines that defined

    whole Countries – the

    whole Middle East – to

    Favor Our oil extraction

    from its Owners to burn

    this Planet down whilst de-

    nying the Risks to the Planet.

  21. Cops and barricades aren’t there to keep protesters safe. They are there to 1)keep students on their way to and from class safe. 2) to provide seperation between the opposing factions. 3) to control the density of crowds as a means to minimize violence should it break out.

    Standard crowd control tactics involve breaking up big groups into smaller ones.

  22. I hope you did some warm-ups before attempting that stretch, Ahab dear. The students are the ones who are largely paying for any damage to the landscaping, and the amount of damage that this would cause is so negligible as to be laughable.

    I’m also okay with symbolic gestures against the administration, such as sit-ins at the President’s office, as long as they don’t damage anything. That should be expected from time to time at any college or university.

    What I don’t approve of is what the “activists” did to the HUB a few months back, or what they did at Portland State a few weeks back (occupied the library). Administrative areas are fair game. Student and academic areas should be hands-off. And vandalism is never right.

  23. Why is it that the same folks bemoaning “antisemitic” college students defacing campus property are the same ones who call the January 6th rioters patriots for smearing literal shit all over the Capitol while wearing Neo Nazi attire?

  24. Progressives in 2024:

    Violence – misgendering or deadnaming, having to be in proximity of someone you disagree with, seeing a police officer, asking for people to literally stop crapping all over the city

    Not violent – destruction and theft of public property, chanting genocidal slogans and advocating for people to be exterminated, physically intimidating people and restricting their free movement, rape

  28. Garb@36: Wow, even you consider your comments to be such utter garbage, you won’t read them.

    I asked for you to validate the premise of your question @30, by providing quotes and urls from multiple persons (“same people”), each one of whom BOTH 1) describe the current pro-Palestinian student protesters as “anti-Semitic,” and 2) “call the Jan. 6th rioters patriots.”

    Got that? Or must I dumb your own words down to you even further?

  29. @37

    there

    it is the

    Wormtongue

    getting its Money’s

    worth thru ridicule and

    subjugation & earning its

    nickname with hysterical Glee

    WHY

    @ tS?

    why?

  30. Trashista muy bonita!

    https://apnews.com/article/trump-columbia-student-protests-jan-6-9b1a2849daf18a4362f5ee91a9bf2057

    https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-jan-6-pardons-2024-campaign-2401ead35cb1402a7b289c2c99761373

    An announcer asked the crowd to please rise “for the horribly and unfairly treated January 6th hostages.” And people did, and sang along.

    “They were unbelievable patriots,” Trump said as the recording ended.

    “Madam Chairwoman, my constituents demand answers, but the

    truth is being censored and covered up. As a result, the DOJ is harassing peaceful patriots across the country. Without

    accurate answers, conspiracies continue to form” – Rep Gosar. AZ (R). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-117hhrg44570/html/CHRG-117hhrg44570.htm

    https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/paul-gosar-newsletter-antisemtic-racist-pro-hitler-website-links-1234794315/

    “It’s almost like Jan. 6 is baked into the electorate on the far right. When they see Jan. 6, they automatically think peaceful patriots being persecuted as political prisoners,” said Denver Riggleman, a former Republican congressman and senior technical adviser for the House select committee that investigated the attack. “It normalizes violence as an acceptable method for political disagreement. In effect, it endorses domestic terrorism. Not to mention that January 6th is a case study in radicalization and actions based completely on fantasy.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/01/06/jan-6-prisoners-supporters/

    https://youtu.be/XA6x_BQrCI4?feature=shared

    Rep. Don Bacon calls 1/6 protestors Patriots

    https://dccc.org/don-bacon-defends-gop-candidates-at-capitol-during-deadly-january-6-insurrection/

    https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2024/05/08/nebraska-u-s-rep-bacon-seeks-to-censure-minnesota-rep-omar-over-antisemitic-rhetoric/

    “We’re ashamed of nothing,” said GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida during an appearance with Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on a podcast hosted by former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, who has been indicted for defying a subpoena from the House committee investigating the insurrection. “We’re proud of the work that we did on Jan. 6 to make legitimate arguments about election integrity.”

    Greene slammed Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, another potential 2024 contender, for having characterized the anniversary as an event marking “a violent terrorist attack on the Capitol” Wednesday.

    She accused Cruz of disrespecting “MAGA patriots” and “people that rioted at the Capitol and did breach the Capitol.”

    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/one-year-ago-republicans-condemned-jan-6-insurrection-yesterday-their-response-was-far-more-muted

    Polling released last year by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, conducted by YouGov, shows that about 1 in 6 Americans think that “patriot” is a good descriptor for those who participated in the events at the Capitol, with that number jumping to 3 in 10 among Republicans.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/05/trump-desantis-jan6-patriotism/

    Josh Hawley demands the National Guard be sent to Columbia to break up the protests after fist bumping the Jan 6th rioters and then running from them like a scrub.

    https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/22/columbia-new-york-troops-00153651

    Tucker Carlson and various other MAGA loyalists rebranded January 6th rioters as peaceful sightseers who revered the capitol.

    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fox-news-star-tucker-carlson-ramps-up-jan-6-lies-with-footage-provided-by-house-republicans

    The list goes on and on and on, but there’s a cursory Google search with non paywall sources you could just as easily do yourself. But since you are either too lazy to do your own fact checking or have been living on the moon in the past three and a half years, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.

    Not that you will take these sources and citations in good faith anyway. Everybody knows what happened on January 6th and that it’s the same scumbags who enabled that insurrenction attempt and then tried to whitewash it in history who are the most vocal about antisemitism and cracking down on college protests. They elected Trump as their candidate for Ford’s sake!

  32. @39, @40: So, your point is Republicans are horrible people? It took you three tries to come up with evidence for that stunningly original proposition?

  33. “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

    – John F Kennedy

  34. @41. No, my point was to qualify my earlier claims with evidence that I cited, which you requested. My claim is that the far right is projecting their antisemitism to discredit the protestors and uphold a double standard that permits the ingroup to freely espouse antisemitic rhetoric while cracking down on the college protestors in order to their project their antisemitism as a political ploy. Their concern and posturing is merely ceremonial and self-serving. I have provided evidence to that end.

    Believe it or not, I do not believe all Republicans are horrible people. However, their insistence on legislating their morality makes them dangerous to democracy, and I believe the people they elect to high office are willing to destroy this country and subvert the Constitution and separation of powers for total control.

  35. @43: Um, ok. Perhaps I just expect the far right to play in the traffic at the intersection of Stupid and Crazy. But, who cares about the “far right” in Seattle? It’s not like they have any influence. I’m far more concerned about eliminationist rhetoric used by pro-Palestinian protesters in places like New York and Seattle, and especially at universities. Such language has no place in civilized discourse, let alone at institutions of higher learning.

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