The United Front for Palestinian Liberation (UF) will voluntarily pack up their encampment at the quad over the weekend after striking a deal with the University of Washington (UW). Administration agreed to evaluate a proposal to divest from Israel through the Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing, be “transparent” and “examine” the University’s relationship with Boeing and other weapons manufacturers, and waive tuition for at least 20 students from Gaza, among other things. It is unclear if protesters reached a consensus on the deal, but no one seems happy.

In a statement, UF said they are “under no illusions that this agreement is a win. The only true win is Palestinian liberation.” 

“Many of our demands remain unfulfilled as the UW has shown clear reluctance to make even the smallest progress towards reducing our complicity in the ongoing genocide in Palestine,” UF said in a press release “The UW has demonstrated its commitment to neoliberal values, war profiteers, and facilitators of oppression over the calls of its students, faculty, and workers. UW would rather maintain the status quo than stand against genocide.”

Given increased hostility from UW President Ana Mari Cauce toward the protesters in the past week, this agreement may be the best deal the students could broker without escalating their tactics, which UW said would cause them to walk away from the bargaining table. 

The UF pitched tents in the Quad on May 1 to establish an encampment, picking up a Gaza solidarity movement launched by students at Columbia, UCLA, and other colleges. The encampment went by several names, including the Liberated Zone and the Popular University for Gaza. 

Students tacked up their list of demands to a canopy: Materially and academically divest from Israel, cut ties with Boeing, and end the repression of pro-Palestinian voices on campus. At the time, organizers said they would not leave until their demands were fully met, even if that meant camping through summer break. 

While conservative media clearly wanted a show, the protesters didn’t take the bait. Instead of engaging with counter-protesters, students and their allies defended their encampment from MAGA-head spillover after the May 7 Charlie Kirk event, and again on May 12 when a bunch of pro-Israel Christians tried and failed to “buzzsaw” through the quad. Aside from some isolated scuffles, protesters stayed relatively peaceful. 

Nevertheless, UW President Ana Mari Cauce seemed to snap on May 15. After the protesters managed to keep their cool under the pressure of the two confrontations, in a public statement Cauce called the graffiti on University buildings an “antisemitic” “escalation.” She did not specify what she considered antisemitic. 

The word “escalation” should sound an alarm for UF. UW admin made it clear that if the students escalated, then they would end negotiations over their demands. Cauce’s statement implicitly threatened just that. 

It would seem that UF only had two main paths at that point: Escalate to put pressure on the admin, even if it meant losing access to sit-down negotiations, or take what they could get at the bargaining table to avoid the consequences that students at other schools saw. 

For a moment, it looked as if UF wanted to keep the encampment alive. The group started sharing more details about their negotiations with UW, which they had previously kept private so as to not jeopardize a potential deal. They even revealed how uncompromising the UW had been, showing their demands next to admin’s measly offers. 

It is unclear what changed in the last two days, but in a May 17 press release, UF struck a more positive tone, highlighting the places where UW did concede:

  • Representation on Divestment Committee: “Advance two representatives recommended by this group to serve on the ACSRI for Board of Regents consideration.”

  • Scholarships for Gazans: “UW will waive tuition for at least 20 displaced Palestinian students from Gaza, and commits to fundraising to cover additional costs for these students.”

  • Academic Boycott: “UW will establish a faculty committee to recommend and solicit changes to study abroad programs, that exclude participation from students from specific countries or communities, including Palestinian or other Arab students.”

  • Center for Scholarship of Palestine: “On the recommendation of this committee and the corresponding Deans, the Provost will commit seed funding to accelerate a hiring plan (e.g. cluster hiring) beginning in fall 2025 to build thematic strength as a foundation to pursue faculty-led future fundraising, grant applications, and/or organized research or study units.”

  • Palestinian Universities: “The University’s Office of Global Affairs is prepared to help interested faculty pursue new and renewed academic connection with Palestinian Universities. Efforts will initiate in summer 2024.”

  • Military-Industrial Complex and Ethical Labor Task Force: “The University will be transparent about its investment holdings and fund managers. The University has no direct investments in Boeing, major weapons manufacturers, or companies domiciled in Israel. To the extent there are additional calls to divest from additional companies, we will be transparent about if and how the university is invested in these companies and make available our process for divestment.”

UF maintains they are not satisfied with these concessions. They promise to “contribute to the Palestinian national liberation struggle for years to come until Palestinians can return home, until the olive trees grow and the red poppies bloom.”

UW seems to chalk it up to a win. In a statement from Cauce, she wrote, “I’m pleased to reach this resolution so that our campus can begin to heal – including by coming together for Commencement next month – and so that once again all UW community members, regardless of religion, race or national origin, can live, learn and work without fear.”

The UW agreed to “forgo referrals for citations or conduct violations for camping.” However, the UW will investigate and potential punish “any other violations of law and policy, such as for vandalism, harassment or discrimination.” Cauce said UW “will be closely observing the withdrawal of the encampment, recognizing that there may be individuals, particularly from outside the UW community, who refuse to depart.”

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...

30 replies on “UW Encampment to Disband after Compromise with Administration”

  2. Agreed to evaluate

    Translation: UW will tell these precious snowflakes what they want to hear so that they go away.

    Later after “careful evaluation” the university will quietly announce that it is in the best interest of the university to maintain its close relationship with Boeing. As far as divestment from Israel. Don’t hold your breath.

    Giving free tuition to a couple of students from Gaza is chump change to the school. The equivalent of a participation trophy.

  4. So it was about money, not stopping the “genocide” – how unsurprising. The shakedown is alive and well (at least they dropped the religious exclusivity for the 20 scholarships).

  5. “Students tacked up their list of demands to a canopy: Materially and academically divest from Israel, cut ties with Boeing, and end the repression of pro-Palestinian voices on campus. At the time, organizers said they would not leave until their demands were fully met, even if that meant camping through summer break.”

    None of those will happen*, but the protesters will leave anyway. Victory?

    I’m glad to see this may result in increased educational opportunities at UW for students from Gaza. Travel and study away from home broadens the mind.

    *For all of the times we’ve read their demand for the UW to “end the repression of pro-Palestinian voices on campus,” I’ve never actually read about an example of such repression. It would be difficult for the UW to end something which is not happening.

  6. So they can’t divest because… they weren’t invested in those things in the first place? And the protesters could’ve found this at any time with a public records search?

    Who could’ve guessed that their demands were so poorly thought out?

  7. @6: Actually, the protesters’ demand was to “cut ties with Boeing,” whatever that means. The UW Engineering School has a wind tunnel, donated by Bill Boeing himself a century ago, and of course, UW students interview all the time for internships and permanent positions at Boeing. I doubt any of that was going to change, either.

  11. No outcome is perfect, this one is respectful.

    Thank you for not protesting Clark Hall. It (ROTC) paid many of our tuitions. There are good people there.

    @2 If you are going to use a word like “Snowflake” you better have served. Even then it’s below the uniform you wore.

  19. @22. What could be more insensitive than denying genocide while calling those that compare that to Holocaust denial Holocaust denialists? @20’s comment doesn’t deserve the dignity of any other response than a reflection of how profoundly stupid such a comment is. It’s lazy and pitiful.

    Literally 800,000 people have been forced to flee Rafah, and half the population was already homeless. There are no other places to flee in Gaza. Everyone is in camps and being steadily starved to death but for the aid we are getting in there, but it’s not enough to stave off famine unless at least three times that amount reaches the civilians. I don’t think you can even begin to imagine what it’s like for 800,000 people to camp out and take up every resource. You simply cannot physically put yourself in their place. It’s totally inaccessible to your brain. To be without creature comforts and in desperation and surrounded by bombardment and to have no access to showers, clean clothes, food, and shelter. It’s a concentration camp of millions. But according to bertha all that is bullshit and it’s just another day.

    You guys need to learn some sensitivity. You’re out of your minds.

  20. Garb@24: Yes, what Hamas continues to do to the civilians of Gaza ranks up there with what they did to the civilians of Israel. (The difference of course, being that Hamas’ attack in Israel was actually a genocide.)

    Even you’ve somehow noted that Israel and the United States have started relief of the civilian population in Gaza. How about those Gulf states which fund Hamas? How much food are they sending to ‘Palestine’? Why, it’s just like UNRWA — funded almost entirely by the US and Europe, with loud champions of ‘Palestine’ noticeably absent.

    Please do let us know when an excruciatingly subtle pattern begins to tease at the outermost limits of your perspicacity.

  22. @27: Yeah, anyone who dares disagree with you is simply a ‘bot’ for Likud. That’s where denial has taken you.

    What’s next — your complaint that the US and Israel won’t allow Hamas to steal the usual amounts from the humanitarian aid supplied to Gaza? How is Hamas supposed to live?!?

  24. @29: “You don’t own adjectives.”

    Phrases and sentences can be copyrighted, dear. And Mrs. Vel-DuRay has turned that sentence into her catchphrase, at least on Slog. You’re blatantly imitating her, after she has explicitly refused permission for you to do so. If this was indeed a legal case, you’d have lost it.

    “The disruptions and damage that Pro-Palestinian protesters are causing this society is horrible.”

    It’s an amusing and slight annoyance, as this comment thread reveals. Meanwhile, Republicans spent fifty years returning poor women to back-alley butchery. Not even close.

  25. @31: Well, obviously, the “CAUCE KILLS BABIES” sign, visible in center-left of the photo up top, won’t help them there. 😉

    As you noted, neither Boeing corporate, nor their unionized workforces, seem likely to tolerate such hatefully intolerant rhetoric on property, so that’s probably not a go for this crowd of protesters. If they go elsewhere in Seattle, they’ll just blend into all of the other destructive encampments, which is also unlikely to please them.

    I’m thinking the allure of a self-congratulatory Summer Break will win them over. Social-media boasting about how hard they struggled with oppressors goes well with poolside, beach bars, and hanging out within air-conditioned spaces.

  27. There’s no valid reason to diss the students a the encampment. It’s entirely just and valid to oppose what Israel is doing in Gaza and the fact that there’s no decent reason for the IOF to inflict any more suffering on innocent Gaza civilians at all, let alone stage a brutal massacre in Rafah(the town Rachel Corrie died defending innocent people’s homes in) when there’s no justification for staging it.

    Levelling Rafah won’t free the hostages- staying in the war was never going to do that- and was never going to produce a BETTER Palestinian leadership- the fact that Hamas superseded the PLO the last time Netanyahu tried to create a new Palestinian leadership proves once and for all that it is impossible for Israel to ever create a better Palestinian leadership by force or by any other coercive means-ans while October 7th should not have happened, it’s not worse than what Israel has done to ordinary Palestinians repeatedly in, at the very least, it started its unjustified occupation of Gaza- which it is trying to re-impose now, though reimposing it can’t have any positive results- and the West Bank after 1967, when it imposed a military occupation that did nothing but make the entire situation worse and it started on its destructive policy of blocking any Palestinian state from ever being created- thus making peace permanently impossible, since, as we all know, peace cannot ever be based on denying Palestinian self-determination and putting any Palestinian leadership in the position of having to sign an unconditional surrender treaty as if Palestine was Imperial Japan in August, 1945.

    How about, oh I don’t know, admitting that 97% of Palestinians are ordinary decent human beings who don’t deserve to be collectively punished for the actions of the 3% who aren’t? And how about admitting it’s not possible to make peace with another national community if you’re going to insist that that national community accept the bogus assumptions that 1) It can never be trusted to conduct itself as a normal, civilized nation and 2) It must be made to concede the lies that the entire conflict is solely its fault, and that it’s only reason for ever fighting was bigotry?

    Tensorna will respond with snark, since that person- what’s with the “a” on the end of the name now? Are they smirking and sneering at trans/non-binary people now for some reason?- seems to be channeling “Scoop” Jackson these days and, had they been an adult and involved in politics in 1968, would probably have been a Hubert Humphrey delegate in Chicago, spent the whole week cheering on the cops as they gave the protesters head injuries in the streets, then screamed at the McCarthy/McGovern/Draft Teddy Kennedy types that they were obligated to back the Humphrey ticket even though the party leadership had spent the entire week treating the overwhelming vote for peace as if it didn’t count and otherwise kicking Peace Democrats in the teeth, sometimes literally as well as figuratively- and then gone on to be a “Democrat for Nixon” in 1972.

    I know the type “tensorna” has turned into. They’ve been around for decades. They’ve done nothing but damage. And they cost the Democratic Party every presidential election it lost between 1968 and 2004.

    Getting back on topic…the encampment was justified, the war is useless and needs to end, and its time to stop killing and start talking. OK?

  28. @34: “There’s no valid reason to diss the students a the encampment.”

    “CAUCE KILLS BABIES”

    “Zionist entity”

    UW Dep’t. For Enforcement of Anti-Zionist Hiring Practices

  29. It would be nice to offer the scholarships for queer Gazans to escape the horrific conditions. It would be a double benefit.

  30. Since the student encampment project turned out to be a total fiasco, accomplishing none of its stated goals, what is one to make of it all? To those who supported it, after plaudits for the brave and virtuous protesters, how to explain its abject failure?

    This is always the fun part, where the explanation will rely solely on the vilification and obstinance of those powers that refused to yield to demands. The protesters, by contrast, will be remembered as angelic, heroic change agents who were perfect in thought, word and deed.

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