UConn Divest holds Picnic for Palestine on UCommune’s one-year anniversary 

UConn Divest held a Picnic for Palestine from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday, the one-year anniversary of the UCommune, around Dove Tower. 

A six-day encampment took place around the tower from April 25 to 30, 2024, which was organized by UConn Divest, with the goal of ending the University of Connecticut’s ties to the military industrial complex and the conflict in Gaza. At the encampment, 25 students and one alumnus were arrested. 

The day began with community art, lunch and Jummah, or Friday prayer. 

Nathan Henault, president of UConn’s chapter of Jewish Voices for Peace, discussed the chalk art on the ground around Dove Tower. 

“There’s a lot of really lovely chalk art and signage, which I’m really happy about,” Henault said. “There was a really significant amount produced last year and a lot of it was really beautiful and significant and there’s some in the archive.” 

A UConn archives website states that Henault collected signs and zines that were made at the encampment or brought there, and he gave them to UConn’s archives. 

A community discussion was held to reflect on the encampment and the build-up of students learning more about the conflict in Palestine and activism. 

“So, first I would like to invite folks into conversation about what led up to the encampment, learning more about Palestine, learning more about the occupation of Palestine,” a person told the group. “It came out of such intense – something had to be changed, we needed to tear down those walls.” 

Israel’s aid blockade in Gaza has deprived people of necessities required for survival, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.The Gaza Strip is currently facing the worst humanitarian crisis since Israel’s invasion following the Oct. 7 attack, with 420,000 people displaced with no safe place to go. 

The top employer of UConn students is General Dynamics Electric Boat, with Pratt and Whitney in sixth place, Lockheed Martin in ninth and Raytheon Technologies, a subsidiary of Pratt and Whitney, in tenth place, according to a UConn career website. 

At the encampment, 26 arrests were made, including that of 25 students and one alumnus, according to The Daily Campus. All of the 26 were offered accelerated rehabilitation. 

A Connecticut General Assembly website refers to the program as a “pretrial diversion program,” where people waive their right to a speedy trial. People then enter a period of monitoring by the Office of Adult Probation and if they successfully complete the program, charges against defendants are dismissed and records are erased. If a condition of the program is violated, defendants are brought to trial on original charges. 

Some of the arrested students took accelerated rehabilitation when the offer was made, according to one of the arrested students who asked for anonymity. The rest took it after Donald Trump became president. 

“For me, what ended up happening – we initially wanted to take it to trial, plead not guilty,” the person said. “But because of the Trump administration, we ended up just taking the AR. And the state gave us a one-day accelerated rehabilitation, rather than the six months for those of us who completed it earlier. So, that was in February, those of us who took the AR back in May ended up having to do six months, and they also finished.” 

The website states that when accelerated rehabilitation, it becomes “nonconviction information,” which is not publicly available. 

Henault said that plans for future protests would be contingent on UConn administration’s reaction to the protest. 

“It depends on how the [UConn] administration reacts to this,” Henault said. “Because in the past, they’ve reacted by introducing anti-speech policies like the amplified sound policy, like the large outdoor gathering policy, which unlike last year, is preventing us from erecting tents or even canopies, to create shade or shelter here, regardless of whether or not we plan to stay overnight and we’re not planning to.” 

The student organization status of Yalies4Palestine was revoked by Yale after a protest last Tuesday night, Yale Daily News reported. 

“Jewish Voice for Peace in a lot of universities is revoked alongside SJP,” Henault said. “I think that’s happened at Columbia and some others, so that’s definitely a worry of mine that if the administration makes up things that we did wrong, retroactively, again, like they did last year and they could then revoke our status based on those retroactive rule changes and violations.” 

Another student, who asked for anonymity, described the policy changes as antagonistic to a wide range of campus social movements. 

“Folks have seen the policies following the encampment as really antagonistic towards protest movements and unions,” they said. “Folks are worried about this rule change for the speech of the Palestine movement and for other movements on campus.” 

Deputy university spokesperson Mike Enright said that UConn’s amplified sound policy “applies equally to all events.” 

“It was updated last year (previously, amplified sound was allowed during the noon hour because at the time the policy was established, classes were not held during that time as they are now),” Enright said. “UConn respects the rights of all to gather peacefully to express themselves on any topic of their choosing.” 

An update to UConn’s Amplified and Projected Sound Policy was last approved Aug. 20, 2024 and permits amplified sound between 5 and 10 p.m. 

Henault explained the students’ motives for continuing to protest. 

“We’re out here because there’s a continuing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza and we want to put that back at center stage on campus,” Henault said.