Saint Louis University’s Department of Public Safety temporarily detained and then released three pro-Palestine students protesting and blocking the front entrance of Pius XII Memorial Library around 8 p.m. Oct. 17.
Pro-Palestinian protestors, including students and nonstudents, called on Saint Louis University (SLU) to disclose their financial investments and stop accepting donations from Boeing, an airplane manufacturing company that has built bombs and munitions used by Israel against civilians in Gaza.
OccupySLU, a student activist group not affiliated with SLU, shared an Instagram post around 6 p.m. the day of the protest with an “Emergency Call to Action.” The group listed several demands, including “the immediate disclosure of all institutions in which our university is invested and those that invest in our university” and “an academic and university-wide boycott of all study abroad programs in Israel.”
Samiha Khan, a member of OccupySLU, who was protesting, explained that she joined the demonstration to protest the ongoing conflict in Gaza and SLU’s ties to Boeing.
“The intention was to ask the university to divest as well as ask the university to shut down any operations in Israel, including study abroad trips,” Khan said.
Khan also said organizers planned the protest to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Occupy SLU movement, a six-day long occupation of the clock tower that followed the police killings of two young African Americans, Michael Brown and VonDerrit Myers Sr., in 2014.
The protest was split into two groups, one outside and the other inside the library. Both attempted to block the library’s main front entrance from either side. The group outside the front entrance consisted of about 20 protestors who chanted and held signs with messages such as, “This is a peaceful protest against U.S. funded genocide.”
Inside the library, protestors locked arms, sat near and blocked the front check-in gate. The group was chanting for SLU to disclose its financial investments and calling for a ceasefire. They also repeated the chant, “Who would Jesus bomb?”
At the beginning of the protest, DPS officers were stationed around the students, ensuring they did not cross too far from the entrance and impede foot traffic. After the first hour, around 7:15 p.m., more officers arrived at the scene with a bag of white cable ties.
The group outside began to disperse around 7:30 p.m., after DPS officers told them they had to leave, or they would be arrested and potentially expelled.
At around 7:55 p.m., officers began asking protestors inside the library to leave and stop blocking the entrance. After they refused, DPS lifted the protestors who were sitting down and locking arms, and cable tied them. After another student refused to move, she was lifted from the group, forced face down and then placed in handcuffs.
Three protesters were placed in restraints and were dragged through the library to the side entrance, with the rest following freely behind, continuing to chant and record the incident. An altercation nearly occurred at the exit, where protestors and DPS officers started to argue with one another, but they proceeded to de-escalate and leave the library.
At around 8:10 p.m., DPS finished removing all protesters. No students were allowed to enter from the library’s back entrance for about the next half hour without SLU ID badges. At the front entrance facing West Pine Boulevard, DPS did not allow anyone to enter, even with student badges. At this point, the protestors ended the demonstration.
Reactions to the protest were mixed. Some believed midterms week was the perfect time to have a protest, bringing the most attention to the group’s message. Sophomore Zach Foder said “It made sense to protest now … [midterms] gives their cause exposure.”
Others were less keen on the timing, finding the protest more disruptive than helpful.
“I’m all for protesting, but doing it now, during a week of heavy stress and busy tests, will only alienate more people,” junior Ashley Johnson said, a student who was in the library at the start of the protest.
Matt Goodwin, interim vice president of student development, was in attendance at the protest along with DPS officers, and said he was called in after the protestors refused to voluntarily leave.
“I feel strongly that students should have an ability to express themselves,” Goodwin said. “But when that expression negatively impacts other students… that becomes a concern for me,” referencing the issues some had with the protest taking place in the library.
The following morning, Oct. 18, at least five flyers with anti-Muslim messages were posted at or near SLU’s campus. Several students said they reported the flyers to SLU’s Title IX office.
In a statement posted to Instagram, SLU’S Muslim Student Association wrote they are in contact with administration, adding that “messages like these filled with blatant Islamophobia and targeted toward Muslims are clearly unacceptable.”
The UNews altered the headline of this article from “OccupySLU anti-genocide protest at Pius Library ends with temporary arrests and brush-in with DPS,” to “DPS temporarily detains students at anti-genocide protest in Pius XII Library,” on Nov. 12, 2024.
