The University of New Mexico is one of many schools around the country where students have set up pro-Palestinian encampments as a form of protest against the ongoing war in Gaza. Campus police had them clear their encampment, but did not send them home Monday night.
By Tuesday afternoon, a few dozen students, alumni and community members were gathered at UNM’s Duck Pond under two tents with tables, signs and camp chairs.
Johanna Chong, a non-traditional, pre-med student, was one of them.
“This was inspired by the divestment campaigns and particularly solidarity encampments at other universities,” she said. She had been at the protest since it began on Monday.
UNM students have held others since the Oct. 7th Hamas-led attack in Israel.
This protest is in step with others around the country. NPR reports students have launched similar actions at more than a dozen schools, from Massachusetts to Michigan to California. Chong said that she found inspiration while following them in the news.
“It was important for me to realize that I could also stand up, and I could be part of the moment as well, and that whatever we are sacrificing in terms the privileges we might have in the future, it’s nothing compared to the genocide,” she said.
Chong said the group here is calling for the university to look into and address any investments it has that benefit Israel or Israeli companies.
“Explain where those investments are going, and then divest from them,” she said.
Andre Montoya-Barthelemy, a faculty member at the School of Medicine, said activists are working on finding that information, but it's no small task.
The group is in contact with students, faculty and activists from outside the university who are working on digging up data about the university’s investments, but they are also calling for more transparency from leadership.
Protestors at a Board of Regents meeting in February called for UNM to emulate its own actions in the 1980s when it divested itself of more than $1 million from companies doing business with the apartheid regime in South Africa.
Campus police arrived Monday night to give protestors notice that having an encampment on campus violates university policy. Those demonstrating agreed to pack up their tents and bedding, but did stay put.
A UNM spokesperson said UNM PD will continue to monitor the situation and manage it in the same way.
Nash Jones contributed reporting to this story.
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