Half a dozen tents at various stages of assembly covered a portion of the lawn at Jefferson Square on the University of Mary Washington’s campus Friday morning.
But Amirah Ahmed and a handful of supporters weren’t setting up camp for leisure.
Ahmed, a UMW junior and president of the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine organization, explained that the encampment — which she says will remain up until the end of UMW’s semester on May 4 — was being erected in solidarity with protest movements unfolding on college campuses across the country.
“We’re doing a UMW version of that,” Ahmed said. “It’s going to be a little more of a sit-in style. Obviously, we don’t have Columbia numbers, USC, etc.”
When a Free Press reporter visited the encampment around 10 a.m., a cardboard scrap with black, white, green and red paints — the colors of the Palestinian flag — was being used as a palette to paint the tents with messages like, “liberated zone.”
A demonstrator paints a Palestinian flag on a tent as part of an encampment in Jefferson Square. (Photo by Joey LoMonaco)
Ahmed said that the SJP reserved the square under the name of its club, and that she expects it to be occupied 24/7 by SJP’s approximately 100 members.
“Any time I’m not at work or sleeping, I’ll be here,” she said. “It’s finals week, so I’ll be writing papers in these tents.”
Ahmed said she envisions the encampment as an “educational hub” that will furnish zines and booklets where “people can learn what’s going on” in Gaza. There will also be opportunities to donate to bail funds supporting campus protests nationally.
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, in the area for a meeting at the Rappahannock Regional Criminal Justice Academy, said the rights of protesters have to be balanced with officials’ ability to uphold the law.
“I think that, you know, people have a right to protest, but when they are shutting down universities, and if they’re breaking the law, the law needs to be enforced,” said Warner, D-Va.
Emails to two members of UMW’s public relations team seeking comment from the administration were not immediately addressed on Friday. An officer who answered a call at the UMW police department on Friday morning directed a Free Press reporter to leave a voicemail with Chief Michael Hall.
That voicemail was not immediately returned.
But as Ahmed spoke to a reporter, one of her companions —an activist who identified himself only as Charles — pointed across the lawn to Campus Drive, where police officers were clearly observing the encampment.
“There’s four of them now,” he said. “All the cops hanging out over there. Just keep an eye out.”
It would prove an ominous observation.
At 4:30 p.m., Ahmed said she and other students were summoned to a meeting with Juliette Landphair, UMW’s vice president of student affairs, at George Washington Hall. During the meeting, which Ahmed wasn’t permitted to record, she said Landphair told the SJP representatives that the encampment was now being considered a “prohibited expressive activity,” and if the tents were not gone by 8:30 p.m., “what happens, happens.”
“This is not just something that’s going to go away,” Ahmed said of the protest movement. “There’s generations of us who are going to continue this when I’m gone.”
(Freelance reporter Jonathan Hunley contributed to this story).
