Unsettling the Land
University students fight displacement and occupation, from South Central to Palestine
On the morning of Wednesday, April 24th, I sat on a bench in Alumni Park—a park centrally located on the main campus of the University of Southern California—and watched as students began pitching camping tents on the lawn. Along the perimeter of the park hung Palestinian flags, accompanied by a hand-painted list of demands and signs that read “Liberated Zone,” “Jews for a free Palestine,” and “there are no universities left in Gaza.” The Gaza Solidarity Occupation, organized by the USC Divest from Death Coalition, was constructed exactly one week after students at Columbia University launched a Gaza Solidarity Encampment on Columbia’s South Lawn. These solidarity camps, of which there are now hundreds across the U.S. and the world, are demanding that their universities divest from companies complicit in Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestine and infliction of genocide1 on Palestinians in Gaza.