Ellie Park, Photography Editor

In the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and Israel’s retaliatory war in Gaza, members of the Yale community took to public spaces on campus to stage walkouts, teach-ins, vigils and other demonstrations to voice their losses, political opinions and stances. 

During the fall 2023 semester, the Yale and New Haven communities reckoned with grief, dissent and social tensions on campus heightened between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian students. 

By the end of the spring 2024 semester, the issue of divestment from weapons took center stage in both campus and national discourse, culminating in two encampments and over 50 arrests at Yale, including 46 students. 

As the next academic year ushers in a newly appointed University president, a new class of students and a possible continuation of student demonstrations, the News has compiled a timeline of protests from one of the most tumultuous periods in Yale’s recent history.

Tensions build between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian students throughout fall semester.

On Oct. 10, around 400 people from the Yale community gathered at the Women’s Table to mourn the victims of Hamas’ attack as well as hold space for Yale students whose loved ones were involved in the Israeli military forces or were taken hostage. Mourning continued on Oct. 11, when Yale community members organized a vigil on the New Haven Green to honor lives lost in both Israel and Gaza and to “acknowledge Israeli apartheid,” according to a flyer for the event.

In the weeks that followed, groups such as Yalies4Palestine, Yale Jews for Ceasefire and the Endowment Justice Collective — formerly known as the Endowment Justice Coalition — began to organize pro-Palestinian demonstrations. The first large-scale protest on campus took place on Oct. 25 when over 100 students walked out of classes and rallied on Cross Campus to demand a ceasefire and institutional divestment from weapons manufacturing related to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. 

According to the News’ analysis, there is evidence that Yale invests at least $110,000 in military weapons manufacturers, though it is difficult to determine the full extent to which the University has financial holdings tied to weapons manufacturers. The University publicly discloses less than 0.3 percent of its total $40.7 billion endowment. 

On Nov. 2, former University President Peter Salovey told the News that the University’s Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility began a review of its policy regarding weapons manufacturing and weapons retail investments in the previous academic year.

On the morning of Nov. 16, a “doxxing truck” drove around the Yale campus with billboards displaying photos and names of at least six Yale students under the title “Yale’s Leading Antisemites.” The truck, sponsored by a conservative group known as Accuracy in Media, was part of a “Campus Accountability Campaign” that also targeted students at other Ivy League universities, including Harvard University on Oct. 11 and Columbia University on Oct. 25. 

Days later, on Nov. 18, during the annual Yale-Harvard football game, students and alumni from both schools waved Palestinian flags and pro-Palestinian posters while chanting in support of a ceasefire and against their respective universities’ weapons investments. 

Other members of the audience displayed flags and signs in support of Israel, with one sign reading, “Exchange each hostage for 100 pro-Hamas Harvard students & faculty.”

On Dec. 1, demonstrators taped a 60-foot banner to the front door of Woodbridge Hall. The banner, which read “Yale Corp Divest From Weapons,” listed the names of thousands of Palestinians who have been killed in Israel’s war in Gaza. An administrator later allowed another student to remove the banner and cited “administrative errors” in its removal. 

Mass divestment protests shake campus — and the nation — during spring semester.

During the spring 2024 semester, protesters zeroed in on Yale’s investments in military weapons manufacturers. 

On Feb. 16, the Endowment Justice Collective led a cross-coalition protest with over 200 participants as Yale Corporation convened for its first spring semester meeting. 

“The coalition that organized this action is unprecedented in the campus organizing around both Palestine and weapons divestment thus far,” Naina Agrawal-Hardin ’25, an organizer for EJC, told the News. 

At least 29 other organizations across Yale, New Haven and Connecticut signed onto the EJC’s demands, including Jews for Ceasefire, Yalies4Palestine, Yale Law Students for Justice in Palestine and Yale Graduate Students for Palestine as co-leads of the event.

On April 10, a group of at least 12 Yale graduate students and two undergraduates sent a letter to Salovey threatening to stage a hunger strike if the University did not publicly commit to divestment by the morning of April 12. On the day of the students’ deadline, the University had not published any statements related to their demands, and the group began their strike the next day.

The hunger strike ultimately lasted eight days and ended due to mounting health concerns and a lack of response from the Yale Corporation. 

On April 15, pro-Palestinian students installed a pop-up library and sat on the steps of Schwarzman Center in protest. While University officials disassembled the structure after about an hour, protest organizers announced that they intended to hold a “sustained occupation” of Beinecke Plaza until Yale met their demands for divestment. 

Protesters continued to gather on the plaza from around 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day for the rest of the week. 

On April 17, the University announced that the Yale Corporation would not divest from military weapons manufacturers, as such companies “did not meet the threshold of grave social injury, a prerequisite for divestment.” Members of the Yale community met the decision with mixed reactions. 

On April 19, student protesters escalated their demonstrations as Yale trustees and University officials gathered in Schwarzman Center for a celebratory dinner for Salovey. As many as 400 protesters gathered in Beinecke Plaza and confronted administrators, including Salovey, with expletives and chants at building entrances. 

That night, students erected an encampment of over 27 tents in the plaza, a move met by increased police presence. The encampment remained unmoved, with around 100 students sleeping in Beinecke Plaza overnight.

The encampment lasted throughout the weekend even as administrators threatened arrest and disciplinary action. At the height of the encampment, pro-Israel counterprotesters also held smaller demonstrations in Beinecke Plaza and occasionally clashed verbally with pro-Palestinian protesters, but protests remained largely nonviolent.

Throughout the encampment, pro-Palestinian organizers and administrators met repeatedly to negotiate an end to the protests.

Though administrators offered protesters a meeting with trustees and amnesty of peaceful protesters who left Beinecke Plaza by midnight on April 22, protest organizers reiterated their demands for Yale to disclose its investments. Negotiations reached a standstill and eventually broke down by the night of April 21.

At around 6 a.m. on April 22, Yale Police officers arrested 48 protesters, including 44 Yale students, on Beinecke Plaza for trespassing. As arrested students were driven off the scene in vans and buses, police officers quickly disassembled the tents set up in front of the Schwarzman Center. 

In response to the arrests, more than 250 protesters moved to block the intersection of College Street and Grove Street for almost nine hours later that day. 

Over the next couple of days, protests continued on Cross Campus and inside Sterling Memorial Library on a smaller scale, under a different leadership.

Protests escalated again on April 28, as students erected a second encampment on Cross Campus. 

The second encampment, which protesters called a “liberated zone,” lasted for two nights as negotiations between organizers and University administrators once again broke down. On the morning of April 30, more than 50 New Haven and Yale Police officers moved in to clear out the encampment. The demonstration ultimately dispersed with no arrests.

On the evening of May 1, protesters regrouped in Beinecke Plaza and marched to former University President Peter Salovey’s house on Hillhouse Avenue to continue their demands for divestment. As protesters marched from Salovey’s residence to Yale Police Department headquarters and then to Alexander Walk, Yale Police officers unexpectedly and violently arrested four protesters, including two students.

Though protests largely died down by the end of the semester, student activism has continued over the summer in the form of walkouts at commencement and dissent against University President Maurie McInnis’ new appointment.

The meeting minutes of the Yale Corporation are sealed from the public for 50 years following each meeting.