Following a physical encounter between pro-Palestinian protesters, UNC campus police, and counter-protesters Tuesday afternoon, students learned that the university’s administration closed the Campus Y, the on-campus hub for social activism—only for the university to suddenly announce on Friday the Y is reopening next week on restricted hours.
Not only is the Campus Y a physical space housing 22 student social justice committees, but it contains Meantime Coffee Co., which employs at least 20 students, and the Mutual Aid Pantry, which serves food-insecure students. The Y also has gender-neutral and wheelchair-accessible restrooms.
UNC Media Relations told the INDY via email the initial closure was for “safety reasons” because the building’s doors were repeatedly propped open after-hours against university regulations. An emailed statement to the student body from Student Affairs and Finance and Operations said the university is still cleaning a significant amount of debris and ensuring that hallways, entrances, and exits are clear.
But a statement from Campus Y student leadership disputed both assertions.
“We believe that the partial re-opening of the Y was not a decision made in good faith,” it stated.
Sari Melitte Ghirmay-Morgan, the student co-president of the Campus Y, says there was no trash in the Y, and committees have stored items there for years. Because the administration did not lock down any other buildings and has steadily decreased Y funding annually, Ghirmay-Morgan contends that the closure is “a targeted political move to undercut social justice and undercut all of the Y’s activism.”
The Campus Y was not locked down during two school shootings in Fall 2023, nor when neo-Nazis vandalized the building in Spring 2021.
Ghirmay-Morgan says UNC’s administration is “extremely reticent to give any information.” The Y’s student leaders have been unable to schedule a meeting with Student Affairs, and the staffers were informed of the Y’s reopening minutes before the announcement was made to the entire student body.
The Y’s reopening is partial. In addition to reduced hours, students cannot book Campus Y facilities as the booking portal was removed from the Campus Y website.
“The Y cannot return to business as usual,” Ghirmay-Morgan says. “The administration has made that impossible.”
Ghirmay-Morgan says they think student and community pressure impacted the university’s decision to reopen.
“I’m so grateful for the outcry. I hope that the community continues to tune in, and continues to make sure that Y can be restored to previous operations,” they say.
The Y closure followed the university’s decision to place the campus under Condition Two on Tuesday, after pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested and a noon rally became violent. The university cut short the last day of classes and suspended non-mandatory operations.
At around 6 a.m. that morning, university police removed a pro-Palestinian encampment and arrested 36 protesters. At noon, UNC Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organized another vigil. Hundreds of students headed to the quad.
UNC graduate student and SJP member Zachary Faircloth says protesters came to show solidarity for Palestine and that they would not be intimidated by the arrests.
After marching around the quad several times, protesters climbed barricades erected around Polk Place and replaced an American flag with a Palestinian one.
Shortly thereafter, UNC interim chancellor Lee Roberts arrived on the quad with more than a dozen police officers who reinstated the American flag.
Videos captured by news outlets and shared on social media show police shoving and pushing protesters, pulling a woman’s hair, trapping a wheelchair-user under a metal barricade, and using pepper spray at close-range.
Protesters attempted to remove the American flag a second time, but counter-protesting fraternity brothers held up the flag until police cleared protesters again.
By the evening, facilities staff had once again erected fences around Polk Place.
Faircloth, who was present at the scene, says that police action created “an unhinged and dangerous environment for everybody there.”
In a live interview to WRAL, Roberts condemned the protesters’ actions.
“The broad majority of this campus knows how to express their views without shouting, without violating university policy,” Roberts said. “That flag will stay there as long as I am chancellor.”
UNC English professor Elyse Crystall, the longtime faculty advisor for UNC SJP, says the university prioritized the flag over students.
“We’re outraged at the militarization of campus,” she says. “We’re outraged that this administration would arrest and brutalize and suspend students.”
The emailed statement from the Office of Student Affairs said the protesters’ actions “cannot be tolerated, as they interfere with student learning, safety and well-being, as well as University operations.” The co-signers, vice chancellors Nate Knuffman, Amy Johnson, and George Battle, highlighted reported incidents of antisemitism on campus, including an arson threat against a Jewish fraternity building and antisemitic messages and threats in buildings.
Counter-protester Jared Wasserman, a freshman who held up the Israeli flag at the encampment on Monday, says at times Jewish students have felt unsafe on campus. He says he’s heard protesters calling for an intifada, or an uprising.
Faircloth rejects charges of antisemitism within SJP and says the group did not threaten the UNC chapter of Alpha Epsilon Pi. He notes that the encampment hosted Jewish seders and shabbat alongside Muslim prayers.
Faircloth says students, even those unaffiliated with SJP, are scared of the university’s increased surveillance and police presence.
“The facade that this a campus engaged in constructive dialogue has fallen,” he says.
Chapel Hill town councilor Theodore Nollert, also a graduate student at UNC, says the university’s administration is responsible for Tuesday’s conflict. Other universities, such as Wesleyan, have incorporated peaceful protests, he says, but UNC administrators instead chose to escalate the situation.
“Everything bad that happened on Tuesday occurred downstream of the arrests,” Nollert says.
Professor Emily Rogers, a Duke assistant professor of cultural anthropology, was arrested on Tuesday morning. Police took a cane she uses to walk and shoved her to the ground, she says.
“What we’ve seen around the country is that this brutality is happening with impunity,” she says. “Our campuses have been turned into warzones.”
Meanwhile, a GoFundMe named “Pi Kappa Phi Men Defended their Flag. Throw ’em a Rager” raised $516,672 from 12,000+ donors in three days. The GoFundMe praised the fraternity brothers who held up the American flag Tuesday afternoon, and promised to “to throw a killer party and give to some great charities.”
On X, Guillermo Estrada, a member of UNC Pi Kappa Phi, wrote “It upset me that my country’s flag was disrespected to advocate for another.” Other members of the fraternity declined to speak on the record about the protest or the fundraiser.
Several high profile conservative figures appear to be involved with the GoFundMe. John Noonan, former advisor to Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, organized the event, and Susan Ralston, a former special assistant to President George W. Bush, is the event planner for the funds. Conservative commentator Max Meyer also appeared to be involved, posting on X about the fundraiser and answering media inquiries.
Statements from the National Council of Pi Kappa Phi and the UNC chapter of the fraternity reiterate that neither endorsed the creation of the fundraiser and were not direct beneficiaries. Both said the funds should go to charity.
An update to the GoFundMe page said an independent entity with a board of directors and representation from fraternity organizations was being established to “keep true to the donors’ intent.”
Nollert is critical of the GoFundMe’s party focus and says the third-party organizers could be scamming donors.
“We have a lot of needs around scholarships, food, housing, and poverty,” Nollert says. “We could really be helping people in a way that matters.”
Other GoFundMes and petitions have circulated online since Tuesday. Duke Academics and Staff for Justice in Palestine has raised more than $50,000 in support of UNC encampment arrestees. TransparUNCy, a UNC advocacy group, started a Change.Org petition as a “Vote of No Confidence in Lee Roberts;” as of Sunday, it has more than 4,800 signatures.
As the spring semester draws to a close, Rogers says groups are strategizing about how to maintain momentum. Duke ASJP plans to continue organizing over the summer and researching the university’s relationships to Israel and Palestine.
Crystall says that at UNC, dozens of previously unengaged students and faculty have joined the pro-Palestine movement, and groups are focused on orienting and organizing them.
She predicts increased activity around Palestine in the fall. Faircloth agrees, adding that the onset of summer break isn’t a concern for organizers.
“We won’t stop till universities disclose and divest,” Rogers says. “We won’t stop ‘til all of Palestine is free.”
Katelyn Cai is a Robertson Scholar studying a self-designed major at Duke University and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. She also reports for the City & State desk at the Daily Tar Heel.
Comment on this story at [email protected].
You must be logged in to post a comment.