Students Gather for Anti-War Protest in Damen, Call on University to Divest

This story was written by Leen Yassine

Members from various Loyola student organizations gathered in Damen Student Center Feb. 23, calling on the university to financially divest from corporations that fund violence and war in other countries.

The Anti-War Demonstration — which took place Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. — was primarily organized by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a Loyola student group working to educate others about Palestine and life under Israeli occupation.

During the protest, around 20 students passed out brochures and held up flyers with information about SJP’s boycott, divest and sanction (BDS) efforts — a movement working to end financial support towards Israel and its oppression of Palestinians, according to the BDS website. Several other participants displayed flags of countries impacted by U.S. and Israeli violence from the student center’s second floor, alongside a banner reading “War is Death” and “Loyola Divest.”

The demonstration also featured speeches from the group’s president, Dunyah Abulaban, and Loyola Muslim Chaplain Omar Mozzaffer.

“When it comes down to it, it’s whether or not you support war, whether or not you support genocide, whether or not you support apartheid, occupation,” Abulaban, a senior psychology major, told The Phoenix. “That’s what it comes down to. I don’t think anyone can disagree — no one wants war.”

Mozaffer also spoke out in support of BDS.

“At Loyola, we speak so much about social justice,” Mozaffer told The Phoenix. 

“For me, it becomes a contradiction that our university is invested, in whatever capacity, in companies that are war profiteers. … I’m not under any illusions that this is going to change things but it is at least going to draw attention to it, and that’s at least the least we can do.”

SJP lists several companies on the brochures passed out during the protest which it’s calling on Loyola to divest from.

Abulaban said SJP worked with ally organizations on campus to organize Wednesday’s demonstration, including LUC Dissenters, Loyola Alliance of Socialists, Sunrise Movement, Students Organize for Syria, Association for Justice in Kashmir and members of the Muslim Student Association.

This demonstration is the latest organized by SJP over the last year, following multiple protests that gathered thousands of Chicagoans in the city’s streets downtown in May 2021 and an on-campus protest in November 2021.

“A lot of times at Loyola, we’re so disconnected because we feel like it’s so distant,” Abulaban, 21, said. “That’s the reason SJP is here — we’re trying to bridge the gap.”

Organizers and participants also spent the afternoon gathering signatures in support of BDS at Loyola, reaching 250 signatures within an hour, Abulaban said. Over 600 people had signed the petition by the time of publication, according to Abulaban.

“We came in, we said ‘100 is the goal, guys,’” Abulaban said. “Then we realized this is actually something the students want.”

The protest takes place as SJP is taking BDS-related legislation to the Student Government of Loyola Chicago (SGLC) for consideration, Abulaban said.

“SGLC is trying to work the Senate, we have to work the people,” Abulaban said. “We have to inform them of what’s happening. The thing is, at the end of the day it’s our money and we should have a say in where that’s going.”

SGLC President Ella Doyle told The Phoenix she attended SJP’s Anti-War Demonstration as an observer, not as the president of SGLC, and she saw the event as an opportunity to learn.

“I was there to observe, I was there to listen,” Doyle, 21, said. “I was also there as a student — as an Indigenous student learning about land back in other countries, as a student who is studying political science and learning about how conflict happens in other countries. There’s a lot I have to learn as a person, as a student and as a president.”

A BDS piece was passed through SGLC in 2015, Doyle said in an interview with The Phoenix, but it was never taken further to administration for implementation.

A more recent piece of legislation drafted this school year — the Anti-War Initiative (AWI) — encompasses BDS efforts but also addresses broader anti-violence goals, Doyle said. For example, the AWI also focuses on companies that contribute to climate change and environmental destruction.

“This is about more than just one opinion or one take on the military-industrial complex — this is also an issue of sustainability,” Doyle said. “As a university that prides ourselves on our commitment to sustainability, this is something that we should be paying attention to and talking about. So that’s one example of something that’s beyond just BDS that’s still addressed in the AWI.”

The AWI calls on Loyola “to divest from companies that directly fund and aid in the environmental destruction and directed and systemic violence and murder of innocent peoples propagated by the U.S. war industry and military industrial complex,” according to a draft of the legislation shared with The Phoenix.

As SGLC evaluates the AWI and works to gather student support, the draft will likely continue to receive amendments and small changes over the next few weeks.

Featured image by Leen Yassine | The Phoenix