An event held last week sought to renew on-campus conversations about Palestine and to remember the events of the April 27 , 2024 demonstration during which more than 100 protestors were arrested. (Isabella Diaz-Mira | Photo Editor)

Last week, three students and two faculty members recounted their experiences of the April 27 pro-Palestine protest and attempted encampment in the first event explicitly related to remembering the events of April 27 since they took place over a year and a half ago. The teach-in responded to a declining population of WashU students who were present during the demonstration — during which 23 students and four faculty members were arrested — and also raised money for Palestinian families.  

In the aftermath of the protest, WashU’s administration faced criticism for its significant police response, the violent nature of arrests, and its treatment of arrested students and faculty in the days and months after the encampment. 

Following the demonstration, Chancellor Andrew D. Martin defended the disbandment of the encampment and arrests of protesters, writing that protestors came with the intent to disrupt and do harm to campus life and educational activities.

“They did not leave voluntarily, so we made the decision to peaceably remove them,” he wrote in a statement on April 29, 2024. “Unfortunately, they physically resisted.” 

Some protestors, including senior Sonal Churiwal, believe that Martin’s statements were not representative of the situation. She said that she helped to organize the “Oral histories of the 2024 Encampment for Palestine” teach-in to remember the events of April 27 aside from administrative statements. Organizers requested that the content of the stories shared during the event remain private.     

“Events like this are crucial, because people need to know that while we were peacefully eating and singing and telling stories, WashU police and five other police departments were the ones prepping tear gas,” Churiwal said in an interview after the event. “That’s the story that people need to know, and that’s the story that WashU has worked so hard to conceal, and that’s why we need to preserve this political memory.”

Undergraduate and graduate students who were not attending WashU in April 2024 were among the about 40 people, both in person and on Zoom, who attended the teach-in. Bobby Huggins, a Ph.D. student studying computer science, was not at WashU at the time of the encampment.

“There [was] a lot of emotion in that room when people were recounting what it was like to be there,” Huggins said. “To see that people still care about speaking up about this and helping others, I find that really moving.”

Senior Natalia León Díaz was present at the April 27 demonstration and acted as a police liaison for the assembled protestors. She stated that police ignored her attempts at communication about the lawfulness of the demonstrators’ actions and then began arrests without explaining their reasons. 

“I feel like that left a permanent wound in a lot of us,” León-Díaz said in an interview following the teach-in. “I know it did for me. I would characterize it as traumatic even, and sitting down today, it was helpful for me to come to terms with what had happened and remember that those wounds were still there.”

At the teach-in, some of the speakers testified to the physicality they experienced while being arrested, while also saying that they did not regret being detained. Subratha Araselvan is a senior who attended the teach-in.

WUPD and surrounding police departments detaining protestors on April 27, 2024. (Alan Zhou | Student Life)“People experienced physical violence by WUPD, the group that administrators say are supposed to protect us, and then that’s a very chilling effect on campus,” Araselvan said. “It’s not like people stop caring, or people stop speaking about it, but we were made to stop speaking about it, we were made to be silenced.”

Even as protesting activity has dwindled on WashU’s campus, Israeli attacks on Gaza have continued. Although a cease-fire has been negotiated, recent escalations have called the ceasefire into question. Jerry Liao, a senior who helped organize the teach-in, believes that conversations around Gaza should move beyond private conversations, especially for those who were not on campus during the protests. 

“We feel like this sort of discourse around it has really died down [in] the larger public space,” Liao said. “So we want to bring that back to light, and to make sure that the new students here who were not on campus for the encampment learn about it and hear about the kind of history of activism here on this campus.”

There have been no major protests since April 27 on campus, aside from an October protest responding in part to the Chancellor’s consideration of signing President Donald Trump’s higher education compact.

“I think there is something that comes with being on campus on April 27 … that does something to your brain chemistry, that you don’t forget it,” Araselvan said. “And I think right now, in 2025, there’s two years of students who have experienced that, and kind of been politicized by that, but then there are two years of students who have not experienced that.”

Sophomore Malaya Cruz-Hubbard did not attend WashU at the time of the encampment.

“I do want to continue this memory,” Cruz-Hubbard said in an interview after the event. “I know that I have a lot of friends who couldn’t make it tonight to the event, and so I know there will be more interest and I just want to spread the word and genuinely create community around this issue.”

The event raised over $800 in mutual aid for Palestinian families, exceeding the $500 goal set by organizers. Donations contributed to food, water, shelter, and other supplies for two Palestinian families in Gaza: the 23 members in the AbuHelou family and Ghazi’s family of seven. Churiwal said that recent flooding in the Gaza region has damaged tents and other infrastructure Palestinians had built following Israeli attacks.  

“First and foremost, this event started as an effort for us to stand in solidarity with Palestinians and raise money for mutual aid for Palestinians who have been displaced forcibly to Gaza,” Churiwal said of the impetus for the event. 

A follow-up fundraiser, a winter market for Palestine, is being held at the World Community Center from 1 to 4 p.m. on Dec. 6. Donated items will be sold to benefit Palestinian and Sudanese families. 

Churiwal reframed the conversation from focusing on the impacts of the encampment toward the continuation of violence in Palestine.   

“All of the energy that we put into the encampment, or the pain that we experienced from it, is incomparable to what people living under occupation are facing,” she said. “We need to continue getting funds to Palestine so they can get through the winter months, and [if] our tax dollars are supporting this genocide, the least we can do is fundraise for Palestinians.” 

Editor’s Note: This article was updated at 8:50 pm on Dec. 3rd, 2025 to account for copy changes.