Hundreds of Brown University students walked out of classes Wednesday, shouting “Our existence is resistance,” and “Whose campus? Our campus.”
The protest was one of many popping up on college campuses across the nation, in the wake of Republican Donald Trump’s election as president.
At the University of Rhode Island, students and some faculty held a demonstration earlier this week. At Brown, demonstrators called for the school to provide safe harbor for undocumented immigrants and minority groups who report feeling unsafe after the election.
“This is not necessarily an anti-Trump protest,” said Adam Epstein, a graduate student in Brown’s American Studies program. “It is a call for Brown to step up and be a sanctuary campus for undocumented people, for historically marginalized groups to feel comfortable.”
A group of students and faculty have asked Brown President Christina Paxson to sign off on a list of demands, including making the school a so-called “sanctuary campus.”
University leaders were off-campus at the time of Wednesday’s protest, so the demonstration ended with a sharing circle where students discussed what they would do personally to help immigrants and minority students feel safe.
Like many college campuses, tensions have surfaced at Brown following the election. Last week, the organizers of a Veteran’s Day celebration reported flags had been removed from the lawn, some were later discovered torn from their stakes and left on the ground. Brown President Christina Paxson condemned the vandalism, which was apparently perpetrated by a group of Brown students.
“The investigation of this incident indicates that the vandalism was the work of a small number of Brown students acting individually,” Paxson said in a written statement. “Although Brown’s policy is to keep the results of disciplinary matters confidential, I want to be very clear that these acts of vandalism are a violation of Brown’s Code of Student Conduct, and students found responsible for code violations are subject to sanctions.”