Wake Forest University students camp out at Wait Chapel in Pro-Palestinian protest

Update 3:50 p.m.

The university reached a written agreement with protesters Wednesday morning, signed by Dean of Students Matt Clifford, Provost Michele Gillespie, and Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion José Villalba. 

It’s essentially a list of commitments, including weekly meetings between the students and Wake Forest University officials through the Fall. Organizers will also meet with President Susan Wente before May 10. 

The document also states that students can continue to protest with tents on Manchester Plaza B, but can’t sleep in them or make loud noises after 10 p.m.

Update 9:41 a.m. 

Wake Forest University officials and protesters have reached a tentative agreement and are moving the encampment to another location on campus.

Update 9:30 a.m.: Encampment participants are moving tents and other materials to Manchester Plaza. A tentative written agreement has been reached, according to participant Hasan Pyarali.

— Old Gold & Black (@wfuogb) May 1, 2024

A pro-Palestine protest began on Wake Forest University’s campus Tuesday afternoon, and evolved into an encampment overnight that is still ongoing. 

The demonstration started around 4:30 p.m. with a few dozen students, part of a group known as Free Palestine WFU. They gathered on the lawn outside of Wait Chapel holding signs that read “Free Palestine,” and “Stop Funding Genocide,” and calling upon the university to divest from companies that financially support Israel. 

The protest coincided with the university’s annual Commemoration of the Enslaved event which honors the enslaved individuals who helped build, or were sold by, the university. 

Protest organizer Robin, who was only comfortable sharing her first name for fear of consequences to her graduation, said the university’s event was hypocritical. 

“There is no possible way to commemorate the enslaved people that have labored to build this campus without also simultaneously recognizing that there's a legacy of anti-Blackness and genocide from Wake Forest that extends, you know, past the very passive attempts to commemorate the enslaved,” Robin said. “And more specifically, that all those things are directly tied to the genocide of Palestinians.” 

She and other protesters wrote phone numbers down on their arms. Robin said they were prepared for the possibility of being arrested, and expressed concerns that they may be silenced or shut out of classes.

“I don’t feel safe, but also I'm a Black girl at Wake,” Robin said. “So I've never felt safe here.”

About a hundred people on campus watched the protest outside of Wait Chapel, including Mir Yarfitz, an associate professor in the Department of History, who teaches Latin American history and Jewish history. 

He said he supports this kind of free speech and conversation about Palestine on campus, and would like to see the university be more vocal in supporting that as well. 

“And that includes, you know, this kind of political speech, you know, that the university is not going to bring violence against people who are peacefully protesting,” Yarfitz said. “I think that line has really been blurred, and a lot of different institutions have approached that in really different ways.”

Student protests over the Israel-Hamas war have been happening on college campuses across the country. And in North Carolina, a protest at UNC-Chapel Hill led to 30 arrests.

Yarfitz went on to say that Black and brown students tend to be seen as “threats,” when white students are not. 

“Or students who are criticizing Israel are seen as threats, while students who say, ‘Well, I feel scared, hurt, offended by any critique of Israel, that hurts me.’ Those students are much more often protected and have far more resources devoted to protecting them, protecting their feelings,” Yarfitz said. “I think there can really be some confusion around, again, ‘Am I unsafe, or am I uncomfortable?’ Those are not the same.”

In a statement provided to WFDD from Wake Forest University around 6 p.m. on Tuesday, officials called the student demonstration peaceful. 

“The university values and upholds its commitment to free expression and affirms the right to openly dissent and to speak, write, listen, challenge, protest and learn,” officials said. 

But according to reporting from Wake’s student newspaper, the Old Gold & Black, administrators met with protesters in encampments around 4 a.m. and said they must leave by 7 a.m.

This is a developing story.