A student-led and organized rally held as a part of an all-day sit-in in support of Palestinians and recognizing Nakba Day drew approximately 80 people, including students, community members, and faculty to the entrance to Trent’s West Bank off of Nassau Mills Rd. on Wednesday.

The sit-in was scheduled for May 15th specifically in order to recognize the 76th anniversary of Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948 which is known as the Nakba, or “Catastrophe” in Palestine.

While university security delivered portable toilets and garbage cans earlier in the day, according to a media spokesperson for Students4Palestine Trent, Jo Woods, there had been no communication between university administrators and the organizers of the day’s events.

One member of the public noted that the gesture seemed “like an invitation to stay”—though reportedly at this point there are no plans for a permanent encampment to be erected at Trent, according to Woods.

The sit-in and rally occured the same day as a request for an injunction against the encampment at McGill University in Montreal was rejected by a Quebec Superior Court Judge on May 15th.

According to reporting by the CBC, Justice Marc St-Pierre determined that the university had not been able to justify the urgency behind their need to dismantle the encampment and that McGill had also already taken steps to move its convocation ceremonies as a result of the ongoing encampment.

When asked by Arthur if Students4Palestine Trent had any response to President Leo Groarke’s statement to the Board of Governors on May 10th regarding ongoing student protests, Woods said that the statement “did not address anything” and did not meet any of their demands.

Groarke’s statement has been published in full at the end of this article. At the time of publication, reporting in Arthur and the Peterborough Examiner remains the only public record of Groarke’s statement.    

Like the many protests and encampments occurring across Canada and around the world, students are demanding that the university disclose and divest from investments aligned with or supporting the Israeli government and military.

“We cannot accept Trent University as an idle bystander of this horrific offense against scholarship and humanity,” the organization’s open call to accountability reads. “The act of complicity is not solely defined by direct involvement in crimes, but also in the failure to act when there is a capacity to influence the situation.”

Last week, Groarke told the Board of Governors in a short statement that “in these complex and difficult times, we remain committed to providing a safe and positive campus experience for students, faculty, staff, alumni, and visitors in an environment that is free from violence, harassment.”

Groarke’s statement also did not specifically name Israel or Palestine, and instead expressed “empathy for all who have been affected by the current violence in the Middle East.”

A May 16th press release outlining the recent Board of Governors meeting makes no mention of Groarke’s statement or the university administration’s views on ongoing pro-Palestinian encampments.

The release does, however, provide an overview of a presentation by Trent’s director of Co-op, Careers, and Experiential Learning, Kevin Whitmore on the success of Careerspace’s 28 new paid co-op streams.

Notably, Trent publicly acknowledges aerospace and defence manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, as one of the employers who Trent co-op students have worked for. In July of 2023, the company agreed to a $3 billion deal to provide the Israel with 25 F-35 stealth fighter jets.

The all-day sit-in on May 15th, which ran from 8:00 AM–8:00 PM, was supported by a number of groups including Faculty4Palestine Trent, which identifies itself as “an anti-colonial, anti-racist group of Faculty at Trent University dedicated to advancing the Palestinian struggle for liberation.

In a May 15th press release the group notes “we consider it our moral obligation to speak out against the ongoing scholasticide in Gaza, which has reduced each of Gaza’s twelve universities to rubble as part of a concerted effort to destroy the Palestinian education system.”

During the afternoon rally which began at 3:30, Trent professor Feyzi Baban spoke to the impact and realities of how the genocide unfolding in Palestine is aligned with the systematic destruction of educational institutions—a process known as scholasticide which is defined by scholars as the deliberate targeting of schools, libraries, archives, and historic sites with the intent to destroy a society’s ability to share and gain knowledge. 

“Israel is intentionally targeting every aspect of life in Gaza,” Prof. Baban said. “As schools are destroyed, so are hopes and dreams.”

Another Trent professor and chair of international development studies, Prof. Chris Beyers, reminded the crowd that Trent has “a long history of student activism” and that the idea that “students are not capable of rational political action” is part of a familiar dismissal which “appeals to reason and respectability.”  

Indeed, Prof. Beyers continued, stating that “being pro-Palestine…means being pro a group of people who are being slaughtered” and encouraged protestors as they continue “standing up for humanity against inhumanity.”

“Reclaim the word peace,” Prof. Beyers concluded.

Stephanie Benn, an elementary school teacher and member of the Coalition to Prevent Genocide in Gaza—a group who has been involved in weekly pickets outside of Peterborough City Hall and silent protested in Council Chambers on Monday evenings since December—-thanked the students who had organized the sit-in and rally on this day. 

“You have elevated all of our voices,” she said. “You’re on the right side of history. I don’t think there has ever been a student protest movement that’s ever been on the wrong side of history.”

The final speaker was a member of Students4Palestine Trent who read the group’s call to accountability for Trent verbatim but did not wish to share their name with reporters.

President Leo Groarke’s statement on pro-Palestinian campus encampments, delivered during a May 10th Trent Board of Governors meeting:

“Today, we think it is important to open our board meeting with a comment on the current troubles in the Middle East and the protests at universities in the US, Canada, now Ontario, and indeed, around the world. We want to begin by expressing our empathy for all who have been affected by the current violence in the Middle East. We remain hopeful for a ceasefire endorsed by both sides, and for peace and prosperity [indecipherable]. At Trent, we take freedom of expression and the free exchange of ideas as pillars of our academic mission, and key elements of functioning democratic society. Peaceful non-violent protest, free from hate speech and intimidation, is a key element of those. In these complex and difficult times, we remain committed to providing a safe and positive campus experience for students, faculty, staff, alumni, and visitors in an environment that is free from violence, harassment.”

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