HANOVER, N.H. (WCAX) – As campus protests against Israel and the war in Gaza escalate around the country, students at Dartmouth College say that while the unrest hits close to home, the climate on the Hanover campus has remained respectful so far.
At Dartmouth, first-year student Ben Stevenson has become an activist and organizer with the Palestine Solidarity Coalition. “It simply speaks to the fact that our movement for justice in Palestine, and for climate justice, environmental justice, is growing across the country,” he said.
Two other members of Stevenson’s group were arrested back in October on misdemeanor trespassing charges after they refused to take down a tent they pitched on campus. That led to a brief hunger strike in an attempt to get the charges dropped, which the college declined to do.
“The growth of encampments from Dartmouth to Columbia to Yale to NYU just shows that this an issue in the United States that people care about, are passionate about, and are not going to be silent about.,” Stevenson said.
“We are in America, thank God. Everyone has a right to protest, everyone has a right to voice their opinions, but you shouldn’t do so lightly,” said Ruby Benjamin, a member of Chabad at Dartmouth, a Jewish student group. She has friends who attend Columbia and says the protests there have crossed the line.” When someone is standing in a crowd and yelling at a visibly Jewish student, ‘I want 10,000 more October 7ths,’ that person knows exactly what they are saying. When someone holds up a poster saying ‘Hamas’ next target,’ that person knows exactly what they are doing. They are calling for their peers to be murdered by a terrorist organization,” Benjamin said.
She says she has not seen those threats at Dartmouth and credits the administration for keeping temperatures toned down. She says it is up to other college administrations to do the same. “There should not be an institution in the United States where an ethnic group, a religious group, any group of people cannot feel like they can attend classes or live on campus,” Benjamin said.
Stevenson, on the other hand, objects to the arrests at Dartmouth and elsewhere, but says they are telling. “This crackdown on dissent is simply in response to the growing power to fight for justice and to fight for the world we want to see,” he said.
Students on both sides agree that an open dialog is an important part of moving forward.