Eight Dartmouth students are going on a hunger strike, in part to demand more support for Palestinian students amid a growing death toll in Gaza.
"We will starve for Palestine and campus justice," the protestors wrote in a public letter.
The protestors identified four main demands for school leaders, including divestment from organizations that support Israel and a commitment to review another detailed set of policy goals, dubbed the Dartmouth New Deal.
They also want Dartmouth administrators to ask law enforcement to drop criminal charges against two students who were arrested during another on campus protest in October.
Roan Wade, one of the students who was arrested, said the administration's handling of that incident goes against its public pledges to support students' rights to free expression.
“As U.S. citizens, this is something we can go through," Wade said. "But for a large swathe of campus who are international students who are undocumented students they now feel like they cannot engage to the same extent in protest."
The students engaging in the hunger strike are also asking for the school to more publicly acknowledge and support Palestinian students' presence on campus.
Ramsey Alsheikh, who is participating in the protest, said he’s been alarmed by the administration’s silence regarding attacks against Palestinian people on and off campus, including when three college students were shot in Vermont last fall.
“Many Palestinian Muslim students were feeling extremely unsafe,” Alsheikh said. “We needed the administration to do something. They refused to send out a statement.”
A Dartmouth spokesperson said that the school supports the student's rights to free speech, including protesting, and will have medical supervision on site for their strike.
