At 8:00 AM on the morning of May 15^th, Trent University students, faculty, and community members congregated on the West bank of Trent’s Peterborough campus at the corner of Nassau Mills Rd. And Water St. for a sit-in protest in support of the people of Palestine. 

The date of the protest coincides with Nakba Day, the annual commemoration of the 1948 displacement and ethnic cleansing of more than 700 000 Palestinians in British Mandatory Palestine by Zionist militias who would go on to establish the State of Israel.  

Since then, the term “Nakba” has become a catch-all description of the continual violence to which Palestinians are subjected at the hands of the Israeli State, including the dispossession of Palestinian lands, political repression, and the refusal of Palestinian reguees and immigrants’ right to return. 

Protesters gathered in front of the Trent University sign on 1600 West Bank Dr, draping Palestinian flags across the monument and placing signs which read “Free Palestine,” “All Eyes on Rafah,” and “Trent U Have Blood on Your Hands.”  

The demonstration was organized by Students 4 Palestine Trent(S4P Trent; @s4ptrent) who describe themselves as “Trent University students, alumni, and community members in Peterborough—Nogojiwanong coming together to demand an end to Trent’s silence about and complicity in the genocide in Palestine.” 

"We are here today demanding that Trent University discloses and breaks their silence on the Zionist state's assault on Gaza,” a media liaison for the Nogojiwanong/Peterborough chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine told Arthur. “We are demanding action from a school that preaches free speech and activism, and promoting a better future.” 

“On Indigenous land it’s particularly ironic to be silent about a genocide,” they continued. “We are demanding that stops.” 

The sit-in, scheduled from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM, includes dedicated prayer times for Dhuhr and Asr, as well as community activities, collaborative banner-making, and meals provided to protesters with the support of Food Not Bombs Peterborough. 

A key demand of the protest is the divestment of Trent’s finances from Israeli markets and companies profiting from the ongoing war. 

Since October 7^th, Israeli military incursion into the Gaza strip has killed more than 40 000 Palestinian civilians, an estimated 15 000 of them children. 

“We know that Trent’s faculty’s pension funds are invested in things that are profiting from genocide,” a member of S4P Trent, who wished to remain anonymous, told Arthur. “We want to initiate a conversation with the administration of this university about disclosing in what they're invested in and divesting in anything contributing to this genocide.” 

As of January 1, 2022, current and retired Trent University Faculty participate in the (UPP). As reported by The Varsity in December 2023, the UPP maintains investments in 12 companies on the Canadian Boycott, Divest, Sanctions Coalition’s boycott list, including weapons manufacturers Howmet Aerospace and Safran S.A., whose Candian Electronics & Defense Headquarters are located in Peterborough. 

“We call on you (Trent Administration), to honour the plea of your colleagues in Palestine,” S4P Trent write in an open letter published this morning. A November 29^th statement from representatives of 15 Palestinian post-secondary institutions “urge[s] the international academic community to fulfill its intellectual and academic duty to seek the truth and hold perpetrators of genocide accountable.” 

“The act of complicity is not solely defined by direct involvement with crimes, but also in the failure to act when there is a capcity to influence the situation,” the letter continues. “Silence is not neutral; it is violent and deadly.” 

Student protesters were joined by Trent Faculty members of Faculty4Palestine Trent (F4P Trent; @f4ptrent), an “anti-colonial, anti-racist group dedicated to advancing the Palestinian struggle for liberation.” 

F4P Trent media spokesperson, Dr. Feyzi Baban, Professor in the department of International Development Studies, spoke to Arthur about the role of faculty in student organizing. 

“A great deal of atrocity is happening and the students all around Canada and North America are there protesting and making their voice heard,” said Dr. Baban. “I think it's important for faculty to come out and make their voice heard as well and to support students.” 

Dr. Baban said Trent students’ request for disclosure is a “legitimate demand” and that he hopes the university will comply. 

“Universities are not companies,” he explained. “They're publicly funded institutions, so we all have a right to know where that money is invested and if it's invested in industries that contribute to human suffering and wars.” 

A media statement provided to Arthur by F4P Trent affirms that “Student movements have historically played a pivotal role in dismantling oppressive structures and regimes; in this moment, our students remind us of Trent’s proud history of anti-war protests and anti-apartheid organizing, its commitment to upholding freedom of expression, and its recognition that peaceful protest is integral to a functioning democracy.” 

It continues, “We also 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.” 

The statement concludes that “we call upon our administration to disclose and divest from any associations that would render us complicit as an institution with the ongoing genocide in Gaza.” 

In a statement to Arthur, Trent Communications relayed that “Trent University’s investments are managed on behalf of the University by external investment managers. Alongside the Board’s primary fiduciary responsibility to ensure financial stability and optimal return on investment, Trent and our investment managers believe strongly in Environmental Social Governance (ESG)-driven investing. This is factored into how our investments are managed.” 

They added that, “To our knowledge, there are no direct investments between Trent University and the state of Israel at present.” 

An investigation by Arthur into Trent University’s financial investment could find no direct links to any Israeli companies or weapons manufacturers. 

Also in attendance were Jaidan Charters and Peter Votsch of the International Socialists of Peterborough—Nogojiwanong, who spoke to the importance of labour organizing in support of the Palestinian cause. 

“We have to centre ourselves on [the Palestinian’s] struggles and not look at ourselves to actually win,” said Votsch. “Labour for Palestine is so important because workers have that power...we can make it an issue where A) people feel they can be effective and B) it matters what happens in Gaza.”  

“We’re not free until we’re all free,” added Charters. 

Votsch noted that unions have had a key role in organizing in support of Palestine, citing Dutch dock workers’ blockades of cargo to Israel at the port of Rotterdam and similar “Block the Boat” efforts on the West Coast of the United States. 

With the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario convention scheduled for May 29^th, Votsch (who is a CUPE retiree) says “we’re already organized and ready to talk to the delegates” about Palestinian solidarity. In October, more than 2000 delegates at the CUPE National Convention passed a resolution calling on CUPE National to demand the Canadian government demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and enforce an arms embargo on Israel. 

Charters, who is a Trent student, said that while “Trent loves to tote itself as this more leftist, environmentally friendly institutions that cares about minorities, at the same time it has consistently not shown action to back up these claims.” 

To that end, she says she hopes the sit-in “show[s] [Trent] that their student body is not going to accept this.” 

Other students to whom Arthur spoke echoed Charters’ sentiments. 

“I think it's not conducive to Trent’s identity to have been quiet, which they did for the most part—like they didn't issue any proper statements,” one student, who asked his name not be published, told Arthur. “You can only both sides an argument for so long, and it hasn't been ‘both sides’ for a good while now.”

He added that “as university, you don’t really have the benefit of ignorance that a normal person would because you are an educational institution. You no longer have the luxury of ignorance. You have to know better—it’s part of the job, in fact.”

The May 15^th sit-in comes at a time when students across Canada and the United States have established encampments on large university campuses to demand they divest from the State of Israel.  

These protests have been a source of tension between students, universities, and municipal governments, with multiple universities beseeching police to remove and sometimes arrest students involved in the demonstrations. 

While the S4P Trent sit-in was expressly non-violent, and no permanent tents were erected, hostility was still evident from certain passers-by. 

 When Arthur arrived at the demonstration a middle-aged Caucasian man was filming student demonstrators, and multiple drivers hurled obscenities and crude hand gestures at protesters as they passed. 

At a May 10^th meeting of Trent’s Board of Governors, President Leo Groarke presented a statement to the Board about the student encampments across the country, saying “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.” 

Groarke relayed that the Board “express[ed] [their] empathy for all who have been affected by the current violence in the Middle East,” adding that “in these complex and difficult times, [Trent] remain[s] committed to providing a safe and positive campus experience for students, faculty, staff, alumni, and visitors in an environment that is free from violence and harassment.” 

The President’s speech made no direct reference to the scale of the ongoing bombing of Gaza, or the number of Palestinian civilians killed.

Read the Open Letter from Students for Justice in Palestine Nogojiwanong here.
Read the Press Release from Faculty4Palestine Trent University here. 

With files from Sebastian Johnston-Lindsay

Correction (May 16 11:47AM EDT): An earlier version of this article described Students 4 Palestine Trent as a chapter of the organization Students for Justice in Palestine. S4P Trent have clarified that they are not affiliated with Students for Justice in Palestine.