Stay in the loop

Get our top OU and Norman stories in your inbox. Free newsletter sign up

Editor's note: OU Daily changed the name of one of the speakers to "a media liaison for SCPL" after they asked for anonymity due to a fear of retaliation. The change was made at 6:49 p.m. Wednesday.

Over 100 protesters rallied on the South Oval Wednesday for a pro-Palestinian May Day rally hosted by the Student Coalition for Palestinian Liberation and the Student Socialist League.

The rally included speakers from the Red Dirt Collective, a local mutual aid organization. The rally was held on May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day, which celebrates the work of international laborers. 

The rally began outside Dale Hall and moved to the Bizzell Statue at the north end of the South Oval, before moving back to Dale Hall. 

As they marched to the Bizzell Statue, protesters chanted “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and “Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest,” among drum beats.

At the Bizzell Statue, speakers from SCPL, the Student Socialist League and Red Dirt Collective spoke about the history of May Day, the importance of laborers, the occupation in Palestine and emphasized their demand for disclosure and divestment by OU.

On Tuesday, SCPL posted a demand for disclosure and divestment on their Instagram.

At the statue, a media liaison for SCPL said Gov. Kevin Stitt’s diversity, equity and inclusion executive order reduces the ability of diverse students to build power on campus. The media liaison said amassing a student coalition requires cultural organizations, including the Asian American Student Association, the Hispanic Student Association and the Black Student Association.

In December, Stitt’s executive order effectively banned DEI on college campuses, adding roadblocks to diverse student organization efforts. OU responded by renaming and restructuring the DEI department to the Division of Access and Opportunity. Last week, OU announced it would close its Gender + Equality Center at the end of the semester in compliance with the order. 

“Not only do these organizations have a massive role in sustaining student life on this campus, but it’s also going to sustain resistance against OU’s complicity in genocide,” the media liaison said.

“Because there is strength in numbers, they are threatened by marginalized people having power.”

The media liaison said OU must divest from its corporate partners who specialize in oil and weapons manufacturing for Israel, including Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Boeing and Lockheed Martin. 

“The companies we are targeting profit from genocide and we help them do this by continuing to give them our money, our labor and the normalization of their presence on our campus,” the media liaison said. “Our university helps to make this happen by partnering with them, doing research for them and investing our money in them.”

Graham Cifelli, a graduate student in Gaylord College, asked the crowd to think of laborers both on OU's campus and abroad. He wore a red bandana around his neck as a symbol of solidarity with union workers, which he has worn every May Day for the past five years.

"I want you to think about the hand of every worker that has put you here today," Cifelli told the crowd. "The clothes on your back were sewn by workers' hands. The phone in your pocket was assembled by workers' hands. The car or bike that brought you here was built by workers' hands, the concrete we stand on now, the bricks that we see, the grass and bushes we walked by to get here were all placed and maintained by workers' hands."

Cifelli said workers in the U.S. must unite with those in Palestine by demanding OU divest from corporations funding the war in Gaza.

Throughout the two-hour protest, organizers distributed flyers with QR codes with an email template to send to OU President Joseph Harroz Jr.’s email, requesting students “flood” his inbox with calls for disclosure and divestment.

Protests calling for the divestment of university funds are not new. During the 1980s, universities around the country, including OU, faced protests calling for the divestment of funds invested in companies doing business in apartheid South Africa. In 1986, OU voted to divest from companies in apartheid South Africa. The media liaison said OU should follow the historical precedent established by the apartheid protests. 

“When calls to divest from racist apartheid in South Africa grew all over the world, students at OU organized to have the university divest from companies that operated in the country,” the media liaison said. “OU divested from apartheid South Africa due in large part to the activism of the Student Coalition for a Free South Africa.”

The media liaison said SCPL met with Student Affairs at the end of February to discuss their demands for divestment. She said the group has not heard from the university since. 

“Despite any concerns that they have or promises they’ve made to us, there has been no real sign of implementation,” the media liaison said. “This reaffirms our belief that change has to come from us forcing their hand through mass organizing and mobilization."

Over 100 protesters gathered for a pro-Palestinian May Day rally on the South Oval Wednesday, hosted by the OU Student Coalition for Palestinian Liberation and the OU Student Socialist League:

Filmed by Luke Smith

Edited by Luke Smith

-

We know you value civility, and we do too. We have turned off comments on this post to avoid degrading posts about things like race, religion, culture, sexual orientation, gender identity or spreading of misinformation. This decision is made on a case-by-case basis by editors.

OU Daily asked the university if it had met with members of SCPL to discuss demands prior to Wednesday’s rally. OU News did not address the question in its official statement about the rally.

As the protest moved south back to Dale Hall, the crowd chanted “Israel, Israel, you can’t hide, you’re committing genocide.”

According to OU Police Department Chief Nate Tarver, eight OUPD officers were present at the rally Wednesday. 

A Jewish student who attended the protest in support of Palestine told OU Daily that they felt safe and didn’t see an issue with supporting a liberation movement. They said Jewish students typically don’t feel safe as a result of rhetoric claiming Israel is the only safe space for Jewish individuals. 

“Even the creation of a Jewish state shaped the Jewish identity into a new Israeli one,” a pro-Palestinian Jewish student told OU Daily. 

A small group of Turning Point USA members gathered across from the protest. They did not interact with protesters but held signs reading "I love America." Turning Point USA is a right-wing nonprofit advocacy organization that promotes conservative ideologies in high schools and on university campuses. 

Anthony Diulio, chairman of OU College Republicans, was among the group and said they were not counter-protesting but advocating for America and its ally Israel, adding that Hamas is the enemy. 

“Well, maybe Hamas shouldn’t have shot first,” Diulio said in response to being asked his thoughts regarding casualties in Gaza.

On Oct. 7, Hamas militants issued attacks on southern Israel, killing a reported 250 people and abducting around 250 hostages. Israel has since revised the death toll to around 1,200. The Israeli military responded by launching bombing campaigns and invading the Gaza Strip, killing over 34,000 Palestinians as of Monday. The Israeli and Palestinian conflict has been intermittently ongoing since the 1948 Nakba, a mass exodus event that forced over 750,000 Palestinians from their homes. 

Since the war in Gaza began, two protests held by SCPL have taken place on campus. The first took place in October with students walking out of classes and marching in support of Palestine. SCPL listed demands for Harroz and the U.S. government. In March, over 150 students gathered in the Oklahoma Memorial Union food court to protest the war in Gaza.

Pro-Palestine protests and encampments have emerged at universities nationwide as students have protested and called for support for Palestine amid the ongoing war in Gaza and divestment demands. The protests and encampments nationwide took off after an encampment began at Columbia University in New York, which has seen students and professors clash with law enforcement and university officials. Since April 18, more than 1,000 people have been arrested on more than 25 campuses across at least 21 states, according to CNN.

"We are not in solidarity with Columbia or USC," the media liaison said. "Columbia, USC and the University of Oklahoma are in solidarity with Palestine."

As the protest concluded Wednesday, an SCPL spokesperson called for a continuation of the movement into the summer as the semester winds down. 

“Please continue your fight and remember to keep talking about Palestine,” the spokesperson said. “The struggle does not end because school is over.”

This story was edited by Anusha Fathepure, Peggy Dodd and Ismael Lele. Mary Ann Livingood copy edited this story.

OU Daily standards

See an error? Earning trust is our duty. We correct errors atop stories. Identify an error, request a takedown or get in touch.

Independent and free since 1916: OU is committed to our editorial independence. You can help ensure our reporting remains strong and accessible to all invested in OU and Norman.

Want to comment? We value dialogue on issues we cover. On our social media accounts, we moderate disparagements, arguments and attacks, including those directed at our staff — and ban those repeatedly failing civility. The editor considers guest column submissions.