Over the last three weeks, Whitman College’s Memorial Building has seen red paint splattered across its front steps, amounting to $4,000 in damages, elevated security, police tape, two sit-ins, a 73-person walk-out and a whispered vigil for the murdered scholars of Gaza. After rejecting SJP’s proposal for a divestment committee on Oct. 31, the Board of Trustees visited the college from Nov. 13 to Nov. 15. The board relocated their meetings to the Three Rivers Convention Center in Kennewick and the Three Rivers Winery in Walla Walla. Student protesters had the police called on them three times, the unknown vandal of the Memorial Building steps will be charged with a felony if found and Wire journalists were threatened with the police by the Three Rivers Convention Center event manager in Kennewick on Thursday.
What follows is a timeline of each event, including student and faculty reactions.
October 31
SJP leadership has been in contact with the Board of Trustees since last year through an intermediary – the Chief of Staff in Sarah Bolton’s cabinet, Maggie Eaheart. According to SJP leadership, they had been in communication since December of 2023.
On Oct. 31, Eaheart sent an email to SJP leadership on behalf of the Board, which was shared with The Wire.
“We have carefully considered the points discussed in our conversation over the summer. Ultimately, we, as a board, have decided not to establish a committee to work toward divestment as proposed by the group,” said the email.
Professor Zahi Zalloua, the Director of Whitman’s Indigeneity, Race, and Ethnicity Studies Department and SJP’s faculty advisor, explained the Board’s decision to The Wire in an email.
“To put it in diplomatic terms, the Board’s decision lacked courage. They aligned themselves with the dominant anti-Palestinian narrative that cynically demonizes any solidarity with Gaza or the Palestinian struggle for liberation and dignity,” Zalloua wrote.
As of 2022, the college’s endowment is 813 million dollars. It is funded, according to Jeff Hamrick’s recent budget update, “with gifts from alumni and friends, overseen by the trustees of the college.”
This means that tuition dollars do not go into the endowment, contrary to protester’s frequent claims that their tuition money is aiding the war in Gaza.
The endowment’s investment portfolio is not open to the public, so there are no official numbers that state whether the college is invested in the military industrial complex. SJP leadership says they have been informed by the Board that about 2 percent of the endowment, amounting to roughly 17 million dollars, is invested in military corporations and arms dealers.
Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies Tarik Elseewi said that the Board’s decision to reject SJP’s divestment committee proposal is rooted in an Orientalist ideology that pervades the United States.
“I know that this is provocative, but if, to the Board of Trustees, if you thought that the Palestinians were actually human, or that anybody who lives in the paths of American bombs were actually human, you wouldn’t be able to continue to generate revenue from arms sales. You just couldn’t do it,” Elseewi said.
November 6
On the morning of Nov. 6, apparently in response to both the election and the Board of Trustees’ email, Whitman staff encountered splatters of red paint across the Memorial Building steps and front door.
In an email to the student body sent out on Nov. 7, the President’s Cabinet wrote a joint statement distributed by Maggie Eahart, describing the paint splatters as “significant vandalism.”
“When we learn who participated in this vandalism,” the statement reads, “they will be held accountable.”
The paint has since been removed from Memorial’s front steps, but caution tape remains, and all doors of the Memorial Building are locked. The President’s Cabinet stated that doors were locked due to construction on the damaged steps, but even entrances that are not under construction are locked. On two occasions, Wire reporters were denied entry to the building.
November 14
At 6:13 a.m. on Nov. 14, a shuttle arrived in front of a Cordiner sidewalk covered in pro-Palestine chalkings to pick up the Board of Trustees. The shuttle had been arranged after the Board’s tri-yearly meeting was relocated from the Memorial Building to the Three Rivers Convention Center in Kennewick.
Students were chalking in front of Cordiner at around midnight that morning in anticipation of the Board’s arrival. One chalking read, “Is genocide a requirement of fiduciary responsibility? You’re ignoring the blood on your hands.”
Another, “Genocide Joe, you’ve funded +200,000 murders.”
Soon after the shuttle arrived, about 13 students laid down in front of the shuttle door, wearing white T-shirts bloodied by red hand prints.
At 6:24 a.m., the shuttle relocated from Cordiner to across the street from the Finch Hotel. The student protesters followed the shuttle and resumed their die-in, this time laying in front of the shuttle. Director of Security Greg Powell informed the protesters they must move from the road; he declined to comment on whether the police were contacted. The students moved to the sidewalk, and the shuttle drove to Kennewick. Wire journalists dispatched to the Three Rivers Convention Center to request access to the Board meeting.
At 8:40 a.m., three Wire journalists were threatened with police involvement by the Three Rivers Convention Center event manager, Roni Gierke.
At 11:07 a.m., SJP’s “Walk-Out to Die-In” commenced in front of the Memorial Building. About 73 students and faculty members marched around Ankeny Field chanting, “Disclose. Divest. We will not stop, we will not rest.”
After one loop around Ankeny Field, students ducked under the caution tape acting as barrier to the Memorial Building and participated in the second die-in of the day. They laid in silence for an hour.
In front of the Three Rivers Winery at around 6 p.m., students protested the Board’s scheduled dinner by standing by the winery and holding hands. The Walla Walla Sheriff’s Office was called by the Winery’s Operations Manager in response to the protest.
November 15
For their final day in Walla Walla, all of the Board of Trustees’ meetings had been moved to the Three Rivers Winery.
At 7:55 a.m., student protesters arrived outside of the Winery. Police stood between the driveway and student protesters. Students chanted “Sarah Bolton you can’t hide, you are funding genocide,” from the sidelines of the driveway as the owner of the winery approved cars to enter.
Elseewi expressed frustration at Whitman’s use of police force against students.
“While I understand their desire to maintain safety, I don’t see this as a safety issue. For the Board of Trustees or for the college itself, at no point in any of the last year and a half has anybody in SJP intimated violence, talked about violence or caused violence. So, to fear them is strange. But more than that, as someone who grew up Arab American and Muslim, having the cops anywhere near Arabs and Muslims or any students of color is a profound and extreme danger. A profound danger,” Elseewi said.
At 12:30 p.m., SJP held a vigil for the murdered scholars of Gaza on the steps of the Memorial Building behind the caution tape.
No further events are planned, but sources indicate that the Board of Trustees are rattled by the week’s events. As a long winter break approaches, student organizing may falter, as has happened in other universities. Only time will tell if the Spring semester will see more student protests.
