Nearly four semesters since Whitman’s Students for Justice in Palestine (WSJP) chapter sparked broad political engagement as a genocide unfolded in Gaza, many students are asking where we go from here. WSJP has taken on political issues ranging from genocide to free speech, but too often the club is spread thin. What’s needed is a labor movement, which has the potential to dramatically change the campus by creating sustainable political organizing and allowing other organizations, like WSJP, to focus on their stated goals.
WSJP has changed a lot in the last eight years (yes, the organization existed before October of 2023, you just didn’t show up). From softly pressuring administrators to divest with only a few members, to receiving support from a majority of students in the Fall of 2023, and now reeling from the federal government’s rhetoric, policy and executive orders, WSJP has had to be adaptable in a quickly moving political environment.
The organization is not without its many mistakes, but behind the public initiatives lies a self-awareness of those many mistakes, a commitment to being better in a number of cases, and students who are committed to justice in Palestine. Every tactic might not be the most successful, but with so little hope to grasp on to, it is refreshing and inspiring to see students trying to do anything and everything to make positive change.
One large and valid problem is the move away from the issue of Palestine itself. However, the organization can walk and chew gum at the same time. It is wise to tie the attacks on free speech to broader critiques of U.S. imperialism and support for genocide. What is needed is more commitment to making those threads clear.
Secondly, WSJP has been tasked with fighting for justice on all fronts, given the lack of interest from any other group in doing so. To have a broader coalition of politically active organizations would be welcomed, but there remain few. A labor movement – something that has been lacking on this campus – would restructure political discourse and allow WSJP to focus on Palestine while students simultaneously built power through their work.
A labor movement would give students the institutional power that they are currently missing. It would have the capacity to thread various issues together, allowing students to build coalitions and advocate for a number of issues without burnout.
To be clear, WSJP’s current fight against suppression of free speech is not disconnected from Palestine itself. It is a fight for the right to continue talking about Palestine. To keep writing and saying, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free.” It’s a fight for the continuation of a discourse.
However, labor organizing has the potential to take away some of the pressure from WSJP, allowing the organization to focus on education and divestment. We need to locate where our power lies, and that’s in the labor – paid and unpaid – that we provide the institution. Whether it’s working in Residence Life, food service or any number of other jobs, students can and should work to form unions, if not for ourselves, for the many staff on campus who rely on their job for more than some extra income.
Given our institutional positioning as students, spearheading a union effort, if done thoughtfully and carefully, could be beneficial to the hundreds of employees at the college. We should not lead with a savior complex, but take the time to get to know staff and how we can move forward.
The labor movement on undergraduate college campuses is beginning to have a real impact on students across the nation. Students at other liberal arts colleges, like Wesleyan University, have successfully formed unions, indicating the possibility of such endeavors.
Given the Trump administration’s crackdown on labor organizing – specifically on college campuses – and our college’s ties to companies that detest labor organizing, undergraduate unions would function as another way of resisting oligarchy and authoritarianism. Further, union organizing functions in solidarity with a unionizing movement that is taking aim at companies like Starbucks and Amazon, both of which are Washington State companies.
Specifically, Starbucks Workers United was aided by the movement for Palestine. We should bring that solidarity to campus and allow for broader engagement in student activism. The movement for Palestine should never cease on this campus, but if you’re asking where we go from here, labor organizing and a solidarity movement should be our answer.
Despite WSJP’s many mistakes, especially in the last two years, many of its most ardent supporters are sufficiently self-aware and quite open to critique. I laud those who spend the little bit of free time they have trying to make campus a better place, and in this moment, those students need support from a coalition of political activity, which labor organizing has the capacity to spearhead.
