UW protest ends with 31 arrests at occupied building on campus

Thirty-one protesters were arrested after occupying a new engineering building at the University of Washington on Monday night as they called for the school to cut ties with Boeing and end what they called a “targeted assault” on “pro-Palestine activism and activists.”

Members of the protest group, called Students United for Palestinian Equality and Return UW, or SUPER UW, hung a banner from the second-floor window of the Interdisciplinary Engineering Building, renaming it the Shaban al-Dalou Building in remembrance of a 19-year-old engineering student killed by an airstrike last year in Gaza.

About 75 people dressed in black, faces covered, blocked the entrances to the engineering building by stacking items found inside and around the building, according to court documents. The university tried to shut down the building, but protesters had already made their way inside by the time UW locked the facility around 5 p.m. Monday.

“The intent was to repurpose a building that is meant to make weapons of war to a place that serves the needs of students and workers and staff at the University of Washington,” said Noah Weight, a SUPER UW member.

In a message to the UW community, President Ana Mari Cauce condemned what she described as a “dangerous, violent and illegal building occupation and related vandalism.” Four new manufacturing machines, valued at $35,000 to $120,000, were damaged. The university in a statement said the group started fires in two dumpsters on a street outside.

Officers, including many in riot gear, from three law enforcement agencies responded to campus. Sally Clark, the university’s vice president of campus community safety, and police officers tried to negotiate with the protesters shortly before 9 p.m. but were turned down, according to court documents.

The university said the protesters were arrested for investigation of trespassing, property destruction and disorderly conduct, and conspiracy to commit all three. The cases will be referred to the King County prosecutor’s office.

On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced a “review of Anti-Semitic Activity at the University of Washington” to be conducted by the Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, and the General Services Administration.

The federal Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism applauded the university’s “strong statement condemning last night’s violence” and “quick action by law enforcement officers to remove violent criminals from the university campus.”

“While these are good first steps, the university must do more to deter future violence and guarantee that Jewish students have a safe and productive learning environment,” according to a press release. “The Task Force expects the institution to follow up with enforcement actions and policy changes that are clearly necessary to prevent these uprisings moving forward.”

The protest was led by UW students and a “vast majority” of the protesters were UW students, according to Weight, though the group also included alumni and community members.

Police have not referred felony charges against those arrested thus far, said King County prosecuting attorney’s office spokesperson Casey McNerthney. Four of those arrested had a first court appearance on gross misdemeanor trespassing charges in King County District Court on Tuesday, McNerthney said. All of the others posted $1,000 bond and are not required to make a first appearance.

McNerthney said the four who had their court hearings were released from custody.

Authorities previously said 32 people were arrested, but updated the figure Tuesday evening.

The cases have not been referred to police investigators as hate crimes, McNerthney said.

The protest comes as Israel’s government approved plans for its forces to capture the entire Gaza Strip and continue to occupy the war-torn territory for an unspecified amount of time. More than 52,000 people in the strip have been killed during the war, Palestinian health officials said.

The university reached an agreement last year with protesters after they set up a self-described “liberated zone” on the UW Quad. But protests continued after UW rejected protesters’ demands to divest from Boeing.

“We demand that our tuition money and our research not be used to fund and fuel genocide,” SUPER UW stated in an online manifesto.

UW suspended the group until June 13 for last year’s sit-in at a university building, SUPER UW said in a January post on Instagram.

The group also demanded UW evict Boeing’s presence in the engineering building, repurpose it “into a community-controlled space with pro-people education,” and cut financial ties with Boeing.

Boeing has donated more than $100 million to UW since 1917, including $10 million for the engineering building, a new 70,000-square-foot facility. With Boeing’s donation, the aviation giant was granted naming rights for the building’s second level.

Boeing is a major supplier to the Israeli Defense Forces, and Israel has received more military aid from the U.S. than any other country since World War II. Over the past decade, thousands of weapons systems and munitions manufactured by Boeing have been transferred from the U.S. to Israel, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

The activist group cited what it called the “heroic victory of Al-Aqsa Flood,” Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. That attack killed 1,200 Israelis, with over 250 people taken hostage.

“The University will not be intimidated by this sort of offensive and destructive behavior and will continue to oppose antisemitism in all its forms,” spokesperson Victor Balta said in a statement.

After about 130 tents went up during a weekslong protest on campus in April last year, UW agreed to fund at least 20 scholarships for Palestinian students displaced from Gaza.

The university also agreed to develop a faculty committee to ensure study abroad programs don’t exclude Muslim and Arab students. It also agreed to help faculty pursue academic connections with universities in the Palestinian territories and meet with student representatives to explore future divestment options.

UW did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how those efforts have gone.

But UW has said it intended to maintain relationships with Boeing, though it has no direct investments in the company. The university’s Board of Regents voted in March not to convene an advisory committee related to divestment from companies doing business with or providing materials to Israel. Students gathered in a rally outside the board meeting, led in part by SUPER UW, to oppose the board’s action.

A report conducted by the antisemitism and Islamophobia task forces released in October found that university students, faculty and staff felt unwelcome during the height of the “liberation zone” encampment.

A majority of Muslim and Palestinian students also said they felt unwelcome based on their identities during the 2023-24 academic year. Some members of the school’s Jewish community also criticized the report, saying it conflates “anti-Zionism with antisemitism.”

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights additionally found that UW did not take “responsive action” even when reports stated that people felt “threatened, unsafe and targeted based on their shared ancestry.”

The university entered an agreement with the federal government in January — before President Donald Trump’s inauguration — to ensure its compliance with federal civil rights law, such as hiring a coordinator.

UW later received a letter, as did three other Washington universities, from Trump’s administration in March warning of “potential enforcement actions” if they did not protect Jewish students on campus.

Regina Friedland, director of American Jewish Committee’s regional office in Seattle, said the organization is concerned that the Trump administration is threatening funding cuts and freezes to higher education institutions. The organization was one of several which released a statement Tuesday urging the Trump administration to change its approach in addressing antisemitism.

Nevertheless, Monday’s protest wasn’t an “issue of rhetoric,” Friedland said.

“This was an issue of destruction, vandalism and things that are unlawful, especially on a college campus,” she added. “This is an atmosphere of learning that needs to work for all of its students. Jewish students need to be protected.”

The Seattle area has seen multiple major Gaza-related protests in recent months that have led to arrests and charges.

Six people were charged in connection with a Gaza ceasefire protest in January 2024 that blocked Interstate 5 in Seattle. Five were charged with criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct while the sixth was charged only with disorderly conduct.

Prosecutors from the city of SeaTac dropped misdemeanor charges against 46 people who were arrested for blocking traffic outside of the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport months later.