One bust of President George Washington inside the nation’s capitol just can’t catch a break.
The monument at George Washington University was beheaded during the height of the Black Lives Matter riots in June 2020.
The university finally had it fixed by the summer of 2022.
Now the private institution is going to have to send its custodial crew back out there.
On Wednesday the monument was hit with graffiti stating “disclose divest now” in red spray paint. It was one of several places peppered with such vandalism, according to images posted by pro-Palestinian social media accounts.
The vandalism came as the pro-Palestinian protesters kicked off the first day of school with aggressive protests — this despite the fact that GWU suspended both Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voices for Peace for the fall semester in an attempt to rein in the chaos.
“Pro-Palestinian protesters rallied outside University President Ellen Granberg’s on-campus house and the barricades surrounding University Yard on the first day of the fall semester to underscore ongoing demands that GW discloses its finances and divests from Israel,” the GW Hatchet student newspaper reported.
The demonstrators also tried to get back into the fenced-off GW University Yard: “Police are on the scene, but students seem adamant. This was the location of their encampment, ‘Shohada Square,'” reported citizen journalist Stu Studio.
BREAKING: George Washington University student protesters and DMV SJP are trying to get back into the fenced-off GW University Yard. Police are on the scene, but students seem adamant. This was the location of their encampment, "Shohada Square."
— Stu (@thestustustudio) August 23, 2024
Your move @GWtweets pic.twitter.com/KHLcqj769B
The Student Coalition for Palestine at GWU posted on Instagram on Thursday about the vandalism:
Last night, autonomous protestors sent a message to Provost Christopher Alan Bracey at his home, spray painting the message amplified and repeated by students, faculty, and the people of this city onto Bracey’s very own driveway: “DISCLOSE DIVEST NOW!” During the encampment earlier this spring, Provost Bracey himself violently assaulted two students. A statue of George Washington on campus was also branded with the same demand.
Let this be a message to Bracey and every administrator at this University. We will never falter from our demands. This administration has the blood of 186,000 Palestinians on their hands. The burn of pepper spray, the bruises of police brutality, and the mark of handcuffs and zipties on our comrades are forever seared into our memory and consciousness. Your crimes will follow you wherever you go. You will be confronted in your events, in your offices, at your homes. Every step you take we will be there to hold you accountable.
This week’s uproar at GWU comes a few months after a pro-Palestinian GWU student tribunal called for campus leaders to be beheaded on guillotines. Protests got so bad in the spring semester GWU administrators called on help from the metro police.
A memo from University President Ellen Granberg stated at the time that all of the university’s efforts to end the encampment and deter protesters from escalation failed.
Granberg’s memo stated in part that “when protesters overrun barriers established to protect the community, vandalize a university statue and flag, surround and intimidate GW students with antisemitic images and hateful rhetoric, chase people out of a public yard based on their perceived beliefs, and ignore, degrade, and push GW Police Officers and university maintenance staff, the protest ceases to be peaceful or productive. All of these things have happened at GW in the last five days.”
As GWU Professors Jonthan Turley writes, the continued vandalism on our campus is often defended as free speech. It is not.
As he discussed in his book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” there is a difference between conduct and speech. I have defended the right of pro-Palestinian groups to protest on campus. However, occupying buildings or trashing property is criminal conduct that should be sanctioned or prosecuted. The problem is that the few charges brought against such actors were largely dropped.
As students return, protests are again ramping up around our campus and other schools.
As for George, the monument will have to be, again, restored. It is all being heralded as “a message to Bracey and every administrator at this University.”
The question is whether officials will be equally clear and consistent in their own message that threats, property damage, and other offenses will not be tolerated on our campuses.
