Fordham University students engaged in a “study-in” in the Student Lounge on the first floor of the McShane Campus Center on Oct. 7, 2024. The event began at 11 a.m. with around nine students sitting around the table. Two Palestinian flags were placed on the table and students had signs taped to their laptops and water bottles.
“This is not a Palestinian Solidarity Network event, we are just doing this as members of the community because this is the one-year anniversary of what has been happening and we know there’s protests at Lincoln Center and so we wanted to create a space here at Rose Hill,” said Siri Unnam, GSB ’26, a student sitting at the table.
Information regarding the study-in was posted on the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) Instagram page on the morning of Oct. 7; a similar study-in was set to take place in Quinn Library at Fordham Lincoln Center.
Around noon, Public Safety officers came to the lounge.
“They [Public Safety] briefly walked by and took photographs and continued walking but they didn’t approach us,” said Claire, FCRH ’26, who asked to only be referred to by her first name.
Around 12:30 p.m., Dean of Students Christopher Rodgers sat down at the table and spoke to students.
“The first time he [Rodgers] came over, he asked for my first and last name, and I gave them to him, and then he asked if I was a resident here or a commuter student,” said Unnam. “I told him I’m not a resident here and he asked if I was commuting from home or if I lived in the Belmont community and I asked him, ‘Is this information necessary? Do you need to know this?’ and he was like, ‘Actually, I do need to know,’ and then he moved on because I wasn’t going to give him any more answers.”
Rodgers spoke to the students for around eight minutes, asking for names and IDs. He said that they needed to coordinate an event like this and asked who owned the flags.
“We told him we would be here until 2 p.m., and apparently he’s going to come here and check in with me when this is over,” said Unnam.
Some students at the table recorded Rodgers’ interaction with students.
“He was mostly speaking to Siri, and I had my phone recording facing down, not getting his face or anything. Then he asked me if I was a part of this study group, and then told me that I wasn’t allowed to record him and that he’s not recording me,” said Claire. “Public Safety had already taken our pictures at that point and Siri brought that up.”
At 1:57 p.m., students removed the flags from the table. By 2:10 p.m., Rodgers had not returned.
“I just hope people will continue speaking up — I think that’s one of the main concerns I’ve had personally,” said Gen, FCRH ’24, who asked to only be referred to by her first name. “Since the events of the past year, people are very aware of what’s going on. People are conscious of it, but the momentum for struggling against and speaking up has sort of waned over time. This is sort of like a constant reminder that people have to be confronted with.”
Five students were still around the table at 3:30 p.m. with keffiyehs. By 5:19 p.m., no students remained around the table.
Additional reporting was done by Adithi Vimalanathan.
