Past Demonstrations, Campus Rule Changes Shape Ongoing Auraria Protest

Since April 25, students at the Auraria campus in downtown Denver have set up a pro-Palestine solidarity encampment to protest the actions of Israel after an October attack by the terrorist group Hamas.

The students want the University of Colorado, Denver and Metropolitan State University to cut all ties with Israel and condemn its actions. They plan to keep the encampment going until those demands are met, but the campus has a longstanding ban on camping that students are violating by setting up tents on Auraria’s Tivoli Quad.

Although campus officials haven't indicated they're ready to enforce it yet, the ban could come into play if students hold their promise to stay until demands are met. And the two sides are still far apart after a May 2 donation offer from Auraria officials was quickly rejected by the group of protesting students.

The camping ban was enacted in 2004 after student group Creative Resistance protested the Iraq War on campus in 2003. If the ban is eventually enforced this time around, protesters will have someone with experience on their side, however.

“I don't think we were quite as organized as these students were, but we did have some demands,” says Z Williams, a longtime activist and community leader who went to MSU and was part of Creative Resistance. “The demands were closing the military recruitment center and ending relationships with military contractors.”

According to Williams, the campus had the largest college-based military recruiting center of any school in Colorado back then. “We, as a group of students, had an encampment,” Williams says. “And we also had consistent protests.”

The protests started before the Iraq War began in 2003, when students held a rally on the Auraria campus; they also marched up the 16th Street Mall, where the offices of Halliburton, an oil company once helmed by then-Vice President Dick Cheney, were located. Twenty protesters were arrested that day for blocking the entrance to the building.

The encampment disbanded after three weeks, but in 2004, on the first anniversary of the start of the war, Williams was briefly detained by police for wearing a mask, according to the MSU student newspaper the Metropolitan. At least three student demonstrators were arrested by police that day.

Williams led a group called the Radical Cheerleaders, which worked to energize protesters with cheers and chants and make protests more interactive. The Radical Cheerleaders weren't just providing pep, though: Williams also recalls ingesting ipecac to induce vomiting in front of and on Army recruiters to show disapproval of the war.

Despite the efforts of protesters like Williams in the early 2000s, the Iraq War lasted until 2011, and there are still military recruitment centers on the Auraria campus today. But so is Williams, who is now advising and supporting Students for a Democratic Society, the group organizing the Palestine encampment.

So far, approximately 44 students have been arrested since the pro-Palestine protest began — but for trespassing.

“There is this confusion about, ‘How are people being arrested for violating a campus policy?’ And the answer is that they're not,” explains Emma Mclean-Riggs, senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Colorado. “The campus is determining that they're violating the policy, and then they are subsequently being arrested for being on university property that the university doesn't want them to be on.”

In 1972, the largely Latino community that lived in Auraria received notice that their homes would be destroyed to construct the new campus. The Denver Urban Renewal Authority would displace 330 households and 250 businesses before construction ended. That public land was then granted to the three universities that operate there, making trespass charges possible because the campus is allowed to decide uses for the space and has determined that encampments are not an acceptable use.

“Camping is defined as the use of Auraria Campus facilities or grounds for living accommodations or housing purposes, such as overnight sleeping or making preparations for overnight sleeping (including the laying down of bedding for the purpose of sleeping), the making of any fire for cooking, lighting or warmth, or the erection or use of tents, motor vehicles, or other structures for living or shelter,” the policy states.

Students have set up tents for sleeping, medical needs, studying and supplies, as well as several grills and portable stoves. Organizers say they know they're breaking the rules, but believe drawing attention to their causes is worth it.

Campus leadership insists that camping isn’t a proper way to protest.

“The policy that prohibits camping was established two decades ago to ensure a safe campus environment and our ability to operate and fulfill our academic mission,” says Auraria Higher Education Center (AHEC) communications director Devra Ashby. “By maintaining strict enforcement of the camping ban policy, we ensure a safer and more conducive environment for learning and community engagement on the Auraria campus.”

According to Ashby, Auraria's camping ban is "in alignment with the City of Denver strategy to ensure the well-being of the homeless population and the broader community." She points to Mayor Mike Johnston's All In Mile High initiative, which aims to have 2,000 total homeless residents off the streets by the end of 2024, as a way to "comprehensively" address homelessness.

However, as Williams points out, the City of Denver’s camping ban, instituted in 2012, was spurred by Occupy Wall Street protests — though it is now mainly used to address those living on the city’s streets.

“These anti-camping policies are almost always anti-protest policies,” Williams says.

In 2011, people pitched tents across downtown Denver, including in Civic Center Park, as part of a protest held across the country against economic inequality and financial corruption. Soon after, then-Mayor Michael Hancock and Denver City Council approved an ordinance that would address both issues by banning temporary dwellings, including tents and camps, on public or private property in the City and County of Denver.

As Mclean-Riggs explains, the Denver camping ban has procedural requirements that ensure officers must work to determine if a person violating it needs medical or human services assistance before arresting, so it likely wouldn’t be used against these protesters.

The Denver camping ban also has a lower municipal penalty than trespassing, with a maximum sentence of sixty days in custody to 300 days for trespassing.

“From our perspective, the camping ban in Denver, and everywhere else that has a camping ban, is unconstitutional under our state constitution as cruel and unusual punishment because it criminalizes one of the activities of survival,” Mclean-Riggs adds.

The school says its camping ban is constitutional.

“The camping ban is a time, place and manner restriction under the First Amendment put in place to ensure that the health, safety and mission of the campus is not compromised,” Ashby says. “Auraria campus institutions have policies in place that protect the free exchange of ideas on campus while balancing the need to protect the health and safety of students, employees and visitors and ensuring fulfillment of our mission.”

In addition to the camping ban, AHEC adopted new rules for on-campus assembly in November 2023 that further restrict protesting.

The assembly rules specify that people can only assemble in outdoor, group areas and must comply with the law and AHEC policies while doing so. Assemblies may not incite violence or present a threat to the health and safety of people or property, nor can they interfere with campus business including events or obstruct access to entry and exit points to the campus.

Additionally, protest reservations are encouraged, and required in some cases. For the current protest, campus officials have repeatedly said they would be fine with students protesting if it weren’t for the encampment.

“That's not something we are willing to do,” Khalid Hamu, a CU Denver student and protest organizer told media on May 1. “We see that as just trying to get this protest to be done in a way that they can more easily work around. … The university could meet our demands and we can pack this up in five minutes, but as long as they continue to invest in genocide, as long as they continue to go against the will of the students, we will be here.”

On May 2,  AHEC donors and leadership offered to give a $15,000 donation to the international committee of the Red Cross in Students for a Democratic Society's name and continue meeting with students if they disbanded the encampment by 5 p.m. and if future protests conform with campus policy.

The students rejected the offer.

After the students rejected the offer, AHEC released a statement saying its leaders are still committed to finding "a peaceful resolution to the ongoing encampment on the Tivoli Quad."