Teach-in gathers students after a walkout, faculty for education on Palestinian resistance

About 50 people gathered outside the Cathedral of Learning on Thursday afternoon after a walkout for a teach-in about Palestinian resistance and the fight for divestment as part of Pitt Apartheid Divest’s “Week of Rage” events.

The event featured several guest speakers, including a few Pitt faculty members. Yasmine Flodin-Ali, an assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies, said that “educating our immediate community is really important at this moment.”

“I think it’s really important to create spaces that are open for people to access education, especially when it’s not happening on the level that we would hope in our more formal institutions,” Flodin-Ali said.

Flodin-Ali said that, as a religious studies professor, she’s been asked a few times to “give a religious studies explanation to the genocide in Gaza.”

“I have to say that while there are obviously religious dimensions and articulations of this conflict, primarily, the issue is political,” Flodin-Ali said. “I’ve been heartbroken by depictions of this genocide as a holy war, which I think is devastatingly inaccurate.” 

A member of the crowd asked Flodin-Ali if she felt nervous to speak out about Palestine because of “potential repercussions.”

“This may be a little bit naive, but I am really heartened by the kinds of conversations with my colleagues,” Flodin-Ali said. “I feel supported by my department, and I do think that the kind of discourse I’ve seen among students and the self education that has come out of this moment is the reason why a lot of us are drawn to a profession like this in the first place.” 

Shortly after Flodin-Ali’s talk, Pitt police asked those at the teach-in to vacate the area because they did not reserve the space. The group moved across the street to Schenley Plaza while chanting “free, free Palestine” and “disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest.”