Chicago students gathered outside the University of Illinois Chicago's Dorin Forum, pressing the U of I System Board of Trustees to declare the campus a sanctuary, divest from Israel and roll back what organizers call restrictive free-speech rules. After the program, some students entered the trustees meeting to deliver public comment directly to board members.
The demonstration was organized by Students for a Democratic Society at UIC and allied groups, according to Fight Back! News, which reported that students demanded the board end policies restricting free speech, declare UIC a sanctuary campus and divest from Israel. The outlet reported that student Amir Hartt said the administration refuses to divest, protect marginalized students and allow free speech. University of Illinois Board of Trustees materials state that its meetings are open to the public under state law, and that people who disrupt a meeting will be asked to leave, with continued disruption or refusal to leave potentially violating state law, according to the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.
Other students quoted in the report framed the protest as part of a broader grievance against university governance. Ángel Naranjos reportedly said the trustees were meeting to find ways to enrich themselves, while Emma Adaya said administrators' policies silence the campus community and prevent students from improving campus, per the same account. Maria Perez was reported as saying free speech is a First Amendment right, not a privilege conditioned on compliance with bureaucratic policies. Speakers at the demonstration called on attendees to join SDS, Mexican Students de Aztlan, Anakbyan and Students for Justice in Palestine, the outlet reported.
A Monthslong Fight Over UIC's Open-Expression Rules
The clash outside the Dorin Forum did not come out of nowhere. SDS at UIC has for months denounced the university's open-expression policy as a tool to surveil and discourage political activity on campus, according to the report. On October 15, the group delivered an open letter to Chancellor Marie Lynn Miranda's office demanding an end to the open-expression form and to prior registration and administrative approval requirements for free speech and assembly, the article notes.
UIC's own policy, posted by the UIC Policy Library, recognizes community members' right to demonstrate in a peaceful and non-disruptive manner and states that restrictions may not be based on the substance or viewpoint of the views expressed. The policy also sets scheduling limits, restricting outdoor open-expression activities to between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. and confining indoor activities to Student Centers during normal operating hours, with space generally required to be reserved at least 48 hours in advance. Students organizing under SDS have argued those same reservation and approval requirements amount to administrative overreach aimed at their speech.
Tensions Boiled Over at a Turning Point USA Event
Just a day before the trustees meeting, tensions over those same rules spilled into a more direct confrontation. On November 11, more than 60 students gathered to protest a Turning Point USA event on campus, with SDS at UIC organizing a counterprotest after learning of the event roughly an hour before it was scheduled to start, Fight Back! News reported. According to the outlet, UIC administrators invoked the open-expression policy in an attempt to control the demonstration, telling protesters to move off the grass and onto the sidewalk, and students remained for more than three hours.
The push for divestment from Israel is similarly long-running on the UIC campus. Fight Back! News reported that Mexican Students de Aztlan and Students for Justice in Palestine have organized for a sanctuary campus and divestment over multiple years. That history echoes earlier protests at the same venue: a 2023 Board of Trustees meeting at the Dorin Forum drew dozens of protesters, according to CBS News Chicago, which reported that students who made it inside could be heard on the meeting's livestream interrupting a presentation by then-University of Illinois President Tim Killeen before the board recessed and the stream ended. A U of I System spokesperson told the station that the board resumed business after a short recess and that nobody was arrested in connection with that incident. The Chicago Tribune likewise reported that students inside the Dorin Forum that year chanted calls for UIC's divestment from Israel.
Divestment Push Has Spread Across the System
The demands voiced outside the Dorin Forum this week are part of a wider campaign across the University of Illinois System. At Urbana-Champaign in October, the university's chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine led a protest calling on the University and the broader UI System to divest from organizations tied to human-rights violations, according to The Daily Illini. The same report noted that in a Spring 2025 student referendum, 73.1% of participating students voted to recommend that the university divest from companies connected to human-rights violations.
That organizing has also tied into a national pattern of campus activism. South Side Weekly reported that students at more than 100 colleges and high schools across the United States and Canada took part in an October 25 national walkout calling for a ceasefire. The outlet also reported that UIC's Students for Justice in Palestine chapter led an action at a Board of Trustees meeting on November 16 calling for divestment from entities tied to what the group described as funding of Palestinian genocide.
Fight Back! News additionally reported that U.S. Customs and Border Protection withdrew from a College of Business career fair in September after mass student mobilization, and that a bomb threat in the Student Services Building on November 4 prompted UIC administrators to notify and evacuate students, staff and community members roughly an hour after the device was found. Neither claim was independently verified beyond that report. It remains unclear whether the Board of Trustees has acted on, or plans to act on, the sanctuary-campus, divestment or free-speech demands raised at this week's meeting.
