At UMKC, pro-Palestinian students struggle for university support as they advocate for peace

Members of Students for Justice in Palestine table on UMKC's main campus in November.
Students for Justice in Palestine, a newly-recognized student group, has led efforts at UMKC to call for a Gaza ceasefire. Leaders say they're making inroads with their fellow students, but argue the university is not doing enough to protect them from Islamophobia and potential retaliation.
One sunny day last month, a group of student activists took over a central sidewalk on the main campus of the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Between the library and the recreation center, the group invited passersby to take a piece of colorful chalk and write the names of people killed in Gaza.

Mahmoud Kutmah, a Louisville native who’s a student at the UMKC School of Medicine and a leader of the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, greeted people walking to and from class.

“This is a good way to just raise awareness of what's happening,” Kutmah said, “and to force every student walking by to see just how many names there are.”

Over the course of about four hours, the chalk list grew to nearly 200 feet long — representing just a fraction of Palestinian lives lost. At the time, more than 11,000 Gazans had been killed; according to NPR, that figure is now greater than 18,000.