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Roughly 140 Boston University students rallied at BU’s Marsh Plaza on Friday afternoon before marching to the house of the school’s president, Melissa L. Gilliam, to demand she make BU a sanctuary campus to protect students from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The rally is the second in the past week to be held next to BU’s campus in response to public statements by undergraduate Zac Segal, the president of BU College Republicans, who claimed responsibility on X for calling ICE to arrest employees at Allston Car Wash earlier this month.
Friday’s rally was organized by Back Bay Young Democratic Socialists of America, Quinobequin Student Front for Palestine, and Alianza Latina — three student groups at BU. Back Bay YDSA and Quinobequin are unrecognized by the university. Several students gave speeches at the rally in front of Marsh Chapel, calling on the university to designate itself a sanctuary campus and issue a public statement in support of immigrants.
Speakers at the rally wore masks and did not identify themselves. Some condemned Segal’s statements and described them as provoking fear on BU’s campus, but speeches largely focused on the organizers’ broader demands.
Protestors marched down St. Mary’s Street, arriving at Gilliam’s residence on Ivy Street, where four BU police officers stood guarding the gate. Roughly 90 people gathered in the street for nearly forty minutes, chanting, making speeches and shielding protestors from nearly a dozen BU police officers who monitored the demonstration.
“One, two, three, four. Gilliam, we’re at your door. Five, six, seven, eight. Come out and negotiate,” the protestors chanted once in front of the president’s house.
Since Segal’s first statement on the car wash arrests on Nov. 7, BU students have used social media to call for disciplinary action to be taken against him. But the protests his actions inspired echo demands students began making months before ICE arrived at Allston Car Wash.
In a March Instagram post, Back Bay YDSA publicized demands for a sanctuary campus, calling for BU’s Office of General Counsel to handle any ICE requests, prohibit federal immigration authorities from entering private university buildings without a judicial warrant, and avoid sharing students’ information with authorities.
The YDSA chapter, previously known as the BU YDSA, was suspended and barred from operating on campus in April after a sit-in outside the BU Dean of Students office calling on the school to designate itself a sanctuary campus. BU accused sit-in participants of engaging in intimidating tactics and disrupting operations — and said the group’s fliers advertising the protest had been posted on campus without authorization.
A co-chair of the group said that Back Bay YDSA has been calling for Gilliam to turn BU into a sanctuary campus for nearly a year, since Trump was first inaugurated. The co-chair declined to identify himself to The Crimson and spoke under a nickname to BU’s student newspaper, The Daily Free Press, saying his family was at risk of deportation.
While the university published resource pages to assist students with ICE concerns and offered international students three hours of free legal consultation in April, officials declined to designate BU a sanctuary campus at the time.
“Boston University is aware of the recent petition calling for a sanctuary campus designation,” BU spokesperson Colin Riley wrote in a statement published by The Daily Free Press on Nov. 14, saying BU has not described itself as a sanctuary campus “because it has no clear legal definition and may imply protections no university can guarantee.”
Nai G. Ash, a senior at BU, said in an interview with The Crimson that she hoped the protest would also convince BU to take disciplinary action against Segal.
“To Zac specifically, I really hope that something comes out of this in terms of either a suspension or some sort of reformation for his schooling here,” Ash said.
Six of the nine employees originally arrested by immigration authorities at Allston Car Wash have been released on bond and are awaiting final decisions on their cases. Three are still in detention and await bond hearings in the next week.
—Staff writer Angelina J. Parker can be reached at angelina.parker@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @angelinajparker.
—Staff writer Emily T. Schwartz can be reached at emily.schwartz@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @EmilySchwartz37.
