Methodology

The scope of this project includes pro-Palestine protests that occurred at universities in the United States. The Vanderbilt Hustler utilized data from October 7, 2023 to August 5, 2024 compiled by the Crowd Counting Consortium, a joint project of Harvard Kennedy School and the University of Connecticut. 

The Hustler only labeled protests as encampments if they were described as such in the “participant_measures” column of the CCC data. Protests that were only labeled as “sit-ins” were not included in this count.

Arrest counts include all individuals — including students, faculty, journalists, members of the public etc. — that were arrested at the event. Suspensions include interim suspensions. Arrests, suspensions and expulsions recorded in the data may have been overturned at a later date; this information was not systematically recorded in the dataset. 

The Hustler found some inconsistencies and missing information in the CCC data, which the writers of this piece manually changed. The CCC did not mention that an expulsion occurred at the University of South Florida. While the CCC data lists that the Vanderbilt encampment lasted for 38 days, it lasted for 40 days. While the CCC data lists that nine individuals were arrested at Vanderbilt University protests, five people were arrested — four students and one journalist. It is possible that other inconsistencies are present in the dataset. 

Aaditi Lele and Salma Elhandaoui contributed research to this piece.