As some Texas State students lined up to attend the Our Fight Our Future rally with Democrat party politicians like U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the LBJ Ballroom, others gathered to protest the lineup of politicians in the rally on Tuesday, Oct. 1.

Signs reading “Stop Genocide,” along with Lebanese and Palestinian flags, filled the air as attendees kicked off the protest at 11:30 a.m. at the Stallion statue, a symbol of free speech at Texas State. The demonstration was followed by a march to the LBJ Student Center, where the Democratic rally was underway.

While the university was not directly notified about the protest, members of Texas State Student Involvement & Engagement were in attendance.

Some of the protestors were members of the Texas State Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) and Texas State’s Young Democratic Socialists of America.

“[The protest] was a grassroots when we realized that Bernie Sanders and [Ocasio-Cortez] are coming for a rally and they failed to speak up against genocide so we are sending them a message that enough is enough,” Saeed Moshfegh, the faculty advisor for Texas State PSC said.

The protest started with speeches from community members at the Stallion statue discussing the war in the Middle East and recent ground invasion of Lebanon, specifically their opposition to U.S. military aid to Israel.

One of those members was Tom Alter, assistant professor of history.

“The cause for Palestine is the cause for basic humanity. People are having a genocide perpetrated against them,” Alter said. “It’s the duty of everyone to speak out against it.”

Alter said that his desire for American divestment from Israel stems from learning the history of the conflict, having Lebanese refugee neighbors as a child and marrying a Lebanese woman.

For Louis Osorio, history graduate student, one of the goals of the protest is to highlight the importance of American democracy, but he said he believes that system is fundamentally flawed.

“A supposedly democratic system that gives you two options between genocide and genocide, I don’t think that’s a very democratic system,” Osorio said. “If we cannot build any type of resistance to that, if we cannot build any type of alternative, if we cannot even dream of change, then do we have any hope for our future?”

When protestors arrived at the LBJ bus stop they were met by a line of people wrapped around the LBJ Student Center waiting to enter the rally, which reached capacity at around 12:45 p.m.

One criticism by protestors was that Democrat politicians aren’t doing enough to push for a ceasefire in Gaza. Former U.S. representative Beto O’Rourke said he would continue to pressure for peace in the Middle East.

“We want to see a ceasefire and want to support and push the Biden-Harris administration to do everything they can to ensure that there’s peace,” O’Rourke said. “The killing of innocent civilians whether they’re in Israel, in Gaza, or in Lebanon stops, that the hostages are returned and that there is an independent sovereign state for the Palestinian peoples.”

O’Rourke also said he believed that Israel has the right to defend itself “from groups that literally want to wipe it off the map.”

Gov. Greg Abbott signed Executive Order GA-44 in March, which requires Texas public universities to update their free speech policies to include the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.

Alter said he hoped that the university would not punish him, or any of the students at the protest under the new definition of antisemitism.

“We’re out here expressing our constitutional right. I mean these are elected government officials and we’re out here to express our grievances,” Alter. “[The order] is unconstitutional.”

It is unclear whether the university will attempt to punish attendees.