Efforts have moved slow, with the board saying it will not consider divestment. Guskiewicz said last semester the university is "doing everything to protect the endowment and our financial investments from any political influence."

Those demanding divestment believe the university can do more.

Protesters organized under the leadership of the Hurriya Coalition, a collective of over 20 organizations demanding MSU to divest from Israel, weapons manufacturers and institutions which support them, gathered at the IM East Field.

Nearby at the Wharton Center, Guskiewicz’s investiture would begin shortly after the protest, with the MSU Board of Trustees and many administrators attending. This event served as a formal transition of power to the new president, who has already served in the position for around seven months.

The Hurriya Coalition wanted to disrupt that transition, using the event as a way to get to the board and administration in a place where protestors cannot be ignored. 

Once protestors gathered, they marched around the Wharton Center, moving through the parking garage and congregating outside the entrance.

Holding signs that read "STOP FUNDING GENOCIDE" and "BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS," protesters chanted "Kevin, Kevin you can’t hide, you are funding genocide" outside of the building, with some even sitting down inside the building, next to security.

Students for Justice in Palestine member Jaime Saliba said there are many problems on campus the university isn’t acting on, not just with divestment but others as well — and yet the president is getting a celebration. 

"We’re here to call him out," Saliba said. "It's all talk, just a bunch of failed promises."

She said Guskiewicz inherited a problem that he’s not willing to fix, with the university choosing to protect itself rather than make those changes.

"So there’s going to be no change until we make change," Saliba said. "Why does he get a celebration when we’re the ones paying for it?" 

Jesse Estrada White, a student and member of the Hurriya Coalition, said this protest has three audiences.

The first one being President Guskiewicz and the board. 

"They’re the main roadblock to getting what we want, which is divestment and an end of the institutional support of genocide," he said. 

The second audience is those attending the event: politicians, donors and general supporters of the university. 

"We want them to know how the students feel, right?" Estrada White said.

The third is always students, he said. The coalition wants to assure students that there is a way to fight against genocide, instead of watching it unfold over social media, Estrada White said. 

"There's a way to get involved," he said. “Join us, fight, struggle. It will change the university. It shows people that there's a way that we can stop this, that we actually can get involved, no matter how small."

The endowments are complicated, and the coalition understands that and invites negotiations, Estrada White said. But in terms of negotiating, they will not compromise when it comes to divestment. It is all or nothing when it comes to investing in weapons manufacturers and other companies that provide money to Israel. 

"We're fighting for the Board of Trustees to negotiate with us, and we're willing to negotiate, but we're putting our cards on the table, and we're saying, 'This is what we need. This is what we want, and you're going to have to give us to that, or else we're not going to stop,'" he said. 

Members of MSU faculty and staff have also joined the calls for divestment. Associate professor of sociology Stephen Gasteyer said he and his colleagues have no choice.

"Either this rings too close to what we study and think about globally, the level of atrocity is just too great, or for many of us who who actually have worked and lived in the region for years, we are literally in touch with friends and colleagues who are being bombed," Gasteyer said. 

Gasteyer said he knew someone killed in Gaza, a visiting scholar named Tariq Thabet who died alongside numerous members of his family in a bombing.

Some faculty are uncomfortable with the idea of criticizing Israel, but as the months go on, Gasteyer said more faculty will grow critical.

"It’s a series of mass atrocities," Gasteyer said. "We're talking about a humanitarian disaster. We're talking about a military disaster."

Even Lansing residents like Michael Joseph, who got involved with the Hurriya Coalition via Instagram, have pitched in.

He said this issue extends globally past Gaza.

"It's in Sudan, it's in Lebanon, it's in Gaza and the number of people that are dead is just astonishing," Joseph said. "I just can't accept it."

Joseph says more people don’t protest because they don’t care or pay attention to what's going on.

"This is nothing, there should be thousands here," he said. 

But he understands why more students don’t come. For him, a retired man, the university and other forces can’t do much to him, but he said students have more to lose.

Inside the Wharton Center at the investiture, a group of protesters sat waiting for Guskiewicz to begin speaking. When he took to the stage, they began shouting, demanding for divestment before being removed from the event.

One of those protestors was Omar Mahmoud, the president of Students for Justice in Palestine.

Mahmoud said he used this moment to show Guskiewiez and the university that students, who he said are the primary ones funding MSU, will not stand with its investments.

"The university wanted to give him a warm welcome, and we wanted to remind him that we as students are not going to be complicit," Mahmoud said. "We're not going to be okay if he comes into presidency and continues to allow MSU to be funding this genocide."

When protestors congregated outside of the Wharton Center entrance, Estrada White spoke to his fellow protestors, explaining how the president might avoid acknowledging them to those inside.

"He’s not going to mention the investments because he’d look incredibly uncivil if he had to admit to sending hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of this university's money to a genocidal entity that is actively displacing millions of people, not just in Gaza, but in Lebanon too," Estrada White said. "So he's gonna do two things: he's gonna lie about being civil, but how can you be civil when you're censoring people? And then he's just gonna not bring up why we're here."

Once the investiture ended, protesters moved to the entrance in the parking garage where attendees began to exit. They resumed chanting as board members, administrators and others left the event.

"We're at one of those pivotal moments in history where you have to ask yourself, am I okay with what's going on?" Estrada White said. "Sit there, and genuinely ask yourself that question, and if the answer to that is no, as we believe it will be for almost every student, then get involved."