Activists and academic experts made an “urgent” call to the administrations of USC and UCLA to dialogue with pro-Palestine and pro-Israel university students to end the demonstrations and protests that were violent on Sunday.
Yesterday, in front of one of the entrances to USC, at the intersection of Hoover and Jefferson streets, Earl Ofari Hutchinson, president of the National Urban Roundtable, publicly asked USC President Carol Folt to begin a “dialogue of emergency on campus,” about protests over the war between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group in the Gaza Strip.
“The first step now is for Carol Folt to publicly and vigorously not just issue a statement or send something on paper, but to stand before the cameras, hold a press conference and say I accept the challenge,” Hutchinson said.
“We do not want to have more confrontations on campus, and I ask you [a la presidenta de USC] “To contact each of the student leaders, each of the student groups, and have a place and time for a meeting.”
Hutchinson said the question is whether Folt accepts the challenge, which he believed would be a great opportunity and good example for leadership and would make the problem go away.
Indeed, at USC, an unidentified pro-Palestinian activist vandalized the famous Tommy Trojan statue in Alumni Park over the weekend, spray-painting the base “Say no to genocide,” in reference to the ongoing war in Gaza. , where more than 34,000 Palestinians and 1,200 Israelis have died.
The USC campus remained under restricted access for the second day in a row, with security guards directing students to the only entrances that remained open, requiring them to walk further.
Speakers boycott graduation
Amid disagreements between the USC administration and students, novelist C Pam Zhang and UCLA professor Safiya U. Noble decided not to address graduates of USC’s Rossier School of Education, as an act of boycott the repression by university security authorities and LAPD agents and the arrest of 93 pro-Palestine protesters.
In an open letter to Chancellor Andrew T. Guzmán, President Carol Folt and the USC Board of Trustees, Zhang and Noble condemned the university administration for refusing to engage in dialogue with a group of peaceful student protesters known as USC Divest from Death, for having called – twice – armed LAPD officers to campus, and for censoring the speech that the best student of the year Asna Tabassum would give.
“Speaking at USC at this time would betray not only our own values, but also those of USC… We cannot overlook the link between recent events and the ongoing genocide in Palestine,” Zhang and Noble wrote to Folt to the USC administrators.
Tension and violence at UCLA
Demonstrations in favor of the Palestinian people and against what they call Israel’s “genocide” continue to disrupt school security, both at USC and UCLA.
On Sunday, violence broke out between both sides at UCLA after a fence separating protesters at Haines Hall and Kaplan Hall was broken.
Reports on social media indicate that a Jewish woman was attacked with pepper spray.
The American Israeli Council and other Jewish organizations organized a rally in support of Jewish students, following days of pro-Palestinian protests at numerous universities in the United States and around the world.
Initially, Mary Osako. UCLA vice chancellor for Strategic Communications referred to a group of protesters who broke down a barrier the university had set up to separate the two groups, resulting in fights in the Royce Quad area.
“UCLA has a long history of being a place of peaceful protest and we are heartbroken by the violence that erupted,” he said.
He later indicated that the university had instituted additional security measures and increased the number of security team members.
“As an institution of higher education, we strongly uphold the idea that even when we disagree, we must respectfully engage and recognize the humanity of others. “We are dismayed that certain individuals chose to jeopardize the physical safety of the community.”
Anti-war demonstrations at one of California’s largest public universities continued Monday, but in a more peaceful form.
“They weren’t that apathetic.”
Dr. Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda, associate professor in the Department of Chicano Studies at UCLA, told La Opinión that the protests at the university are “a very good sign that the spirit of criticism is alive and remains strong among young people, especially on the side of justice and humanity.”
“The country’s students recognize the importance of taking direct action on the issues that interest them; Furthermore, with their actions they show the world and their generation that they were not as apathetic as they were believed to be.”
Hinojosa-Ojeda expressed the spontaneous way in which the movement grew and the student reaction to the events in Gaza and the violent reaction against students at Columbia University.
“That was what sparked more activity in other universities; “It was not only the attacks in Gaza, but the attempted repression here, in Los Angeles, against the use of protests,” he added. “I think it was an incredible mistake to call the police, which can create a chain of negative reactions, so we are still in a danger zone.”
“An attempt at provocation”
For Professor Gaspar Rivera Salgado, project director of the UCLA Labor Center, Sunday’s events “were basically an act of provocation” by the United Jewish Coalition in association with the Israeli American Council (IAC), as well as other groups.
“They say they have the right to express their support for Israel and the people Hamas captured and they wanted to do it in a public way,” he declared. “Now, the fact is that they asked to hold their demonstration right next to where the pro-Palestine camp is located and they installed a large stage, with loud sound and, in this way, they wanted to push the university to call the police.”
He added that “quite aggressive young people came from both sides, not because they did not feel safe at the university, but because there were quite a few radical young people who came determined to confront.”
He explained that it was “basically an act of provocation to disrupt the camp; “They brought a lot of political propaganda in favor of and justifying the war and they brought many people who came prepared to provoke violence, and they also brought a large number of private guards.”
Gaspar Rivera Salgado and approximately 70 professors marched at UCLA and held a rally with about 300 students who supported their camp counterparts.
“UCLA faculty and staff support our students,” read a banner they carried to the front of the march.
La Opinión contacted Elan S. Carr, executive director of the Israeli American Council (IAC), to find out his views on the violence last weekend and how the increase in violence by both could be stopped. groups, but at press time he had not responded.