Quick Take:
UCSC’s Students for Justice in Palestine wrote in a statement that negotiations failed after administrators “refused to meaningfully concede” to protesters' demands and they are bracing for police raids.
However, several people close to the negotiations say administrators are looking to avoid imminently calling in police. Meanwhile, details of the negotiations obtained by Lookout show the two sides appeared, at one point, to be close to finding agreement on several student demands.
Student organizers at the UC Santa Cruz encampment for Palestine say negotiations with university administrators failed Friday morning.
Given recent police raids at other colleges, including UC campuses, the students say they expecting police to sweep the encampment. However, several sources close to UCSC administrators involved in the negotiations said the school has no imminent plans to call in law enforcement.
UCSC’s Students for Justice in Palestine wrote in a statement that negotiations failed after administrators “refused to meaningfully concede” to the group’s demands, which include divestment from weapons-manufacturing companies, agreeing not to lay charges against protesters related to the weeklong encampment, and a requirement that the University of California call for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.
The students also said they’re preparing for police to raid the camp and arrest protesters who refuse to leave, though their statement did not specify whether administrators have asked them to disband the encampment or given them a deadline to do so. At college campuses across the country on Friday, including the University of Arizona and the University of Pennsylvania, police broke up encampments as the schools prepared for commencement ceremonies in the coming days and weeks.
“We expect the police to act violently, as they have in response to students across our country and our system,” UCSC encampment organizers wrote in the statement.
UCSC spokesperson Scott Hernandez-Jason said administrators are still working toward a resolution.
“Over the past week, we engaged in talks to seek an amicable resolution including the voluntary disbanding of the encampment,” he said. “We continue to seek that outcome.”
Hernandez-Jason reiterated that the university’s focus is on protecting student and staff safety, but he has not responded to repeated questions about whether administrators plan to call in the police, or whether UCSC has given protesters a deadline to disband the encampment.
However, multiple people close to the negotiations told Lookout that administrators did not have plans to call the police in the near future because of the state of negotiations Friday.
Details of the negotiations obtained by Lookout show several rounds of offers by administrators and counteroffers by protesters between Tuesday and Friday morning, with the two sides appearing close to finding agreement on several student demands.
UCSC administrators had agreed to call for “an immediate and lasting cease-fire” to end the conflict in Gaza and offer scholarships and financial assistance to students and scholars displaced by war. In later offers, the call for a cease-fire was removed.
Addressing students’ demands that the university divest from military and weapons-manufacturing investments, administrators also offered to collaborate with the University of California Office of the President to form a systemwide advisory group on socially conscious investments, and create a task force to study how to redirect endowment funds toward alternative investments. Administrators agreed to convene both the advisory group and the task force by the coming fall quarter.
UCSC leaders also agreed to create a website to offer publicly available information on the UC’s investments and publish annual reports detailing government-funded research awarded to UCSC, including the titles of academic projects.
Students countered with several demands, such as that the university provide the full cost of attendance, including housing, specifically for displaced Palestinian students for the next five years and agree not to discipline any students who participated in the protests.
They also asked UCSC to commit to ban “any and all forms of electronic audio surveillance technology” on campus and to cut ties with campus police, other law enforcement agencies and the Jewish student group Hillel International.
Protesters also criticized the administration’s offers of advisory groups and task forces to study the school’s investments as too vague.
UCSC is still a month away from its commencement ceremonies, scheduled for June 14 to 17, and no changes have been announced regarding the celebrations.
The campus could be bracing for additional impacts, however, as the graduate student union, UAW 4811, is planning to hold a strike authorization vote Monday through Wednesday. Statewide union leadership filed unfair labor practice charges after UCLA sent police to raid the encampment there early May 2. They arrested about 200 protesters.
UCSC’s unit chair, Rebecca Gross, said so far five of the school’s graduate departments or programs said their members are 100% willing to go on strike, with several other programs saying that between 70-90% of their workers are willing to go on strike. Gross said programs are still reporting in.
Instruction for spring quarter at UCSC ends June 7, just ahead of final exams on June 10-13.
Several events at the Quarry Amphitheater, adjacent to the encampment in Quarry Plaza, have been affected by the protests, which began May 1.
A concert scheduled for Friday at the amphitheater was canceled earlier this week, and an upcoming screening of Jonathan Demme’s “Stop Making Sense” at the on-campus outdoor venue originally set for next weekend has been moved to July 13.
The screening was to take place on Saturday, May 18, but has been postponed because of “current events on campus and their proximity to the Quarry Amphitheater,” said officials representing the Quarry and Noise Pop Productions. The screening was to include a live conversation with Talking Heads keyboardist Jerry Harrison.
– Wallace Baine contributed to this report.
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FOR THE RECORD: This story was updated Saturday with additional information on whether UCSC administrators had imminent plans to call in police to end the encampment and details of the negotiations between the UCSC administration and student protesters to end the encampment.
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