Quick Take
UC Santa Cruz Chancellor Cynthia Larive defended her decision to call in police to clear a pro-Palestine encampment, saying it was necessary to maintain campus safety even as she faces a backlash from some of the school’s faculty and students.
UC Santa Cruz Chancellor Cynthia Larive defended her decision to call in police to clear a pro-Palestine encampment last week, saying it was necessary to maintain campus safety even as she faces a backlash from some of the school’s faculty and students.
“We know there will be disagreement about the decision and the steps taken to support campus safety,” she wrote in a message posted on the school’s website Tuesday. “However, as I wrote in my message Friday, our ultimate responsibility is for the safety and well-being of the entire campus community. We continue to believe that it was a necessary decision at a critical time.”
On Thursday night and into Friday morning, more than 150 police officers, from agencies as far away as Truckee, arrested an estimated 124 protesters at the entrance to campus, charging them with failure to disperse and unlawful assembly, according to UCSC officials.
Encampment organizers and faculty members say police used batons against the protesters, causing a number of injuries and one protester to be hospitalized. The arrests included 112 UCSC students, three faculty and one staff member, along with eight people who are not affiliated with the university, UCSC spokesperson Scott Hernandez-Jason wrote in an email Tuesday.
In her statement, originally addressed to Academic Senate leadership on Monday, Larive said she called in police after repeatedly asking campers to voluntarily disband and disassemble a blockade that was preventing access to the school’s main entrance. Pro-Palestinian protesters set up the encampment May 1 in Quarry Plaza. They later moved it near the entrance at Bay Drive and High Street in solidarity with graduate student workers, who began striking last month over what they say were workplace violations involving the treatment of protesters at other UC campuses.
Larive wrote that the student encampment and the actions of protesters “caused significant disruption, hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional costs to campus (including repairs, vandalism removal, and debris disposal, among others), unquantifiable impact to the educational progress for students, and most worryingly, significant safety risks for the entire community.”
UCSC spokesperson Hernandez-Jason declined Lookout’s requests for interviews with Larive and Campus Provost Lori Kletzer about their decision to call in police. Hernandez-Jason also declined to respond to repeated requests for details about suspended students, whether or not UCSC paid for the police action and if the university decided to clear the encampment because of the upcoming June 14-17 commencement ceremonies.
Some students and faculty groups have condemned the decision to call in police to break up the encampment.
The UCSC Academic Senate, which is made up of a legislative body and committees of faculty members, is holding a vote on a resolution opposing police deployment against student demonstrations. The vote concludes Wednesday at 5 p.m. and the results are expected to be released Thursday.
Academic Senate Chair and theater arts professor Patty Gallagher said the senate leadership wasn’t informed of the police action in advance.
“The senate was not aware of it, nor did we approve it,” she wrote in an email to Lookout. “Senate Leadership learned of the law enforcement activities (May 30 and May 31) alongside the community, overnight during the events and/or the next morning.”
Gallagher said if the resolution passes, it won’t be binding on the chancellor or other university administrators. Rather, it is symbolic: “It does represent a statement of principle and the democratic will of the UC Santa Cruz Division of the Academic Senate.”
Students, faculty and multiple UCSC organizations and groups are also calling for amnesty for all those arrested. The UCSC chapters of Faculty for Justice in Palestine and Students for Justice in Palestine, along with the school’s Jews Against White Supremacy group, have called on Larive and Kletzer to resign.
“On a campus that brands itself as ‘the original authority on questioning authority,’ the chancellor’s decision to use police violence and intimidation, as opposed to meaningful and open dialogue, as a mode of resolving conflict on campus, calls into question her judgment and ability to lead a diverse and politically active campus community,” the Faculty for Justice in Palestine group wrote.
Larive said amnesty “will not be granted by the [University of California]” for protesters who are facing charges following the police raid. “Everyone involved was notified repeatedly of the offenses they were committing, and they could have left at any point to avoid arrest,” she wrote.
Larive described a timeline of events that she says led to the decision to call the police. She included students’ blockade of entrances and roads as well as administrators’ negotiations with encampment organizers on their demands.
She said the university refused to agree to some of protesters’ demands for ending the encampment, including calls to cut ties with organizations like Hillel International.
Instead, Larive said, the university provided a “thoughtful offer” which encampment organizers countered with more demands. “Campus could not agree to them,” she wrote. “Student representatives posted on social media that the dialogue was over.”
Student organizers and faculty members told Lookout that administrators “refused to meaningfully concede” to protesters’ demands and that led to failed negotiations.
A media liaison from the encampment, who declined to give their name, told Lookout on Monday that the encampment protesters will continue organizing actions as long as their demands, including divestment from war and Israel, aren’t met.
“The movement gets stronger with each retaliation from administration,” they said. “Columbia University just erected their third encampment, and if admin thinks that bulldozing our encampment is going to solve the problem, they’re sorely mistaken.”
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