The cult of all-or-nothing activism made UCSC campus arrests inevitable 

Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.

I attended UCSC from 2021-2023, and served as chair of the Undergraduate Student Assembly. Sadly, my experience there led me to realize it was only a matter of time before the student culture at the university would get someone hurt.

That happened on May 30, when local and state law enforcement descended upon the main entrance to UC Santa Cruz and arrested 80 people. Those arrested had gathered to protest the war in Gaza and the use of police force on campuses, including UCLA and UC Irvine. The UCSC demonstration mimicked ones across the United States, where over 3,100 students across have been arrested since students at Columbia university made headlines after clashing with police on April 18.

UCSC students had occupied Quarry Plaza May 1, and after failed negotiations, they moved their tent encampment to the Barn Theater, where they joined workers striking for safer campus environments. In the days leading up to police intervention, demonstrators locked arms and blocked the main entrance to campus.

Chancellor Larive has said she decided to call in police after protestors delayed  an ambulance from responding to a 4-year-old in distress. 

Student and faculty detainees were booked on misdemeanor charges and some were given a two- week ban from campus. This meant no libraries to study for finals and for some, no place to sleep. 

We are well into summer now. Most students have returned home or have graduated. 

The solemn reality is that the encampment achieved nothing other than to stain the reputation of a university which prides itself on creating non-violent activists willing to stand up for what they believe. The greatest and only achievement of the protestors was to expose UCSC as hypocritical. When I think of a liberal bastion of free thought, the last thing that comes to mind are images of police in riot gear spit-bagging peaceful protesters.

Is that achievement worth the price paid?

When in 2022, the undergraduate Student Union Assembly (SUA) considered a controversial resolution on antisemitism by the Jewish Student Union, I joined the president of the SUA and the dean of students in a private call before the meeting. The resolution sought to adopt a definition of antisemitism which, among other things, stated all criticism of Israel was antisemitic. 

I anticipated backlash; to equate legitimate criticism of a nation with xenophobia seemed profoundly unacademic. It was not my job to be so blunt. Instead, I sought to foster discussion by chairing a meeting where everyone had a right to speak and be heard, and to let the assembly make a decision. 

The private meeting I had before the assembly exposed a different view of what should occur. The dean of students and SUA president pointed to past incidents of antisemitic speech and pressured me to mute all assembly participants upon entry, limit speaking times, disable the chat and more.

This is not free speech as I imagine it at a university – or as I hope to practice it in my future as a lawyer. This is not the type of fruitful debate I expected from a university, nor is it the type of openness toward opposing views I expect in a democracy. 

When I began the meeting, all I could think about was a case I studied in a constitutional law class with Ryan Coonerty, a UCSC lecturer who is also the former mayor of Santa Cruz and who served as a county supervisor. We studied the famous 1977 case, National Socialist Party of America vs. Village of Skokie.

Coonerty, who is Jewish, loves teaching his “favorite” case, where two Jewish attorneys battled to determine the limits of free speech. On the one side, the city of Skokie sought an injunction to stop neo-Nazis from marching in a town with an overrepresented population of Holocaust survivors. On the other side, the American Civil Liberties Union represented the Nazis, taking a free speech absolutist perspective. Free speech absolutists believe even the most offensive speech must be protected. 

When a government can pick and choose what speech it finds acceptable, that threatens our collective freedom to think and say what we feel. 

You should read David Goldberger’s article reflecting on the case, but if you haven’t the time or energy here is the gist: “To this day, I have no doubt that the ACLU’s commitment to equal rights for all is a backbone of our democracy — no matter how offensive our clients are. Chipping away at this commitment will open the door to the erosion of the First Amendment as a bulwark against rule by tyrants.”

So, as the Supreme Court rightly decided, we have to support all speech – even speech we hate. 

Goldberger’s wisdom in mind, I began the meeting with a statement of community, issued a clear warning against hate speech and harassment, and opened the floor for discussion. Chat wide open and microphones unmuted. Every student in the meeting – numbering in the hundreds – Palestinians and Jews alike, made a statement. 

I interrupted once or twice when things got heated and moderated debate on the resolution for over three hours. The item concluded without serious incident. The resolution failed to pass. 

I often reflect on that meeting and in particular that item, a resolution more about semantics than action. What good would that have done Jewish students had it passed? What meaningful work had my board done at all that year? I began to feel a lingering sense of hopelessness and resigned from my post as chair soon after.

Serving as chair of the SUA at UCSC was not my first stint in student government. For three years in community college, I served in local, regional, and statewide advocacy roles and witnessed a rising tide of all-or-nothing activism. Fellow students would issue demands and accept nothing less than everything they asked for. Compromise meant defeat. 

At UCSC, this attitude has been militarized. 

I knew eventually the restlessness and unwillingness of my fellow students to seek common ground would lead to violence. Would it be students against the institution or students against students?

I first heard news of the arrests on campus over the phone with a friend who invited me to a party celebrating “the success” of the protest. Facing a two-week ban, an organizer for Students for Justice in Palestine was staying with them. “Victory” came in the form of loud music, beer pong and blunts. 

Before I ultimately declined the invitation, I stumbled upon Larive’s statement regarding the arrests, which reads in part:

“Despite negotiating in good faith over the course of a full week … we were unable to come to an agreement that was within our authority and aligned with the values of UC Santa Cruz … I must be firm when the demands of one group undermine the rights of others.”

I have no doubt that student leadership at UCSC failed to negotiate in good faith. 

In a recent PBS Frontline documentary “Crisis on Campus,” UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ eloquently reflects on this rising tide of all-or-nothing activism: “It’s very hard to bring the students together on the two sides of this issue … as a society we are losing our ability to have discussions among people with very different political points of view.”

If only fellow students agreed that the best ideas withstand the harshest criticisms. The easy route is to fall into tribalism; the harder route is to listen to those you disagree with and recognize that truth often lurks on common ground. 

That common ground, while never expedient, is always worth pursuing. 

Colm Fitzgerald, 24, of Stockton, is a 2023 UCSC graduate, where he majored in legal studies and he focused on constitutional law and philosophy. Fitzgerald has led several advocacy-based nonprofits and served as a member of the California Community College Board of Governors, and as chair of the Undergraduate Student Assembly at UCSC. Fitzgerald looks forward to attending law school next year.