Quick Take
Following more than two weeks of UC Santa Cruz students holding an encampment for Palestine in the center of the university campus, administrators and students issued statements Thursday showing that they could be approaching a breaking point.
Following more than two weeks of UC Santa Cruz students holding an encampment for Palestine in the center of the university campus, administrators and students issued statements Thursday showing that they could be approaching a breaking point.
The encampment organizers, the UCSC chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, said Thursday morning they received a notice of student conduct violations with a list of charges that included harassment and camping on university property. The notice says that “all students are to cease all camping activities on university property,” but no deadline is mentioned.
Also on Thursday morning, Chancellor Cynthia Larive and Campus Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Lori Kletzer released a statement. That statement both detailed administrators’ attempts to continue negotiations and took a stronger line on the disruptions the encampment has caused. In addition, it pointedly said that the disruptions and actions violated the university’s code of conduct.
“The continued presence of the unlawful encampment itself is causing unease for many in our community, because of the loss of access to campus resources and the messaging that has been displayed or chanted at the Quarry Plaza encampment,” Larive and Kletzer wrote. “We continue to call for the unlawful encampment to voluntarily disband.”
In a media release later Thursday afternoon, the Students for Justice in Palestine denounced the administrators’ statement and said they were “under imminent threat of police sweep.”
Campus spokesperson Scott Hernandez-Jason did not return afternoon calls from Lookout seeking comment on two issues. Was Thursday’s exchange of statements an escalation leading the university to call police in to raid the camp? Was UCSC intending to reach an agreement with protestors, as UC Berkeley did earlier this week, which resulted in the closure of its encampment without police? By email, he declined to answer and referenced Larive and Kletzer’s statement.
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