Quick Take
UC Santa Cruz alumna Rachel Raiyani supports students protesting the Gaza war and is against the use of U.S. tax money to buy weapons. She didn’t attend the protests at UCSC, but watched them unfolding live on Instagram. “I watched as police roughhoused and arrested my fellow classmates and friends,” she writes. “I sat in pain and felt perturbed that anyone would see this as protecting students.” The police action, arrests and restrictions that ban some students from campus have, she says, obliterated any hope of shared governance.
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“Why can’t you look us in the eyes?” a student asked the line of police officers at UC Santa Cruz’s campus on May 31.
That day, the University of California police department, California Highway Patrol and police units from neighboring cities arrested dozens of students and faculty members who were protecting the Gaza Solidarity encampment at UC Santa Cruz.
The police cleared the encampment’s supplies and dozens of tents on the morning of May 31. Yet, hundreds of students, faculty and community members still remained. The protestors stood next to each other with their arms linked, some holding up barricades. Police tore through the line of people, grabbed students and threw them on the ground to zip-tie their hands.
All this started when the UCSC administration deployed police units 12 hours earlier in the dead of night, all in bad faith.
I was not present, but from 11:30 p.m. Thursday to 5 p.m. Friday, I watched through various Instagram accounts livestreaming the raid. From 3 a.m. to 11 a.m., I watched as police roughhoused and arrested my fellow classmates and friends. I sat in pain and felt perturbed that anyone would see this as protecting students.
Pointing to “unlawful disruptions, vandalism, and intentional harming of the community,” UCSC Chancellor Cynthia Larive said in a letter to the campus, “We know there will be disagreement about this decision and the steps taken to support campus safety. However, our ultimate responsibility is for the safety and well-being of this campus. It was a necessary decision at a critical time.”
Larive also said the university administration has done its best to negotiate with the representatives of the encampment, and tried to come to an agreement that upholds UCSC’s community values.
How, I want to know, can you say that, Chancellor Larive, when you dropped out of the first in-person negotiation with these students? You can’t even look them in the eye.
The encampment blockade of both campus entrances started on May 28, following Israel’s bombardment of a tent camp in the southern Gaza city of Rafah that killed at least 40 people, most of them displaced and seeking shelter. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, more than 36,000 Gazans have died due to Israel’s military escalation post-Oct. 7.
Like many of my friends, I have chosen to take a stand on this tragedy and to take action locally.
Every day I scroll through my feed and see the Israeli Defense Forces inflict daily violence on Palestinians; each image of Gaza seems crueler and more disturbing than the last. Children with their heads and limbs torn off. Flattened civilians. Buildings turned to rubble. All paid for by our tax dollars.
I feel worse when I know as Americans, we have some power to stop our money from funding this genocide. How could I not stand up and protest? That, at least, is in my control.
In solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, college students all over this country are taking action to ensure our money does not go toward funding further death. UCSC administrators continue to ignore their students and their demands and have obliterated any hope for shared governance. Instead, they choose to brutalize students.
None of these students were trying to harm their fellow comrades. They did not prevent ambulances from getting through, as some have said.
Their “disruptions” and “vandalism” stem from the situation’s urgency.
They act more out of love than many other groups in this country. They’ve been as patient and as respectful as possible, even while there are still people who patronize them and their actions.
The UCSC encampment is gone, and students who were arrested have been banned from entering campus and using campus services, including the Student Health Center, for at least two weeks. The administration said this police raid was necessary to protect students, but withholding housing and health care for those who need it is not protection.
Know who the real threat is.
I know there are critics out there who see the methods of these protestors as dangerous. To that I say, material damage and standing in front of an entrance pales in comparison to deploying people with guns to stop the people standing.
I dare you critics out there to go to a Gaza solidarity encampment or bear witness to what is happening to colleges around the country.
We know that what we are fighting against here in the States is not even comparable to what Gazans have to face, but the love, hope and strength that come from the Palestinian civilians is infectious.
I promise that if you look these students in their eyes, and open your mind to who and what they are fighting for, you will be met with unwavering strength, courage – and beyond that – so much love.
You can find the list of UCSC’s Students for Justice in Palestine demands here.
Rachel Raiyani is a 2023 graduate of the University of California Santa Cruz. She was a reporter and editor at City on a Hill Press, the student-run weekly at UC Santa Cruz.