UCLA Gender Studies Department Statement on Mob and Police Violence against Students and Faculty
UCLA Gender Studies department faculty strongly condemns the mob attack of April 30/May 1 and police attack of May 2 on our students and the university’s failure to support our students’ right to protest in safety.
While Chancellor Block’s May 2 email suggests that “the site became a focal point for serious violence” after “several days of violent clashes between demonstrators and counter-demonstrators,” we insist on the truth that a peaceful encampment did not spontaneously become a zone of violence. Rather, the university administration’s actions and inactions contributed to the escalation of mob and police violence against UCLA protestors.
On April 25, UCLA students joined their peers around the nation to create an encampment to protest the violence in Palestine. In this place, students from different religious, racial and national backgrounds, including Jewish students, cared for each other, learned, and protested peacefully, joyfully, and safely.
On April 28, located immediately next to this encampment with oversight of university administration, emerged a “counter protest” area for Zionist mobilization, equipped with a mega screen and speakers, which would remain there unauthorized only to be dismantled after the “clearing” of the encampment, displayed October 7 attacks on a loop to terrorize the protestors and traumatize all. This environment encouraged racists who started to harass and attack the student protestors in the encampment day and night. These attacks included threats, physical attacks, forcing entry into encampment, stealing from the encampment, blasting music overnight to prevent students from resting, throwing pounds of bananas into encampment after learning that a protestor had a serious allergy, transporting and releasing mice into the area, and more. Even as the university administration remained initially respectful of the students’ right to peaceful protest, it remained quiet on the rising vigilante violence against student protestors.
On April 30, the administration declared the encampment “unlawful” (President Drake) and “unauthorized”(Chancellor Block), while offering empathy to Jewish UCLA members who might be feeling unsafe due to the presence of the encampment, denying in effect not only the vigilante violence but also the very existence of protesting Jewish students and faculty who have been amongst its targets. By the night of the same day, encouraged by the effective removal of university protection and after days of impunity, a mob of Zionist and white supremacist racists stormed the campus. They attacked the students, and the faculty who rushed to witness and support, with fireworks, bear gas, metal pipes, wood planks, and water bottles. They yelled racist slurs, played crying baby sounds over loud speakers (as IDF soldiers have been documented to in Gaza to entice civilians out to be targeted), and mocked the Arabic call to prayer over megaphones. Many students and faculty as well as journalists including Daily Bruin staff were injured. While all this happened, campus security retreated and watched. The police, arriving approximately after four hours, was hailed eagerly by the attackers, some of whom continued to attack in the police’s direct view. The police did not engage with the attackers at all, let alone arresting violent individuals. Neither did they offer or call for medical assistance for the injured.
On May 1, after the encampment was successfully and nonviolently defended by the students despite lack of protection from the university or the police, a member of the higher administration, Vice Chancellor and Provost Hunt, visited the encampment for the first time, only to communicate the decision to clear the encampment.
On May 2, the police stormed the camp with rubber bullets, batons and flash-bang munitions, injuring many and arresting hundreds of students and several faculty, and demolishing the encampment.
In short, violence did not spontaneously erupt on our campus, it was inflicted upon the protestors, first by a mob and then by the police, under the full purview of the university administration. We object in the strongest terms to the university leadership’s failure to protect students and faculty and denounce its complicity in mob and police violence. We demand amnesty for our students and faculty. We demand the restoration of the right to safely protest on campus. We demand accountability for this violence and call for the immediate resignation of Chancellor Gene Block.
