This week, we covered the occupation of the president’s office at Stanford University by anti-Israel/pro-Hamas students who issued demands and were removed by law enforcement after a couple of hours.
My colleague Mary wrote:
The group of 50 wore masks and kaffiyehs. They held a banner that said, “While Gaza bleeds Stanford stalls. Divest. Disclose. Amnesty.”Liberate Stanford yelled on its Instagram account, “THE STUDENT INT1FADA IS GROWING.”“Law enforcement has arrested 13 individuals, and the building has been cleared,” the university said in a statement. “A public safety officer was injured after being shoved by protesters who were interfering with a transport vehicle. There has been extensive damage to the interior of Building 10 and exterior of the buildings in the quad.”
The students are now facing felony charges.
From the Stanford Daily:
Protesters who occupied president’s office receive felony chargesThirteen individuals, including 12 protesters and a Daily reporter, who were detained by the Stanford Department of Public Safety (SUDPS) and the County Sheriff’s Office, were charged with felony burglary. Protesters barricaded themselves inside the president and provost’s office, located in Building 10 in Main Quad, early Wednesday morning.Students were suspended and banned from campus for the rest of the quarter until June 12, as the University processes disciplinary referrals to the Office of Community Standards (OCS). Any who are seniors will not be allowed to graduate. Bail for arrested individuals was set to $20,000.Several protesters and the Daily reporter were released on bail Wednesday night. They were detained for approximately 15 hours.After entering the building at around 5:30 a.m., protesters blocked doors and windows with bike locks, chains, ladders and chairs and covered security cameras with tin foil. No administrators or staff were present inside when protesters entered. They occupied the office for under two hours before they were removed by SUDPS and escorted away in vans.The group, who said they planned to stay in the building until demands were met or they were forcibly removed, demanded three actions by the University: to add the divestment bill submitted by Stanford Against Apartheid in Palestine (SAAP) to the next Board of Trustees meeting with a recommendation of support from President Richard Saller, to commit to financial disclosure from the previous fiscal year (2022) including endowment investments and to drop all disciplinary and criminal charges against pro-Palestine students at Stanford.
If the punishment sounds harsh, consider the damage not only to facilities but to the school’s image.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported:
Outside, the stone walls were painted in dozens of places with swear words and death threats against police, America and Israel, though a group claiming to be behind the occupation disavowed responsibility for the graffiti…Throughout the morning, after the occupiers were removed, students, parents of prospective students and employees gaped at the shocking statements splayed across the historic structure. In red or black paint, the graffiti praised “the martyrs,” threatened death in reference to “pigs” and police and accused Stanford of complicity in Israel’s war in Gaza.“I think it’s scary,” an Israeli graduate student said as he stood with friends and studied the ravaged walls. “This is how it starts. The stories we remember from the Holocaust.”
Students who engage in this kind of activity deserve harsh punishment. This is going to continue until the consequences are serious.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY