Dueling demonstrations got underway on the UCLA campus Sunday by outside groups wanting to show their solidarity for both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protesters over the war in Gaza.
Members of the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice set a morning demonstration to support pro-Palestinian students’ rights to protest, where an encampment remains from earlier in the week.
Nearby, a permitted counterdemonstration was set up by the United Jewish Coalition in partnership with the Israeli American Council (IAC) and other related groups. The IAC said it wants to educate people while showing their support to Jewish students on campus. The demonstration started at 11 a.m. and would last for up to two hours.
The IAC said it wanted to host the event after the Oct. 7th attack overseas but was denied a permit at the time. It reapplied this week and was approved after seeing pro-Palestinian encampments on campus.
Those encampments calling for a cease-fire in Gaza were originally set up at Royce Hall Thursday and have since grown, though it remains unclear how many people were protesting at the site, and how many of those were students.
UCLA says the protesters’ activity on campus has been mostly peaceful and has not interrupted any campus activities. Therefore, the encampments have been allowed to remain, though staff and security remain on-site.
In an emailed alert Sunday, UCLA said that it was following systemwide policy guidelines which direct it to not request law enforcement involvement preemptively, and only if “absolutely necessary to protect the physical safety of the campus community.”
The alert went on to state:
“We’ve taken several steps to help ensure people on campus know about the demonstration so they can avoid the area if they wish. This includes having student affairs representatives stationed near Royce quad to let Bruins and visitors know about the encampment, redirect them if desired and to serve as a resource for their needs. We also have safety teams who are wearing Student Affairs Mitigators (SAMs), Public Safety Aides (PSAs) and CSC security uniforms throughout the demonstration site. You may also hear helicopters dispatched by news media who are covering the demonstration.”
Elsewhere, in downtown LA, tensions rose at USC on Saturday. Dozens of police cars converged, with LAPD on alert, and forced the closure of the campus to nonresidents because of a protest that resulted in the vandalism of property, including to the Tommy Trojan statue and fountains, where the words “Say No to Genocide,” were spray-painted.
USC officials said in a statement the administration hopes for “a more reasonable response Sunday before we are forced to take further action.”
Categories: News
