FAQs
Q. What could the chancellor have done differently?
A. The chancellor had many options available to him that did not involve calling outside police forces onto our campus.
He could have negotiated an end to the encampment like several other UC Chancellors. Numerous other campus administrators were able to negotiate the students' concerns and establish agreements to peacefully end encampments on campus, including at UC Berkeley, UC Riverside, San Francisco State, Brown, and Northwestern. He could have accepted the Faculty Senate Chair’s offer to broker talks with student protestors.
He could have followed the example of previous UCSD chancellors to personally negotiate with the protestors. Chancellor Khosla, by contrast, refused to personally negotiate with students in the week before the May 6 police crackdown. This deviates from the precedents set by previous UC San Diego Chancellors such as Mary Anne Fox and Richard C. Atkinson, both of whom personally met and negotiated with protesters in 1985 (anti-apartheid protests), 1992 (student takeover of I-5 protesting Rodney King beating), and 2010 (protesting the “Compton Cookout” and its aftermath as well as UC fee hikes and budget cuts).
He could have followed the guidance of the 2012 Response to Protests on UC Campuses commissioned by the UC Office of the President, which, through its dozens of recommendations, urges campus leaders to use relationships and dialogue to reduce campus conflict, to choose mediation and de-escalation over force, and to see outside law enforcement agencies as an absolute last resort measure after all other options have been exhausted (also see the page on this website Healing & Improved Response Resolution).
Q. Is the no confidence vote expressing a position on Gaza?
A. No. By voting no confidence in the chancellor, or by voting to censure the chancellor for his actions on May 6, you are expressing dissatisfaction with Chancellor Khosla’s leadership failures. His inability to make balanced decisions and his rejection of expert and faculty input during moments of crisis has lost the confidence of many Senate faculty.
Q. Why are our students so exercised about the war in Gaza?
A. There are many reasons. For example: many students have access to unmediated, horrific real-time video footage from Gaza; they can see the sheer scale of the destruction (over 35,000 dead, over 80,000 wounded, 50,000 children currently experiencing acute malnutrition, 62% of buildings damaged or destroyed); they feel powerless by the complicity of the US government in giving near total diplomatic, legal, financial and military support for the Israeli onslaught; they are troubled by the 76 year history of dispossession of an indigenous people; and many of our students are Palestinian, Arab, Muslim or Jewish dissenters who feel they have a familial or identity connection to the conflict.
It is crucial to note that students in the UCSD encampment also care about many domestic and wider struggles, including the climate crisis, Indigenous peoples' struggles and racial and economic justice. We need a Chancellor who is capable of upholding the university as “the home and sponsor of critics,” as proposed by the University of Chicago’s Kalven Committee report in 1967.
Q. Why did the students have to make an encampment?
A. The encampment came after the administration ignored more familiar forms of protest such as marches and student government resolutions (which went on for 6 months). As the saying goes “You’re free to protest as long as no-one notices and nothing changes”. Finally, the students joined the venerated tradition of encampments such as those erected against apartheid in South Africa and the Vietnam War. Notably in the Spring of 1985, UCSD Chancellor Atkinson visited a one-month long anti-apartheid encampment at Galbraith Hall (Revelle College).
While the physical presence of encampments arguably violated the “campus code of conduct”, civil disobedience, by definition, breaks the rules. Students were acting in the lauded tradition of the “good trouble” of which civil rights leaders John Lewis and Reverend James Lawson spoke. It is this version of “good trouble” that advances the cause of democracy and justice. How do we think the causes of the 8 hour work day, the 5 day work week, civil rights, and women's rights were advanced?
Q. Were the encampments illegal?
A. The administration has so far failed to demonstrate to the faculty senate that the encampment was illegal. Student and faculty protesters adjacent to Library Walk had legitimate reasons to think that their encampment was protected by the First Amendment. Courts ruled that a public university cannot disrupt a clear protest because of the content of its speech or demands, even when some may find their content offensive. Administrations can only abridge First Amendment rights to pursue a “compelling government interest” (e.g., continuation of the university’s instructional function and other business, or protecting public safety from knowable, specific, imminent dangers).
Q. Were the student protesters violent?
A. No. There is no evidence that any of the Gaza solidarity protesters on our campus were violent toward passersby, provocative counter-protesters on May 5, or toward police on May 6.
Q. Are they really students or is the whole movement "outside agitators"?
A. Yes, they are overwhelmingly our students. According to the UCSD Police Department, 60 students, 2 faculty members and 4 non-affiliates were arrested. “Outside agitators” has long been used to discredit organic social movements, as explained by PBS and other sources.
Q. Since some of the protesters say "From the River to the Sea", are they antisemitic?
A. No. According to Jewish Currents, "The much-maligned slogan [From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free] resists the fragmentation of Palestinian land and people by Israeli occupation and discrimination." It's worth noting a slogan regarding "River to the Sea" on the other side. This states "Between the Sea and Jordan [River] there will only be Israeli sovereignty" which was part of the original manifesto of Netanyahu's party in 1977. The New York Times carried a strong story on this very issue for Gaza entitled: “The student-led protests aren’t perfect. That doesn’t mean they are not right”.
Q. Was the encampment antisemitic?
A. No. The student protestors were motivated by the suffering in Gaza, the wish for a political resolution, and NOT by antisemitism. To the contrary, the encampment made space for Muslim and Jewish solidarity, including hosting an interfaith Shabbat dinner led by Jewish student protesters. We did not see any messages making reference to anti-Jewish epithets, or threatening Jewish people as a religious and ethnic diaspora. Their messaging strictly condemned Israeli policy towards Palestinians, and the complicity of the US in it.
As two UCSD Jewish faculty wrote in a commentary to the San Diego Tribune: "We reject any dismissal of the encampment as antisemitic. We recognize antisemitism as a real form of discrimination that harms our communities, and we reject the premise that criticism of the state of Israel and its actions is inherently antisemitic. We reject the idea that the encampment was intended to create a hostile environment for Jews. We suggest that those who say otherwise should distinguish between “feeling unsafe” (because of speech they do not want to hear) and “being unsafe” (as in meeting with the possibilities of physical or economic violence)."