What's at stake?
As tense protests unfolded at colleges and universities around the nation, Fresno State saw peaceful gathering of more than 200 students, faculty and supporters.
More than 200 Fresno State students and faculty staged a peaceful sit-in for Gaza at the campus Peace Garden on Wednesday afternoon, during an otherwise much more violent and chaotic week for other pro-Palestine student protesters at campuses around the country.
The organizers of the Fresno State demonstration, members of Students for Palestinian Liberation, said their goal is to bring awareness to Israel’s ongoing siege of Gaza and urge the California State University system to divest from companies “that have helped fund this genocide.”
“We’re in solidarity with the other campuses that are doing something like this,” said Fresno State student Seja, 20, who declined to share her last name out of concern for her family members in Palestine.
“We, of course, are not doing an encampment, but we stand in solidarity with them. We also want to remind everybody this all started because the genocide in Gaza is currently going on. The apartheid in occupied Palestine has been going on for almost 75 years.”
Protesters on several campuses around the country have set up solidarity encampments, with many of them vowing to stay put until their university administrations stop doing business with Israel or any companies that support its siege of Gaza.
Student organizing efforts have been comparatively quiet in the Central Valley, outside of an encampment on the Sacramento State campus – to which university President Luke Wood gave his blessing as long as it remains a “positive demonstration of free speech,” the university’s student newspaper The State Hornet reported.
Haneen, the 22-year-old president of Fresno State Students for Palestinian Liberation, said she hopes Wednesday’s demonstration sparks more student-led protests across the region’s colleges and universities.
“I honestly hope to see more Central Valley universities take a stance on this,” she said, “even if it’s small – small as a sit-in, or a teach-in, or just having an educational campaign. We all have to start somewhere.”
She declined to share her last name out of privacy concerns.
The peaceful demonstration came on the heels of a violent week for many other pro-Palestinian protesters. Police – some in riot gear – arrested protesters and forcibly dismantled encampments at Columbia University and other colleges. Another encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles, faced violent attacks from pro-Israel counter-protesters overnight Tuesday, as well as a slow response from police.
No police or security personnel were apparent at Fresno State’s sit-in, and university spokesperson Lauren Nickerson told Fresnoland in an email Wednesday morning that no students had been disciplined or arrested related to protests.
“The university is committed to upholding the rights of free expression,” university spokesperson Esra Hashem shared in a statement later Wednesday afternoon, “including the right to free speech and assembly, as outlined in the First Amendment.”
It was important to the organizers that Wednesday’s sit-in remain peaceful “to ensure everyone’s safety,” Haneen said.
She said the student group has no plans to build an encampment at Fresno, noting their organization is not affiliated with the national organization Students for Justice in Palestine, which is supporting some of the encampments elsewhere.
“It’s a huge responsibility to be able to do that type of organizing. It requires a lot of resources,” she said. “What myself and my other organizers felt comfortable with doing is a peaceful sit-in, open to the community.”
Fresno State joins wave of pro-Palestinian protests in the city, county
Wednesday’s demonstration might have been a first on Fresno college campuses but the city has seen consistent war protests and demonstrations in support of Palestine and Gaza since October, when Hamas militants killed approximately 1,200 Israeli people. Since then, authorities have reported, the Israeli military’s bombardment has claimed the lives of at least 34,000 Palestinians.
Fresno protesters have urged the Fresno City Council to follow the lead of other California cities, including Madera and Kerman, with a ceasefire resolution, but have found little support.
Fresno State’s student governing body, the Associated Students, Inc., passed a resolution in April calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the university’s student newspaper The Collegian reported.
Multiple Fresno State administrators, including President Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval, stopped by the sit-in and spoke with protesters Wednesday.
“I’m saying hello to my students,” he told reporters.
“We have had a lot of dialogue with our students. I’ve been meeting with a group of students regularly,” he added.
Leaders from Students for Palestinian Liberation said they’ve met with the president and other administrators about four times since last November.
Multiple students at the demonstration said it was powerful to see so many gathered at a U.S. university campus to advocate for Palestinian freedom.
Seja said it’s especially meaningful to organize on a university campus in the wake of Israeli military attacks that have damaged or destroyed 12 universities in Gaza and made it impossible for students of any age to attend school.
“It’s very hard to be able to go to a class and sit and complain (about) that fact that I have to be here at this time and do this,” she said, “when they do not have that.”
Rahaf, 20, who declined to share her last name out of concern for her family’s safety in Palestine, said she had “goosebumps.”
One of her instructors let class out early so students could attend the sit-in.
“I see my class all standing here, and it’s crazy,” she said. “I go throughout the semester, just walking past these people and sitting down just to get to my spot – but seeing them here, it’s so nice.”
John Beynon, a Fresno State professor and California Faculty Association chapter president, said he was proud to join his students in solidarity with the people of Gaza.
“I remember when I was a student, getting active around the Iraq War in the early ’90s,” he said. “It kind of takes me back to that time, and I feel lucky to be able to support them in this one.”
