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Campus Movement

USC President And Provost Censured After Faculty Senate Vote

After a three hour meeting of the University of Southern California (USC) academic senate with President Carol Folt and Provost Andrew Guzman, the faculty decisively passed a resolution with 21-7 majority, censuring both Folt and Guzman. USC has garnered local and national attention recently sparked by the cancellation of valedictorian Asna Tabassum’s commencement address. The attention has intensified after the university’s brutal crackdown on student divestment protests, which included the arrest of 93 protestors by LAPD, and overall cancellation of this year’s commencement ceremony.

The Students Did Not Invent The Encampments; We Inherited Them.

The fanfare over outside agitators, over how many students were involved (or not), over whether flares were lit (or not), over whose freedom of speech was infringed upon (or not), over which administrators said what, and when, and how — It’s all a distraction. From the fact that Israel is now bombing tents in the most populated parts of Rafah, an area the size of Newark into which 1.4 million people have been forced. The fact that Israel has now sealed the border with Egypt, cutting off life-saving aid as it extends its policy of mass starvation.

GW University Students Storm Campus With Second Encampment

Washington DC—George Washington University Students stormed back by the hundreds onto the campus streets on Thursday afternoon. They told of their experiences during a police raid the day before, and then set up a second temporary encampment of tents near the University President Ellen Granberg’s F Street Home. The student-led action came 36 hours after 32 were arrested during a predawn Wednesday morning raid on the U-Yard. The Press coverage was quarantined during the police take down of their U-Yard encampment so there is limited video of the raid. However, students described a disturbing sequence of events during the raid.

Over 130 Arrested At Gaza Solidarity Demonstration

At 1 p.m. on Tuesday, May 7, protesters set up an encampment on the Student Union South Lawn. Protesters were advocating for the University of Massachusetts to divest from war-profiteering companies involved in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and to drop the charges of the students arrested at the Whitmore demonstration in October. As the day progressed, dozens of police officers, many in riot gear, arrived on the scene and arrested over 130 undergraduates, graduate students, professors and community members. The protest was led by the UMass chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

Student Journalists Are Needed Now More Than Ever

On May 3, we celebrated World Press Freedom Day, an international holiday dedicated to the importance of journalism and a free press. And, as of May 3, more than 140 journalists have been killed in Gaza since October 7—an average of five per week. In fact, in Gaza, more journalists have been killed in the first three months of the war than in all of World War II and the Vietnam War combined. On May 5, the Israeli government raided and shut down Al Jazeera’s offices in Jerusalem. Meanwhile, in the United States—where the freedom of the press is enshrined in our Constitution’s First Amendment—law enforcement and university administrations have routinely disregarded the rights of student journalists who have been working tirelessly to cover the ongoing pro-Palestine campus protests.

University Of California Protests Test The Limits Of Zionist Fiction

On April 30, a mob of Zionist vigilantes descended onto UCLA’s Palestine Solidarity Encampment, besieging it and waging horrific violence against students for hours throughout the night. On May 1, UCLA called in the LAPD to clear the encampment by force, unleashing yet another brutal attack on students before the blood from the previous night had a chance to dry. On May 2, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block hosted a town hall for UCLA alumni during which he glossed over the horrific events that took place on campus under his watch. During his webinar, to an audience of 1000 alums unable to comment, Chancellor Block described the violence of the first night as a scuffle with some “pushing and shoving.”

History Of US Activism For Palestine

There is a long history of muted protests for Palestine on college campuses.  Imagine, Palestine never drew the attention of the American left in the 1960s and 1970s.  Few Americans knew the word Palestinian before the assassination by Palestinian American, Sirhan Sirhan. Most leaders of the American left (including Michael Harrington and Jerry Rubin) were staunch Zionists and thought of Israel as a progressive project in the midst of reactionary Arab countries (not that progressive Westerners were free of the racism that afflicted conservative Westerners). The AFL-CIO and all affiliates of the Democratic Party were prominent elements of the Israel Lobby. 

Antifascism After Gaza

Over the past few years, discussions of fascism in the United States have, unsurprisingly, followed an electoral cadence, focused more on the presidency of Donald Trump — past and possibly future — than on the formidable far-right mobilization taking place through private foundations and state legislatures. In many ways, that’s justified, considering fascism has historically required, for its successful seizure of power, an electoral and constitutional process, in tandem with militias and vigilantism. But today’s so-called ​“fascism debate” — an academic and intellectual dispute over whether it can, or already did, happen here—is taking place against a different backdrop than four or eight years ago: that of a growing movement, led by university students, to stop a genocide funded and sustained by the U.S. government.

DC Police Raid George Washington University Student Gaza Campus

Washington, DC - The student led Gaza solidarity protest at George Washington University Yard was raided in the predawn hours of Wednesday, May 8. Police arrested 31 and charged them with unlawful entry while four were additionally charged with assault of a police officer. All those arrested were released by the early afternoon of the same day. Jail supporters waited for each student’s release and provided emotional support, food, drink, and comfort to them once they were released. Nearly all those arrested were students and none of those arrested were reported as being “outside agitators” as the University Administration claimed had taken part in the camp.

University Of Michigan Protestors Keep Focus On Genocide In Gaza

It’s hard to believe that the encampment at the University of Michigan where students are protesting the university’s financial complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza is only two weeks old. Since establishing the encampment, the broad coalition, led mostly by graduate student organizers but supported by undergrads, faculty and staff, and community members, has grown tremendously. Over the last two weeks they have increased their actions, demanding  the University divest from companies that profit from Israel’s occupation of Palestine and war on Gaza. Over the last two weeks, camp activity has prioritized education and building community. Well over 100 permanent residents of the encampment have staged protests, teach-ins, and public engagement campaigns.

European Campuses Erupt In Protest Over Gaza Genocide

More European college campuses have erupted in protest over Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip, as the massive pro-Palestine movement at US universities continues to inspire students worldwide. According to a police statement, 169 people were detained on Monday evening and early Tuesday at the University of Amsterdam. Clashes with police and arrests have taken place as campuses in the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Austria broke out this week. Hundreds of protesters resumed a demonstration at the University of Amsterdam on the evening of 7 May, a day after Dutch riot police stormed the protest site and violently cleared out their encampment.

The Nation’s Conscience

New York City - I am sitting on a fire escape across the street from Columbia University with three organizers of the Columbia University Gaza protest. It is night. New York City Police, stationed inside and outside the gates of the campus, have placed the campus on lockdown. There are barricades blocking streets. No one, unless they live in a residence hall on campus, is allowed to enter. The siege means that students cannot go to class. Students cannot go to the library. Students cannot enter the labs. Students cannot visit the university health services. Students cannot get to studios to practice. Students cannot attend lectures. Students cannot walk across the campus lawns.

A Parent’s Revolt

A few years after graduating from USC, I proudly worked on campus in the office of university advancement, external relations and the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. In the first of those jobs, I helped plan large university events such as Homecoming and the main commencement ceremony, among others. For many years, on commencement morning, I was assigned to the president’s office managing the robing of the platform party, which included famous speakers, honorary doctorate recipients and trustees. I planned the beautiful honorary doctorate dinner in Hoose Library, the most lavish and expensive dinner we hosted all year.

How Israeli University Presidents Are Proving The Case For Boycott

On April 26, 2024, the presidents of Israel’s nine research universities — Ben-Gurion, Weizmann Insitute of Science, Hebrew University, the Open University, Ariel, Tel-Aviv, Haifa, and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology — issued a collective statement in response to the Palestinian solidarity student encampments that were spreading across university campuses throughout the United States and beyond. The statement was a remarkable condemnation of student protestors in the U.S. as engaging in “severe violence, antisemitism [and] anti-Israel sentiment,” characterizing these students as “incited and hateful groups,” who are allegedly “organized and supported” by “terrorist organizations.”

The People’s Art Institute Denounces Police Attack On Student Encampment

The People’s Art Institute, constituted by SAIC students, announced our encampment situated in the AIC’s North Garden, on Saturday morning, May 4, at 11:30 A.M. The goals of the encampment were clear: to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and to demand SAIC and AIC divest from entities profiting off of the occupation and genocide in Palestine. Students began setting up and by 12:05 P.M., CPD was onsite and an arrest warning was issued. CPD started kettling protestors on the sidewalk at the corner of Monroe and Michigan and removed them from the North side of the garden with extreme force.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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