Oxy SJP occupies AGC after two-day demonstration, next steps are unclear

Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, the Occidental College community has been embroiled in controversy about how to react on campus, starting with email exchanges among faculty members and culminating in sit-ins and demonstrations led by Occidental’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (Oxy SJP).

As of Nov. 14, Oxy SJP occupied the Arthur G. Coons administrative building overnight twice and are planning on sleeping over at least one more night, demanding that the college administration meet five demands — a statement calling for a ceasefire and acknowledgement of Palestinian deaths, the creation of a Middle Eastern/North African Studies minor, the release of the college’s financial holdings, written protection for pro-Palestine students and faculty against retaliation and commitments to future meetings to ensure the demands’ implementation.

Students from Oxy SJP declined The Occidental’s requests for interviews. During the protest, Oxy SJP told protestors on their megaphone to decline any media interview requests. All faculty and student participants approached by The Occidental during and after the demonstrations declined to comment. Oxy SJP also objected to the newsroom taking photographs taken during the demonstration. Participating students and faculty blocked newsroom cameras with signs and at times, their bodies. All potential interviewees were offered anonymity and student sources in this story are anonymous to prevent targeted action against them.*

The Build-Up

Oct. 21, English professor Warren Montag sent out an email letter titled “A statement of concern from the undersigned” signed by 37 faculty members to the greater college community. The original email set off a contentious back-and-forth among faculty members. After The Occidental reported on the initial Oct. 21 email, the letter continued to circulate and had 59 faculty signatures as of Nov. 13, according to history professor Michael Gasper.

Nov. 8, the Critical Theory and Social Justice department presented a teach-in titled “Why Anti-Zionism Is Not Anti-Semitism” led by Montag, who is currently on sabbatical. Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Rob Flot told The Occidental that the event prompted students to line up outside his door and parents to call him asking if the college was sponsoring the event.

Thirty-seven minutes after the teach-in began, Flot sent an email to the entire Occidental community to clarify that the event was conducted by Montag through his own volition as a faculty member and was not sponsored or produced by the college and that attendance was not required.

“It’s important to note that those who are organizing these programs are not speaking on behalf of Occidental College, but rather are sharing their own perspectives,” Flot said in the email.

The email quickly drew responses from faculty who supported or took issue with Flot’s response. Eighteen email exchanges from 10 professors went back and forth between the faculty email group, despite all responses being addressed to the faculty, student and staff listservs. A recent email policy change resulted in only faculty members receiving all 18 responses.

The Nov. 9 Demonstration

Approximately 10 students from Oxy SJP wearing headscarves, face masks and sunglasses led roughly 200 participating students, faculty and others in a demonstration Nov. 9, chanting “Free! Free Palestine!” to the beat of a drum. The all-day demonstration continued into an overnight occupation of the AGC where at least 20 students slept in the administrative building until the next morning. Another demonstration occurred Nov. 10 similarly garnering about 200 faculty and students.

The Nov. 9 overnight occupation was the college’s fifth sit-in staged in the AGC, the first being in 1969 when 47 students occupied the Counseling and Placement Center inside the AGC to protest military recruiters on campus, resulting in 42 suspensions. The AGC was last occupied in 2015 when Occidental’s Oxy United for Black Liberation (OUBL) led a four-night sit-in, demanding racial equity for Black students.

The Nov. 9 demonstration started with 14 demands including a call for the college’s administration to condemn the Israeli government’s actions against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The list of demands also included greater transparency regarding Occidental’s financial investments and a call to withdraw from investments supporting the Israeli government.

Vice President for Marketing and Communications Rod Leveque told The Occidental that a student representative from Oxy SJP sent an email to Flot Nov. 7, which outlined 13 demands and made him aware of the Nov. 9 demonstration. Leveque said that after receiving this email, Flot had a meeting with representatives of Oxy SJP Nov. 8, where they discussed a list of demands that were not finalized.

Flot told The Occidental Nov. 9 that representatives of Oxy SJP told him via email that the demonstration would start at 11:30 a.m. and end promptly at 1:15 p.m. At 1:15 p.m., the demonstration was still underway in the AGC.

Around noon, participating students and faculty marched laps around the Academic Quad and led a trail up the AGC steps and into the AGC building chanting: “What do we want? /Justice! / When do we want it? / Now!” and “Viva, Viva Palestina!” During the protest, Oxy SJP also handed out leaflets with the initial 14 demands listed.

Flot attended the demonstration to be available for students who wanted to discuss their demands, Leveque said.

Campus Safety was also present at the demonstration, though Leveque said that neither the college’s administration nor Campus Safety perceived any safety threats.

Approximately 12 faculty members stood outside the AGC observing the demonstration through the glass walls that characterize the building, while others descended the staircase with students, many of them in blue medical masks.

The offices closest to the central lobby were devoid of any staff members. Most office doors were shut and locked. Participating students and faculty marched down the main staircase and occupied the central lobby. Leveque told The Occidental that administrative department heads formed their own plans of action. Leveque, for example, said he and his staff continued to work in their offices without any concerns.

A student member of Oxy SJP began a series of speeches in the AGC to a crowd of resounding applause and cheers.

“Today we’re demonstrating to Oxy and to the world that we will not stay silent on Palestine, that we will not remain silent, that we will use our voices to uplift Palestinian existence, self-determination and liberation against settler colonialism and the many forms it takes,” the student said.

During their speech, the student said that Oxy SJP has faced pushback from “many different sources” but their commitment to the humanity of Palestine would not be forgotten. The student also said Oxy SJP condemns “any circulating narratives that criminalizes, villainizes and dehumanizes Palestinians and their supporters.”

“We stand on the right side of history by supporting Palestine and Palestinians against colonialism, against exploitation and against genocide,” the student said.

During the demonstration, student representatives from Oxy Labor Alliance, Pilipino United Students Organization, Black Student Alliance, Middle Eastern North African Student Association and Sunrise Oxy spoke to the crowd. As they spoke, students and faculty held signs that read “End all US aid to Israel,” “Free all Palestinian political prisoners,” “Protect MENA students” and “Genocide is not a Jewish value.”

Oxy SJP emphasized the solidarity of other student organizations including the Disabled Student Union, Latine Student Union, Fat Oxy, South Asian Students Association, Oxy Armenian Student Association and Oxy Students United Against Gentrification.

“All of our struggles are interconnected, which manifests itself here at Oxy and in Palestine,” the student said. “When we stand and unite together, we win together. The most immediate difference we need to make is to hold Oxy accountable for their complicity and to empower and uplift Middle East, North African and all marginalized students.”

A student representative from Sunrise Oxy, an environmental conservation organization club, said that at least 60 percent of Occidental’s 35 retirement portfolios fund genocide in Gaza and invest in nuclear weapons. The Occidental newsroom and Leveque were both unable to substantiate this claim.

“This is the fault of the Oxy Board of Trustees and our Vice President of Finances Mr. Amos Himmelstein,” the student said. “Our money is going towards a happy retirement, but those same funds are helping ensure that many of us will not live to see retirement in this century of the climate crisis. And those funds are the part of the reason why only 3 percent of Palestinians see 65.” Again, The Occidental and Leveque were unable to substantiate these claims.

Himmelstein did not see The Occidental’s email requesting for comment about this Sunrise Oxy statement before this article’s publication.

A student from MENASA said during their speech that they represented students who descended from or are themselves genocide survivors.

“Many of these demands that SJP has made are demands that Middle Eastern and North African students have been asking for years,” the student said.

Adriana Bautista, a representative of Black Lives Matter Pasadena took the megaphone commending the student activism at Occidental and encouraged solidarity-building on campus. Near the end of her five-minute speech, Bautista said that she radicalized her mom, and that educating relatives and friends makes a difference. She then said that she knew she made “enough of a positive influence” on her teenage nephew when he told her how to make a Molotov cocktail in five different ways.

Her speech ended promptly after that comment. One student quickly left the demonstration and threw up outside of the building.

After this article published, Bautista reached out to The Occidental apologizing for her words that may have caused the Occidental community harm.

As the speeches concluded, a student representative of Oxy SJP said that they planned on occupying the AGC until the end of the business day.

After 1:30 p.m. students spent the rest of the day at the AGC building, spreading out schoolwork and making protest signs while listening to music that played through the loudspeaker. A few hours later, Oxy SJP posted on their public Instagram account that the college must meet the five specified demands by 5 p.m., Nov. 13, without explanation of what the college was to expect next.

Leveque said that the administration is very open to discussing Oxy SJP’s demands as issues to solve, rather than demands to be met. Leveque said they are willing to hold conversations on how to pursue those goals.

For example, Leveque said that the creation of a Middle Eastern/North African Studies minor is not an administrative process; rather, it is a process that requires faculty input and support and not unilaterally fulfilled by the college’s administration.

As the sun went down, so did the crowd. The remaining students, through Oxy SJP’s Instagram post, requested that students bring food, water, bedding, musical instruments and games to the AGC. Oxy SJP asked students via Instagram to use their extra meal plan money to provide food for the demonstrators.

Leveque told The Occidental that the administration received an email at around 6 p.m., after operating hours, from Oxy SJP sharing the shortened list of demands and the Nov. 13 deadline. The administration then replied to the email the next morning offering to meet with Oxy SJP.

The Nov. 10 Demonstration

The following morning Nov. 10, a photographer from The Los Angeles Times arrived at 7:30 a.m. to cover the demonstration and overnight occupation. Oxy SJP organizers told the photographer to return at 11:30 a.m. when they would resume demonstrating. At 11:30 a.m., the photographer returned and was met with Oxy SJP’s requests for photos to be taken without identifiable features of subjects. Multiple anonymous sources said the photographer left the college without taking photos.

Around the same time, Occidental President Harry Elam sent an email to students, faculty, staff, alumni and parents, according to Leveque. Leveque told The Occidental that Elam’s email was scheduled to be sent Nov. 10 and was not in response to Oxy SJP’s Nov. 9 demonstration. Elam told The Occidental Nov. 14 via email that he has heard from students who are supportive of the Nov. 9 and 10 demonstrations or have been hurt by the expressions in the signs that were carried in the march.

Elam stated in his campus-wide email that the college does not and will not tolerate antisemitism, Islamophobia and any targeted forms of harassment. In the email, Elam said that he received concerns from students, faculty, alumni and parents with opposing views and worries about their safety and support at the college.

The struggle, Elam said in the email, is being faced universally on college campuses around the country.

“The messages I have received indicate that the language and rhetoric used in some campus messages, social media posts, protests signage, in a statement signed by a number of faculty members and elsewhere have caused anguish or provoked further conflict and fear,” Elam said in his email.

In his email, Elam said that while he’s been asked to condemn and intervene in disseminating messages and stop campus events that have angered Occidental’s community, he recognizes that certain speech acts are protected by law. This, Elam said in his email, is the “fundamental concern of existing in community with one another.”

Elam also affirmed that students who hold differing views from their professors should not be subject to differential treatment, citing the college’s Faculty Handbook to back that claim.

“We are, first and foremost, an educational institution, and our duty is to do just that: educate,” Elam said in the email. “In particular, we will look to offer tools for how to share divergent opinions respectfully.”

As Oxy SJP prepared for their second day of demonstrations, the math department and campus volunteers were knee-deep in constructing the Oxyhedron, a 17-foot-tall geometric structure between Fowler and Johnson Halls.

Math professor Jim Brown and community member Ricardo Lopez were building the Oxyhedron Nov. 10 and said they were pleased with the reception of Oxy SJP.

“They had a display here, and we asked them if they could move it up or down, and they accommodated very nicely,” Brown said.

Lopez said he appreciated the attentiveness Oxy SJP gave to the builders of the Oxyhedron.

“I mean it’s fine. It’s freedom of assembly. I don’t mind,” Lopez said. “They were very respectful. They had people looking out for our little crater right here, so nobody hurt it.”

The Oxy SJP protest resumed at around noon Nov. 10, just as the Explore Occidental event was underway near Thorne Hall. The college’s day-long event provides prospective students and their families an opportunity to visit campus, learn about the admission and financial aid processes and hear from current students and faculty, according to Occidental’s website.

Elam told The Occidental via email Nov. 14 that Explore Occidental went very well, receiving positive feedback from visiting prospective students and their families.

“The marchers purposefully did not disrupt the families or the tour groups,” Elam told The Occidental. “Rather, they demonstrated Occidental’s fundamental commitment to peaceful protest.”

The roughly 200 participating students and faculty marched around the Academic Quad continuing the same chants from Nov. 9 with the front line of students holding a yellow banner that read “From the river to the sea.” The group stopped outside of Johnson Hall to make speeches and then continued to march towards Thorne Hall on the JSC Walkway, greeting prospective and current students.

The Nov. 13 Occupation

Oxy SJP’s next steps are currently unclear. At 2:48 p.m., Nov. 13, Oxy SJP posted on Instagram that they would again occupy the AGC building overnight. At 4:44 p.m. Flot sent an email to students, faculty and staff, saying that students who entered locked buildings after hours would be considered in violation of college policy and would be subject to the student conduct, up to and including the possibility of expulsion.

At 5:33 p.m., Oxy SJP sent out an urgent Instagram post asking students to join them.

E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics and Urban & Environmental Policy professor ­Peter Dreier stood outside the AGC building at around 6:15 p.m. and told The Occidental that while he wasn’t planning on staying overnight, he thought that Flot’s threatening of students with the possibility of expulsion was “a big mistake.”

“If they were destructing things, breaking things, going into offices — that would be grounds for disciplinary action,” Dreier said. “But, peacefully sitting in, sleeping overnight, doing homework, that’s what students came here for — to be educated. It’s a form of education. Rob made a mistake.”

What’s Next

Nov. 14, Oxy SJP handed flyers encouraging students to stay overnight again, and said that Elam postponed a 10 a.m. meeting at 9:45 a.m.

According to an anonymous source, Oxy SJP’s e-board and Elam rescheduled to meet Nov. 15 in the AGC.

Leveque was unable to confirm with the President’s Office that the meeting was scheduled to take place Nov. 15 before The Occidental’s print deadline.

At approximately 4 p.m., Nov. 14, the president’s office sent an email addressed to “Students occupying the AGC.” The email, signed by Elam, Flot and Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College Wendy Sternberg, affirmed students’ rights to free expression on campus, but stated that students participating in the overnight occupation of the AGC “are in open and ongoing violation” of the college’s Right to Dissent and Demonstration Policy.

The email also stated that the morning of Nov. 14, mattresses and other items impeded employees’ access to and from business offices and restrooms; that the electrical system had been tampered with and furniture had been removed and damaged.

This is a continuing story and The Occidental will continue to report online.

Mollie Barnes, Anna Beatty, Kawena Jacobs, Ava LaLonde, Sebastian Lechner, James Miller and Jacob Whitney contributed to The Occidental’s reporting.

*The Occidental is protected by the First Amendment and holds the right and responsibility to report on public demonstrations.

Contact Mia Anzalone at anzalonem@oxy.edu

This article was updated at Nov. 15, 12:58 p.m. to reflect that the Oxy United for Black Liberation (OUBL) led the 2015 occupation, not Black Student Alliance. The article was also corrected to reflect that Himmelstein did not respond to The Occidental’s request for comment because he did not see The Occidental’s email by the newsroom’s designated deadline. 

This article was updated at Nov. 16, 11:44 a.m. to reflect that Oxy SJP’s occupation is the fifth occupation of the AGC building, the first being in 1969. 

After this article published, Oxy Sexual Assault Coalition clarified that they are not affiliated with Oxy SJP and that one OSAC member who spoke at the rally did not intend to represent OSAC being affiliated with Oxy SJP. At 5:15 p.m., Nov. 18, The Occidental updated the article to reflect this change and to include Bautista’s apology.