Nearly one month after Occidental’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (Oxy SJP) occupied the Arthur G. Coons Administrative Center (AGC), the college’s administration has met with Oxy SJP to discuss the organization’s future plans and goals, according to Vice President for Marketing and Communications Rod Leveque.
The occupation followed after Oxy SJP participated in the national “Shut it Down for Palestine” protest Nov. 9. After sleeping over at the AGC to Nov. 10, Oxy SJP and other participants cleared out the building for the weekend and returned to occupy the AGC from Nov. 13-15.
Occidental President Harry Elam sent an email Nov.15 to the Occidental community, which outlined the agreements made between the administration and Oxy SJP and provided an attached document with 15 demands from Oxy SJP that will be the basis of ongoing dialogue with the organization. Oxy SJP did not respond to The Occidental’s request for an interview regarding their future goals and any reflections following the occupation.
According to the email, the administration has agreed to support the faculty if they vote to create a Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) minor and will augment staffing to better support MENA, Muslim and Palestinian students.
Elam’s email also stated that the administration will not bring conduct proceedings against students for the sit-in. Instead, the college issued a warning for violations of college policies that were listed in a Nov. 14 email from Elam, including the Right to Dissent and Demonstration policy, the Posting and Publicity policy, the Security in Academic Buildings policy, key card access policies and protocols and various Code of Student Conduct provisions.
“Any students or employees remaining in the building without authorization after Nov. 15, or who return to occupy it thereafter, may be found responsible for violations based on conduct occurring over the past week and since,” Elam said in the Nov. 15 email.
According to Leveque, Elam’s email implies that if more sit-ins were to occur, students could potentially face sanctions.
“I think it’s important to note that any sort of conduct is handled on a case-by-case basis, specific to the conduct or action [of] the individual student,” Leveque said.
Nov. 17, more than 70 people attended an Oxy SJP press conference on the Obama Steps, which celebrated the organization’s gains from the occupation.
Two Oxy SJP speakers, who will remain anonymous to protect the students’ safety, led the conference while more than 20 students with protest signs stood on the steps behind them. The speakers began the conference by referencing former President Barack Obama’s protests against apartheid while he was an Occidental student before they began speaking.
According to the Oxy SJP speakers, they received invaluable support from students, faculty, alumni and parents, including sending emails to the college and bringing food for the students demonstrating.
“In addition to material support, professors and staff gave us legal and strategic counsel, academic flexibility and persistent advocacy,” Oxy SJP Speaker 2 said.
The speakers said they were proud of how the community provided a culture of care during the occupation.
“Despite administrative implications otherwise, the coalition engaged in no harmful or destructive behaviors, respected the space and the campus community and consistently maintained the safety and security of students, staff and faculty,” Oxy SJP Speaker 1 said.
According to the Oxy SJP speakers, the safety concerns of Oxy SJP were not publicly legitimized by the administration early on in the occupation.
“The administration publicly conflated the work of Oxy SJP and its allies with provoking conflict and fear,” Oxy SJP Speaker 1 said.
The Oxy SJP speakers said they seized on what they saw as attempted intimidation by Occidental’s administration to double down on their sit-in and show that college students have the power to stand up to their administrations. According to Oxy SJP, such acts of intimidation included emails that threatened expulsion for participating students, as well as videos taken by Campus Safety.
Oxy SJP Speaker 1 said that Campus Safety personnel recorded videos of students without consent, including sleeping students in the AGC during their safety walkthroughs.
Leveque said Campus Safety was documenting potential violations they saw but that the college did not take steps to identify any students or faculty who participated in the occupation.
“I would say that the college’s position that the building could not be occupied after hours was largely for the health and safety of those who are inside of it,” Leveque said. “I think that we were concerned throughout with the well-being of all of the students on campus.”
The Oxy SJP speakers thanked Elam for the college’s commitments and applauded his commitment to not issue conduct proceedings against participants of the occupation.
“We wish to highlight the third clause out of those [commitments] protects those in our community who are most vulnerable, and we commend the protection of these students,” Oxy SJP Speaker 2 said.
However, they said the work of Occidental to be a true pioneer in helping end the Israel-Palestine conflict is far from finished.
“The administration has still not committed to divestment and issuing a statement for ceasefire, our two demands that most directly impact the issue that brings us together now,” Oxy SJP Speaker 2 said.
According to the Oxy SJP speakers, a statement for a ceasefire is above all a call for peace.
“Our history of student activism uniquely positions us to be the first college to demand a ceasefire for an institution whose mission is to create a more inclusive world for its students,” Oxy SJP Speaker 2 said.
The Oxy SJP speakers said that divestment morally and ethically aligns with Occidental’s mission statement. According to the speakers, in a 2021 email, the Occidental Board of Trustees said that the endowment should not be used as a political instrument to take a position on a geopolitical issue as complex and divisive as the Israel-Palestine conflict.
“The day that Occidental College first invested in military holdings was the day that its endowment became a political instrument,” Oxy SJP Speaker 1 said. “The call for divestment is simply a call for reinvestment into better things.”
Oxy SJP Speaker 1 said that in the coming weeks, Oxy SJP will issue a deadline for the college to fully commit to divestment and to issue a ceasefire statement.
“We are fully aware of the traditional method that this institution has previously used to neutralize student activism: bureaucratization, isolation and waiting out student movements until their organizers graduate,” Oxy SJP Speaker 1 said. “Our coalition will not let this nor any other student movement from now on fall victim to this longtime strategy.”
According to Leveque, Oxy SJP has not given the administration a time frame to meet the remaining demands. Leveque said the announcement at the press conference from Oxy SJP that there will be a deadline for Occidental to fulfill these commitments was the first time he had heard of such a deadline.
“The college isn’t engaged in deadline-driven discussions,” Leveque said via email.
Nov. 30, Elam sent an email to students, faculty and staff announcing that he commissioned a “Task Force on Promoting Community and Safety” in response to the impact of recent divisive rhetoric on campus. According to Elam’s email, the Task Force will be co-chaired by Associate Dean of Students Vivian Garay Santiago and Dean of the College Wendy Sternberg and will focus on various initiatives on campus to “address the ongoing needs of our community.”
Elam said in the email that the college has an ethical obligation to prevent the occurrence of Islamophobia and antisemitism at Occidental.
According to Leveque, the Task Force is a relatively new initiative and is not connected to the commitments made by the administration to Oxy SJP.
In the email, Elam said that Jewish students have reported feeling uncomfortable representing their identities on campus.
“We’ve heard concerns from students and parents who are worried that they may be treated unfairly in the classroom, or in other spaces on campus as a result of their political views or their opinions on the war in Israel and Palestine,” Leveque said.
Leveque said that the college has received concerns from Jewish students and parents about whether students will be treated fairly in classes specifically taught by faculty who signed the letter to the editor titled ‘It is not antisemitic to say Israel is a settler colonial state‘ published by The Occidental Nov.15.
According to Leveque, students have expressed worries to the administration about the language used during the occupation by Oxy SJP.
“Slogans have appeared on campus, here and elsewhere, that represent a political rallying cry for some but a dehumanizing insult for others,” Elam said in the email.
Leveque said the slogans that have been reported on campus are ones used broadly in political activity surrounding the Israel-Palestine conflict, and some of the signs and chants were reported as having occurred during student political activities.
Dec. 6, Oxy SJP released an Instagram post titled “In Solidarity With Our Jewish Student Community.” In the post, Oxy SJP said they were recently informed that an antisemitic slur was used towards a Jewish person at an Oxy SJP organized event and that they condemn antisemitism.
“The use of hateful rhetoric will result in immediate expulsion from SJP events,” Oxy SJP said via Instagram.
Oxy SJP said they will “pursue concrete measures to ensure that this remains an isolated incident,” and will maintain open communication with Jewish Student Life Coordinator Ben Greenberg as well as Jewish Voices for Peace.
According to Elam’s email, “The College will pursue several initiatives to promote Jewish and Israeli students’ wellbeing and sense of safety on campus.”
When asked if the college had received any concerns about safety from Muslim students, Leveque said he would not be privy to that information.
Elam acknowledged that students may feel fearful to express themselves politically on campus because of possible doxxing.
“The College also reaffirms its repudiation of doxxing, encourages students and faculty to learn more about protecting their online presence and to immediately report any safety concerns, and will respond to reports of online harassment or doxxing by College community members,” Elam said in the email.
Other initiatives mentioned in Elam’s email include the college welcoming the Interfaith America team to help promote restorative conversations among students for two days in Jan. 2024 and the Civil Rights & Title IX Office and Bias Education and Support Team (BEST) launching a “preventative, educational campaign to address potential antisemitism, Islamophobia and other forms of bias or harassment on campus.”
The email also said that “SLICE will coordinate training sessions with student organizations to promote their understanding of College policies and provide information on how to engage in political activism consistent with those [college] policies.”
According to Leveque, the initiatives described in Elam’s email are not necessarily commitments to specific resource allocation.
“These are some of the issues that we’re hearing students bring up, and the administration is talking to them to better understand their needs and identify what might be able to be done to address them,” Leveque said.
James Miller contributed to The Occidental’s reporting.
Contact Ava LaLonde at lalonde@oxy.edu and Jacob Whitney at jwhitney@oxy.edu
