April 21, 10 Occidental students began a hunger strike for immigrant justice, student protections and college divestment from genocide, according to Occidental’s Jewish Voices for Peace (Oxy JVP) Media Liasion Tobias Lodish.
Lodish said 10 students are fully participating in the hunger strike while a number of students are partially striking and limiting their daily calorie intake. The strikers have been gathering daily, both on the Academic Quad and the Marketplace Patio. The daily schedules listed on posts from Occidental’s Students Justice for Palestine (Oxy SJP) include teach-ins, mediation sessions, town hall meetings and phone banking.
“Right now, Israel has blocked all aid from entering Gaza. That means food, that means medicine,” Lodish said. “People are striking in solidarity with the people of Gaza who are facing a man-made famine.”
According to the United Nations, more than 2.1 million Gazans are starving as aid has not been allowed to enter the area in 50 days.
“We’re inspired by students at Chapman University who employed a hunger strike, as well as the countless Palestinian prisoners who have held hunger strikes to make their voices heard as well as the countless people detained by federal agents who are striking,” Lodish said.
The strikers have listed five demands of the college’s administration. Evan Zeltzer (first year) is on hunger strike and said the students participating will continue until their demands are met. Students are willing to strike into the summer if necessary, according to Lodish.
“These demands are very easily reachable by the college,” Zeltzer said. “We will continue until the demands are met.”
The first demand focuses on protections for students facing visa revocations and includes stipulations such as providing pro bono legal support and a commitment to providing virtual options for students who face deportation. The second demand centers on student safety by calling for the college to prohibit ICE and unannounced LAPD on campus as well as utilizing the OxyAlerts notification system for LAPD and ICE presence on or around campus.
“We see daily how both non-citizen students as well as citizens across this country are kidnapped by federal agents, often in plain clothes,” Lodish said.
The third demand urges the college to decriminalize free speech on campus through amendments to the Right to Dissent and Demonstration Policy. It requests the college expunge records of student protests, erase photos and videos of protesters and refuse to share student records with other institutions.
The fourth demand emphasizes the policing of dress code on campus.
“One of our demands is that the school does not implement a mask ban,” Lodish said. “We feel that would jeopardize both the safety of student protesters as well as the health of many students, whether they be wearing masks for accomodation reasons, accessibility reasons or for health or religious reasons.”
The fifth and final demand calls for Occidental to commit to removing direct holdings from weapons manufacturing and any fund containing the logistical company, Maersk.
“We feel that divestment would align the school’s investments with their mission statement,” Lodish said.
Zeltzer said they spent time doing research on how to hunger strike but that there is limited information available on how to prepare for a starvation state.
“I slowly limited my food intake in the week leading up to it, and then on the last day before the strike, I ate more to get carbs, energy for the upcoming time of not eating,” Zeltzer said.
Jackie Hu (junior) is on hunger strike and said the strikers are in continuous contact with lawyers and doctors regarding the safety and feasibility of the hunger strike and its effects. Hu said doctors from the All Power community clinic visited the strikers.
“We’ve received donations from the community,” Hu said. “Just having people drop by and sit with us has been really important.”
Zeltzer said the strikers are reckoning with increased violence, through surveillance and increased security, from the college’s new administration.
“Students are starving and our administrators can end this strike if they wanted to,” Zeltzer said. “This choice was not taken lightly. We are doing this because extreme violence is being perpetrated by our administration.”
Dean of Students Vivian Garay Santiago sent an email April 21 notifying students, faculty and staff of campus leadership’s increased concern about the negative impact of “disruptions” on campus events.
“This week will bring several significant and overlapping campus-wide events and we have made the decision to hire additional private security to help support our existing campus safety measures,” Santiago said in the email.
Santiago said via email to The Occidental that the college has routinely contracted with additional security for previous large-scale events such as Inauguration. The Inauguration for President Tom Stritikus is planned for April 25.
“Under the direction of Campus Safety, security relative to all of these events will be carried out fairly, without bias and with a focus on fostering a safe and inclusive environment for all,” Santiago said via email.
Lodish said he and the other protestors are disgusted by the hiring of private security.
“We see the cameras being put up in Swan Hall, and we remember the ways in which both campus safety and the private security who were most recently hired to protect the Board of Trustees on October 7 harassed and assaulted the students of this college,” Lodish said “We know that these so-called safety measures are not to protect students but to surveil them.”
Lodish said the question of if strikers are attending class or will complete finals depends on each student and their professor. The protestors are already feeling the health effects of the hunger strike, according to Lodish.
“Many strikers do not have the ability to focus or talk very much anymore,” Lodish said via email as of April 24.
Contact Ava LaLonde at lalonde@oxy.edu
