[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]
A grand jury has just indicted a dozen Stanford students and one non-student for vandalism and conspiracy to trespass during their 2024 storming and takeover of the university president’s office, where they did $300,000 worth of damage. They are no doubt surprised that the federal government is now involved, when all they expected was punishment from the university itself, such as suspension for a term or two, or the withholding of their degrees. Now they realize they are in deep trouble, and may go to prison. More on the current trials and tribulations, so well-deserved, of these pro-Hamas vandals, can be found here. “Stanford University Pro-Hamas Protesters Indicted on Felony Charges,” by Dion J. Pierre, Algemeiner, October 3, 2025:
A Santa Clara County, California grand jury has indicted, on federal charges of vandalism and trespassing, nearly a dozen pro-Hamas students who commandeered then-school president Richard Saller’s office in June 2024.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, anti-Israel activists associated with the campus group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) raided Saller’s office, locking themselves inside using, the Stanford Daily said at the time, “bike locks, chains, ladders, and chairs.” The incident was part of a larger pro-Hamas demonstration in which SJP demanded that the university adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as the first step to its eventual elimination.
Twelve students in total had participated in the action, including one non-student, but the 12th student has reportedly become a “cooperating witness,” having agreed to tell on his friends in exchange for evading criminal penalties. The remaining 11 are accused of causing some $300,00 in damages to Saller’s office and the administrative building in which it is located. As such, “Stanford is demanding restitution,” according to an email the group’s lawyer, Jeff Wozniak, sent to the Daily for publication on Thursday.
“The legal team supporting the 11 have demanded a dialogue with the university, but so far no response has been received,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, SJP maintains that the group acted morally, if not lawfully, telling the Daily, “Students acted to break through indifference, to force attention on an injustice that holding signs outside an office could never achieve.”
Before occupying Saller’s office, the anti-Israel group assembled a collection of tents on White Plaza — widely referred to as a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.” Despite living there for several weeks, the university declined to negotiate terms with its members, a rebuff SJP called “gravely insulting to Palestinians and pro-Palestinian students on campus.”
Refusing to be ignored, SJP raided Saller’s office with other students, forming a human chain and covering security cameras with tin foil. SJP then reiterated its terms, demanding that no criminal charges be filed against its members and that any disciplinary proceedings currently underway be terminated….
The stench of antisemitism wafts all over American campuses today. Almost four-fifths of Jewish students report that they hide their identities; more than four-fifths hide their support of Zionism. Jewish students report physical threats from fellow students; their professors show little sympathy and do not make “reasonable accommodations” to their needs — i.e., not scheduling exams on Jewish religious holidays.
It is in this atmosphere of widespread hostility to Jews and to Israel that the Stanford students no doubt thought would lead, at most, to a symbolic slap on the wrist from the administration, possible suspension for a term or two, or the temporary withholding of a degree for those who were graduating. They have been surprised to discover that their violent trespass and vandalism of President Staller’s office are not being dealt with in-house; the federal government is prosecuting them, and they will almost certainly be convicted. The judge will likely not only find them guilty, giving them criminal records that may make future employment difficult, but may also sentence them to prison.
And meanwhile, the university demands that these pro-Hamas students make “restitution” for the $300,000 worth of damage that they did to President Staller’s office, when they smashed all the furniture and threw red paint — symbolic blood — everywhere. Add to that the enormous cost of legal fees they will have incurred, and the students may now find they are on the hook for $50,000 apiece. That should make pro-Hamas students everywhere think twice before they engage in such violent protests.