University of California San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla is opening up about his decision to shut down the pro-Palestinian encampment the university deemed illegal, saying he made the move to protect students.
In a decision that has been criticized by pro-Palestinian activists, Khosla called in the police on May 6 to dismantle the encampment. Police arrested some 60 students and two faculty members.
During an interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, Khosla explained the rationale behind his decision. The UCSD chancellor feared that if he let the encampment continue, his campus would break out into violence similar to that seen at the University of California, Los Angeles. At least 15 people suffered injuries due to the violence at UCLA. Khosla didn’t want the same to happen at his university, saying, “We have a 2,000-acre campus we have to protect. My job was to keep them safe.”
The encampment began on May 1, when anti-Israel groups set up 20 tents on UCSD’s campus. The UCSDivest Coalition led the pro-Palestinian movement, joined by the Palestinian Youth Movement, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Students for Justice in Palestine. The protesters called their encampment an effort to force the university to “divest … financial holdings from weapons manufacturers and companies that enable and profit from Israeli apartheid, occupation, and genocide,” in a social media post. They were joined by several faculty, including lecturer Leslie Meyer.
“I am here first and foremost because I want to stand with the students who are saying that genocide is not OK,” the professor said during the encampment, later calling the students’ actions “courageous.”
“All people of conscience have woken up to the fact that the apartheid state of Israel, with total U.S. backing, is committing genocide against the Palestinian people,” the UCSD professor claimed. “Our clear-eyed and courageous students, some with loved ones in Gaza where U.S. bombs are falling and famine is spreading, assembled to demand that their school end its complicity in this most serious of crimes.”
The university responded to calls to divest with a statement: “A boycott of this sort impinges on the academic freedom of our students and faculty and the unfettered exchange of ideas on our campuses.”
Between May 1, when the pro-Palestinian coalition organized the encampment, and May 6, tensions grew on campus. On May 5, some counterprotesters defending Israel expressed concern over the group’s calls for “intifada”, which literally means “shaking off.” To many Jews, the term has an antisemitic connotation, generally associated with terrorism and death.
That day, tensions reached a new high. Responding to the counterprotesters’ presence in another part of campus, the pro-Palestinian coalition left their encampment to “provoke” the pro-Israel crowd, according to the university.
The USCD’s executive summary of the situation provides more details: “Encampment participants left the encampment and occupied Library Walk at the same time as the counterprotestors were marching through the same area. This resulted in hundreds of individuals from the two factions, feet apart from each other, screaming and waving objects in each other’s faces. Thankfully, this incident did not result in violence, but the encampment’s decision to provoke and confront counterprotestors dramatically increased the risk of violence breaking out as happened at UCLA.”
By that day, Kholsa said fears had grown that violence would break out similar to what occurred at UCLA and that UCSD’s security presence was reaching a breaking point. Resources were stretched thin as officers monitoring the illegal encampment were not able to protect the rest of the campus.
“The temperature between the two groups, in my mind, rose significantly, based on the reports I was getting,” Kholsa told the outlet last week. “So we had to think about how this was going to be dealt with because, at that point, I was afraid that one altercation between two random people could lead to what happened at UCLA.”
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On May 6, he called in the police to disband the illegal encampment.
Kholsa has faced pushback for his decision. Some faculty in the school’s Academic Senate are debating whether his decision merits a vote of no confidence and his removal from office. UCSD will hold its commencement on Saturday, but the UCSD chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine has announced plans to hold its own commencement on Friday.