Pro-Palestinian protesters held a teach-in on the stairs of Doe Library this afternoon. Two hours into the demonstration at approximately 4 p.m., UCPD officers in riot gear assembled outside Doe as protesters fled the building.
After protesters declined to disperse amid repeated requests by officers, UCPD prepared to clear the demonstration, according to campus spokesperson Dan Mogulof.
The group immediately vacated the stairway as officers in riot gear, holding batons and face shields, attempted to pursue protesters through the library.
However, no arrests were made.
Mogulof told The Daily Californian campus could not determine whether any of those engaged in the protest were students. However, he said campus would initiate an inquiry into the demonstration, claiming authorities will “seek (protesters) out in an effort to impose appropriate consequences.”
The participants of the teach-in, donned in keffiyehs and face masks, told stories of Palestinian suffering and recited several poems. They held flyers with messages of liberation and shouted chants such as, “disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest.”
They also held a large banner that listed their demands to campus, including a call for financial disclosure and divestment, an academic boycott and the restoration of the Multicultural Community Center — which has been closed this school year — among others.
In a conversation with the Daily Californian after the demonstration, an undergraduate student protester confirmed that while the action was organized “autonomously,” several campus students participated. The student was granted anonymity for fear of retribution.
“Demonstrations like this poetically voice the cries of the Palestinian people,” the student said. “Our voices and bodies are the only weapons we have against the systemic apathy of the university.”
In a social media post authored by the Coalition for the People’s Collective Liberation, protesters decided to refer to the library as the Saleh Al-Jafarawi Library in honor of the late Palestinian journalist who covered Israel’s war on Gaza. A September United Nations legal analysis found that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians.
At 2:30, UCPD officers were “dispatched immediately” upon learning of the demonstration, where they initiated a “tiered response” where the first step was asking protesters to leave, according to Mogulof. After they refused to initially disperse, Mogulof said, officers were deployed.
He said protesters were in violation of campus’s time, place and manner regulations, including prohibitions on the use of amplified sound, yelling in the library and blocking the stairway.
Mogulof added that protesters who wore masks were infringing on the UC system’s mask prohibition that was established last year and bans concealing one’s face while violating campus policy.
“The university continues to have an unwavering commitment to first amendment rights, but what people don’t have the right to do is infringe on the rights of others, or disrupt the academic or administrative operations of campus,” Mogulof said.
According to an anonymous statement protestors shared with The Daily Californian after the event, the teach-in was planned to continue all day, but demonstrators were forced to leave following the dispersal orders.
The statement added that protestors “promise to escalate” action until their demands are met.
Aarya Mukherjee contributed to this report.