For almost six months now, fascists in Congress—aided and abetted by most Democrats—have conducted hearings aimed at slandering the student protests against the genocide in Gaza as “anti-Semitic.” They’ve humiliated and driven from office the heads of major universities and made others grovel before them. On Thursday, it was supposed to be the turn of three more heads, including Gene Block, the Chancellor of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). 

On Thursday morning, learning from what students a month earlier had done at Columbia, the UCLA students flipped the script—and the headlines throughout the day focused on their courageous protest and not Block's reactionary performance. 

The Statement from the Collective for the Liberation of Palestine announcing a second UCLA encampment spoke powerfully to why they refused to back down:

In 229 days, we have witnessed bodies charred, children dismembered and skulls crushed by U.S. bombs. Mass graves and images of concentration camps are etched in our minds. As the zionist state executes its most vicious assault on Gaza, it displaces Palestinians not once, not twice, but countless times. We have seen over 40,000 massacred and the devastation of countless mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, friends, and neighbors... Today, Gene Block testifies on Capitol Hill. The congressional hearing a textbook example of political theater conflates calls for Palestinian liberation with antisemitism to outlaw pro-Palestine activism.

It went on to say, “We now face only two choices: silence or resistance.”

Their second encampment did not last long, as it was met with hundreds of police in riot gear, but it began a day of marches involving hundreds of students, faculty and others, and building takeovers that disrupted business as usual on campus throughout the entire day.

This is one example of how students demanding an end to the U.S.-Israeli genocide have not just continued their protests, but have seized the initiative in the face of vicious slander and violent suppression. Amidst graduations and the last weeks of school, they have continued to sound the alarm about what the U.S. is funding in Gaza, and called out the complicity of their Institutions. 

This protest has not just inspired people here and around the world, but has shaken people awake, forcing people to pick a side, and ripped off the “veil of democracy” that this system tries to cover up the truth of their ruthless capitalist-imperialist dictatorship.

In another example, when Harvard University refused to let 13 students graduate, instead of silencing people, it led to more protest and resistance—marking the entire graduation ceremony with outrage against the U.S.-Israeli genocide and the suppression of righteous protest.

One of the students barred from graduating, Asmer Safi, a senior at Harvard and a Rhodes Scholar, said in an interview on Democracy Now: 

[F]or me, as a student, for someone that has had my faith in both the university administration but also the U.S. government at large be completely shaken as a consequence of the actions that I’ve seen at Harvard and beyond, with my peers being met with police repression on campuses across the country, I genuinely lack faith in the ways in which these systems work. And for me, as a student right now, and my peers, the goal is to reimagine the world that we live in and sort of be able to construct it from down below, just so we can be able to aspire to the future of the world that we want to live in.

This is exactly why this repression is coming down so hard, and what the rulers of this system are desperate to prevent. The revolutionary leader Bob Avakian spoke to this: 

[T]his repression is happening because representatives of the ruling class in this country have a definite sense that if youth especially at “elite” universities begin to seriously question and act against what this system is doing—if the system “loses the allegiance” of large numbers of those students—that can be a big factor in creating a real crisis for the system as a whole, as happened in the 1960s: a crisis that, now more than ever, this system really cannot afford, when the whole country is already being torn apart by deep divisions, with bitter clashes right among the ruling powers.... The ruling class is desperate to prevent opposition to its fundamental interests from spreading and involving masses of people, from all parts of society. [bold and italics ours] (From @BobAvakianOfficial on social media and substack)

The Harvard and UCLA protests both show the vulnerability of this system... Vulnerability which must be hammered at—by strengthening and broadening the mass protest to STOP the U.S.-Israeli Genocide of the Palestinian People Now! 

And we need to do so while opening up the debate about where this horror is coming from and what it will take to end it—to end this genocide of the Palestinian people, and to end the system giving rise to this nightmare, and many other horrors brought down on people here and around the world. 

To get more deeply into what needs to happen now, read the open letter from the Revcom Corps, A Crucial Crossroads in the Struggle to STOP the U.S.-Israeli Genocide of Palestinians… A Historic Moment in the World: How Do We Go Forward? 

Here is a roundup of just some of what took place at campuses and graduations this week:

UCLA Encampment, March and Takeover 

As UCLA Chancellor Gene Block was testifying before Congress, going along with the lie that pro-Palestinian protests are anti-Semitic, UCLA students were preparing their own response: a second Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Students and others took over Kerckhoff Patio—building barricades to prevent police access. 

They renamed the building next to the Patio “Bassel al-Araj Hall.” Al-Araj was a Palestinian nationalist activist and writer. He was killed by the Israeli police in 2017. 

On social media, Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA called on students and people from the community to join them. By 10:30 am, police had created a perimeter trying to prevent this. As students and others were starting to gather, people broke through the police lines—first bringing food and supplies that people had brought in support of the encampment. Then, jumping in to join the encampment itself. Ladders were brought out and people climbed over the walls to join.

After hundreds of police in riot gear amassed, the people who formed a front line linked arms and backed away together before the police broke through the encampment barricades. Students led a march of hundreds to Murphy Hall (the administrative center at UCLA), then marched to Dodd Hall, which they spontaneously occupied for several hours. Outside, faculty held a banner in support of the protests—a banner that was ripped in half at the police raid of the first encampment, but sewn back together by a faculty member. Inside Dodd Hall, students chanted, talked about why they were there, discussing why they were willing to risk arrest to make a statement that this genocide must stop. And students talked about not wanting their tuition dollars go to funding a genocide. A member of the Revcom Corps for the Emancipation of Humanity in LA was part of all this—talking with people about the importance of this protest and opening up discussion about how to carry this forward.

A number of fascists had made their way into the building and students took each other’s security seriously—encircling the fascists to prevent them from attacking others... or working together to keep them out of the building. As they learned that the riot police were again amassing, students de-occupied the building with chants of “we’ll be back, we’ll be back!”

The Revcom Corps distributed a statement on campus the next morning that said, in part, “Our salute to these organizers. Instead of the terms being set by the fascists and liberals in Congress, they were set by students acting to STOP THE GENOCIDE! And our salute to the hundreds of students and others who came out to support. Do not underestimate the difference you have made.”

Turning Graduation Into Truth-Telling, Protest and Resistance

From Columbia to UC Berkeley to Duke to the University of Texas, graduations have been sites of boisterous protests against the genocide in Gaza and the campus crackdowns across the U.S. This past week students and faculty at Harvard, Yale, the City University of New York and more ensured that graduations would not go on as normal in the midst of a genocide.

Mass Walkout at Harvard University Graduation

On May 23, as Harvard began its 373rd Commencement, over 1,000 students walked out in protest of Harvard’s complicity in the genocide in Gaza and for its punishment of student protesters. 

As the protesters left Harvard Yard where the commencement was taking place, many were chanting, “Let them walk” referring to the 13 students who were prevented from graduating by the University as a punishment for protesting the genocide. 

The punishment of the 13 had sparked outrage in the days leading up to commencement. A member of the Revcom Corps for the Emancipation of Humanity in Boston wrote: “Students at the Harvard Out of Palestine encampment had voted to take down their encampment rather than have the Cambridge cops brought in to forcible evict them, as they had at nearby MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). In return, there was an agreement that no disciplinary charges would be pursued against students in the encampment, in addition to a promise to meet with Harvard Administrators for further discussions around divesting in corporations doing business with Israel.

“Immediately afterward, however, the Harvard Corporation (the body of individuals who oversee Harvard), voted to prevent 13 graduating students from receiving their degrees. In response, the Harvard faculty voted overwhelmingly for the Corporation to reverse its decision and allow these 13 students to graduate. In a highly unprecedented step, the Corporation ignored the faculty vote and went forward with its decision. This stoked the passions of the protest when graduation came.” 

As graduates, alongside some family and faculty members, were leaving they chanted, “Disclose, Divest, We will not stop, We will not rest” and “Harvard University, We know what side you’re on, Remember South Africa, Remember Vietnam.” Others waved Palestinian flags. 

When the ceremony began, in his opening remarks to the graduating students and their families interim Harvard president Alan M. Garber made a thinly veiled threat against any disruptions—but students did not comply. Shruti Kumar, the graduating senior chosen to address the audience, went off script and passionately called out the Harvard Corporation and Harvard administration for penalizing students for legal and nonviolent protest in response to the genocide in Gaza. She talked about what it meant to be doxed, leaving “our jobs uncertain, our safety uncertain. This semester, our freedom of speech and our expressions of solidarity became punishable, leaving our graduations uncertain. As I stand before you today, I must take a moment to recognize my peers, the 13 undergraduates—the 13—the 13 undergraduates in the class of 2024 who will not graduate today.” Her courageous statement was met with sustained applause and a standing ovation.

The member of the Revcom Corps wrote about the scene outside Harvard Yard: “The scene was chaotic. Overhead planes flew banners with the Israeli and US flags, while the infamous Harvard doxing trucks circled the campus in a highly funded pro-Zionist campaign. Only this time the doxing trucks were calling for the resignation of the Harvard Corporation members! Apparently, they had not done enough in the eyes of the rabid pro-Zionists funding this effort.

“At the same time dozens of pro-Palestinian students and other activists, including a crew from the revcoms, were reaching out to the thousands of graduating students, their families and friends who were attending the commencement. In a creative stroke, some students had printed a mock Commencement brochure, whose cover looked exactly like the official brochure except it had changes the lettering of VERITAS (the official Harvard motto) to DIVEST. Inside was a call for Harvard to disclose and divest its holdings with a brief history of Palestine since the Nakba in 1948. They also produced a mock copy of the school newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, renamed The Harvard Crimeson.”

Once outside, the protesting graduates and their supporters took over Massachusetts Avenue and marched to a nearby Epworth Church for a “People’s Commencement” ceremony, which honored the 13 denied diplomas from Harvard. The revcoms joined the march, unveiling pigs head caricatures of “Genocide Joe Biden,” “Netan-Nazi” and interim president Garber. 

At the People’s Commencement, one student said, “As a Palestinian who has been betrayed and abandoned by the University, I cannot tell you how much it means to me that all of you walked out in solidarity with the Palestinian people and the 13 seniors who were prevented from graduating.” 

Members of the Harvard University Band played as organizers honored “the students in Palestine who will not get to graduate because of the ongoing Nakba.”

Repression at the University of Chicago

On May 24, the University of Chicago told four seniors that their degrees are being withheld just eight days before graduation set for June 1. The administration gave no justification for this, other than that these students “may have been involved with complaints” regarding the UChicago Popular University For Gaza Palestine solidarity encampment. A protest letter signed by almost 4,000 students, faculty, alum, staff and others says:

In the last few weeks, Israel has launched another assault on Rafah where it told people to flee, blocked all aid to Gaza, and attacked northern Jabalia where Palestinians are trapped in a hospital under siege. Yet, UChicago is more concerned with targeting and harassing its students than with addressing its complicity in genocide. After 8 months of genocide, after days of meetings with students from the Popular University for Gaza encampment, UChicago admin refuses to even name Palestine. UChicago’s President, Paul Alivisatos, refuses to acknowledge the undeniable fact that every Gazan university has been destroyed. Over the past 8 months, UChicago has evaded, stalled, and ignored even the most basic demands of its students--hiding behind its bureaucratic structures. But in one email, a single administrator can make the baseless decision to prevent 4 students from graduating.

In a New York Times video, Youssef Hasweh, a college senior who was arrested at a sit-in and still went ahead to be part of organizing an encampment, despite facing potential disciplinary action said he has “no regrets,” even though he may not be allowed to graduate. In the video, he wears a shirt that says, “I went to meet [UChicago President] Paul Alivisatos and all I got was charged with a class B misdemeanor in the state of Illinois.” 

Walkout at Yale University Graduation

On May 20, as Yale President Peter Salovey started to announce the traditional commencement order, over 150 Yale students stood up together, turned their backs on Salovey, and walked out of their graduation ceremony. Some wore red gloves to symbolize the rivers of blood spilled by Israel and the U.S. Others carried small banners saying “Books not bombs" or "Divest from war," “Drop the charges” and “Protect free speech.” Yale students had been demanding Yale divest from any businesses connected with Israel and drop all charges against the 45 people arrested during police assaults on the protests at Yale. Their action drew cheers from many in attendance.

City University of New York Law School: “Free them all from Rikers to Rafah”

CUNY’s Law School banned student speakers at graduation ceremonies precisely to avoid pro-Palestinian, anti-genocide speeches or protests. Yet when commencement came on May 23, students protested anyway.

They chanted for Palestine, waved signs as they walked across the stage, and turned their backs to the law school’s dean during her speech. Some 50 students held banners with pro-Palestinian messages—including “Free them all from Rikers to Rafah”—as they got their diplomas. Students twice stood and chanted collectively in what they called a “mic check,” in order to reclaim the student address. After the last degrees had been handed out, dozens stood up and walked out, joined by some professors and guests. The two guest speakers CUNY had invited cancelled in protest of the ban on student speakers.

On the way out, students chanted “disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest.” 

School of the Art Institute of Chicago: “My degree is dedicated to Gaza”

May 20, graduating students at Chicago’s Art Institute protested the genocide in Gaza as they walked across the stage during commencement by wearing kaffiyehs over their graduation gowns, by holding Palestinian flags or draping them over their their backs, and stitching messages on their clothing like “Liberation for all,” or on Palestinian flags like “My degree is dedicated to Gaza.” 

Many tore up flyers onstage with images of a crown, bullets and bombs. This symbolized the Crown family, Art Institute benefactors who students say invest in weapons manufacturers. 

Year-End Protests at Campuses—In and Out of Session

Encampment at Wayne State University, Detroit

On Thursday, May 23, 150 students and others held a protest in support of the Palestinian people and then formed a 10-tent encampment. While claiming to uphold free speech and the right to protest, Wayne State’s president is already targeting the encampment. 

“We need your attendance,” the protesters posted on Facebook. “Every voice and body matters.” “Wayne State is complicit in genocide!! Disclose. Divest. We will not stop. We will not rest.”

Gaza Solidarity Encampment at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Violently Shut Down

Ahead of the university president’s appearance before Congress, police violently assaulted the student encampment, beating and pepper-spraying protesters. At least four were arrested and two others hospitalized. 

Student protesters set up the encampment about a month ago to demand the University of Michigan’s endowment divest from companies with ties to Israel. Students have been holding down the encampment, even after graduation. But school president Santa Ono suddenly claimed this peaceful action had become a threat to public safety. Dozens of officers raided the encampment before dawn, pepper-spraying and pushing students to the ground. 

“I repeatedly said that my family has been killed, and that is why I am here. And as I was saying that through the megaphone, police officers snatched the megaphone out from my hand,” said Salma Hamamy, a Palestinian student and president of the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at the University of Michigan.

She said, “not only was it an attack on the encampment, but it was an attack on us as students protesting entirely… we are still standing.…And we are going to continue to fight back, and especially against these charges that have been placed against these students for protesting a genocide and for protesting our university’s funding of a genocide.”

Reunions Weekend Disrupted at Princeton University, New Jersey

On May 24, as Princeton’s President Eisgruber began his annual address to alumni during Reunions weekend, some 25 student protesters sitting in the front row of the auditorium raised their hands, which were painted in red, and denounced the university. “We are complicit in genocide,” they shouted, as many in the audience tried to boo them down. 

After a few moments they marched out chanting and continued protesting right outside the hall: “Eisgruber, Eisgruber, we won’t rest,” and “We won’t rest until divest.” 

This action followed a May 21 vote by faculty members condemning Princeton’s disciplinary proceedings against students (at least 15 have been arrested at previous actions) and calling for amnesty. Earlier in the month, on May 10, some 50 Princeton High School students left school during a class break and marched to Princeton to join protesters at the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on the university’s Cannon Green. 

DePaul students disrupt a fundraiser

More Graduations, Student Strikes and Protests Planned

This next week will see more graduations with students promising “no graduation as usual in the midst of a genocide.”

At University of California, academic workers have called a strike against assaults on pro-Palestine protesters. On May 21, some 2,000 unionized academic researchers, graduate teaching assistants and post-doctoral scholars at the University of California, Santa Cruz went out on strike against the UC’s attacks on pro-Palestine protests. They are also demanding amnesty for grad students who were arrested or face discipline for protesting. This coming week, academic workers at UCLA and UC Davis will join the strike. University of California officials have declared the strike “illegal” and are demanding union members to “cease and desist strike activity.” A strike and protest are planned for Tuesday. 

As the statement from the Revcom Corps for the Emancipation of Humanity, A Crucial Crossroads in the Struggle to STOP the U.S.-Israeli Genocide of Palestinians… A Historic Moment in the World. How Do We Go Forward?, says:

THIS U.S.-BACKED GENOCIDE MUST BE STOPPED. We here in the U.S. have a special responsibility to call forward massive and sustained struggle, uniting all who can be united to create a deep enough political crisis to compel the rulers of the U.S. to back off their support for Israel. This would be a huge contribution to bringing the slaughter to a HALT! Nothing less is required.

What’s needed right now:

1. Uniting all who can be united to declare: “Stop the U.S.-Israeli Genocide of Palestinians Now!” The resistance needs to broaden, deepen and grow more determined.

The protest needs to spread on campus... and taking it off campus, reaching into the ghettos and barrios, the arts districts, the suburbs and beyond. And everyone under attack needs to be defended. 

2. While we unite from different perspectives, we need to open up the discussion and debate over the deeper causes—of the century of oppression faced by Palestinians, along with the other truly horrific ways that this capitalist-imperialist system oppresses people—and what it will take to finally win real and lasting liberation and emancipation. 

Everyone who seriously agonizes about the future and wants to see a world without the unjust brutality we are witnessing in Gaza, and in this illegitimate repression, needs to dig in seriously to the source of all this: the system of capitalism-imperialism. And dig into the solution to it: a real revolution. The Revcom Corps for the Emancipation of Humanity invites you to talk with us. Find out about the strategy, vision, plan and leadership for this revolution. Bring the spirit of defiance and your desire to get to a world where these kinds of crimes never happen again to anyone! With this whole system in crisis and society being ripped apart, the revolution that’s needed to overthrow this system could happen not just in some far off place and time, but right here and right in this time we are living in.