New California university policies on protests against genocide in Gaza suppress dissent

Editor’s note: Since last spring’s explosion of campus protests in Los Angeles, university administrations have retaliated with new surveillance protocols limiting campus access and suppressive rules for on-campus manifestations of dissent. As the University of Southern California and UCLA continue to institute draconian security measures, harsh discipline, and free speech restrictions, campus activists prepare for a prolonged struggle to defend political expression and demand peace and freedom for Palestine.

LOS ANGELES—USC has created a tightly surveilled perimeter around campus with metal bars, security checkpoints, and mandatory ID scans. Like many other universities nationwide, the administrators have doubled down on repressive measures in response to Gaza solidarity, instituting what they describe on their website as “modernized security measures.”

Ever since the popular Gaza solidarity demonstrations last Spring, USC has wanted to police who can and cannot be on campus. Instead of paying its workers wages that keep up with inflation, the administration chooses to misspend money on “security” to intimidate students from showing support for a ceasefire and demanding divestment from genocide.

At UCLA, the administration instituted major updates just before the start of the new academic year to the campus’s time, place, and manner (TPM) policies, which govern free speech and demonstrations on university property.

These new rules, communicated by the office of the Administrative Vice Chancellor and the Chancellor for Student Affairs on September 4, have been adopted on an interim basis but are effective immediately. Public comment on the policies will be open until November 4. Noncompliance with the new policies, the administration warns, could result in legal penalties or internal academic or workplace discipline.

An obvious effort to quell future pro-Palestinian protests, the new policies at UCLA ban “tents, campsites, and temporary housing or other structures” unless pre-approved, relegate public expression activities to small corners of campus, increase the limitations on uses of amplified sound, and effectively implements a curfew between midnight and 6 a.m.

Notably, many of the sites of protest in the spring, including Royce Quad, where the Palestine Solidarity Encampment first launched, are now off limits to free expression activities.

The “Don’ts” section of the time, place, and manner rules includes a line on concealing identity with the intent to intimidate others or evade recognition. In a preliminary email from the office of UC President Michael Drake on August 19th that also spoke to new campus policies, the president mentioned the prohibition of “masking to conceal identity.”

The ambiguity of the policy raises concerns about how the policy would be enforced. Last spring, face coverings were widely used at pro-Palestine encampments to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and limit the possibility of protesters getting doxxed.

“A lot has changed”

At USC, “a lot has changed, and a lot has not changed,” said Anand Balakrishnan when asked how university life has evolved since the spring encampment. As president of the graduate student union, Balakrishnan has been working alongside other campus organizers to ensure that the charges of those arrested during the encampment are dropped, and for campus access to be restored to pre-encampment standards.

Balakrishnan explained to People’s World that after a summer rally at City Hall to demand amnesty for arrested protesters, the City Attorney has refused to pursue charges until further evidence is found on alleged trespassing charges that USC claims. While this does not mean the charges have been dropped, it is unlikely they will find anything, since no students are continuing to do encampments and because there was limited evidence in the first place. The statute of limitations on trespassing charges is one year.

Despite no further pursuit of charges from the city, however, USC’s Office of Community Expectations pursued its own form of retaliatory intimidation and discipline. In addition to the university administration sending threatening letters and calling students and faculty in for disciplinary hearings, students have been made to write “reflection papers” expressing their remorse and a statement of “what you’ve learned” before any academic sanctions can be dropped.

Balakrishnan underscored how USC’s disciplinary operation after the protests could “jeopardize international students’ visa situation.” Some were suspended, for example. Then, that was reduced after a review process that was anything but transparent.

The graduate student union focused on pressuring the university to de-escalate their disciplinary actions and make sure arrested students “weren’t facing consequences because of interim OCE measures.” USC, and other universities across the nation, however, are on the path toward aggravating issues further.

For example, Momodou Taal, who is attending Cornell University with an F-1 visa, was suspended after a September 18 protest. Cornell’s new expression policies limit when amplified sound can be used, delineate which objects are prohibited at collective campus actions, like candles and sticks, and subject some protesters to increased disciplinary action.

Taal faced deportation. The Cornell graduate student union’s statement asserted that the university’s suspension “represents a disturbing pattern of discriminatory discipline against marginalized graduate workers.” After mass protests, the university decided to reconsider and halt further action to prompt Taal’s removal from the country.

Met with widespread criticism

UCLA’s interim TPM policies were met with widespread criticism from students and faculty on campus. On October 8th, the Undergraduate Student Association Council (USAC) unanimously passed a resolution condemning the policies, highlighting concerns about the ambiguity of many new rules and the potential for discriminatory enforcement.

The resolution also calls on the university to cease enforcement of the TPM policies until they can be revised and “reaffirms its support for student activism, particularly movements led by historically marginalized communities, and commits to advocating for the protection of their right to protest without fear of retaliation, surveillance, or repression.”

On the issue of masking, the resolution states that the new policy “unfairly harms students with disabilities and [who] are immunocompromised and puts them at risk of invasive questions regarding their health and a higher risk of violence.”

United Auto Workers Local 4811, the union representing graduate students and postdoctoral workers on UC campuses, has also criticized the new anti-free speech rules. The local’s executive board issued a demand to the university to come to the table to bargain over these unilateral changes to campus policies. With a contract battle coming in 2025, 4811 faces an opportunity to build power and mobilize members on the key issue of workers’ right to protest and take other collective action on campus.

Likewise, a long summer of excessive security measures inhibiting access to campus was challenged by organized labor. Less than a month before the USC fall semester was about to start, many of the policies—private security personnel, closed entrances, and discriminatory bag checks—were still in place. In partnership with USC postdocs, faculty, undergraduates, and staff, the graduate student union crafted a petition to demand an end to campus fortification.

The letter was co-signed by the USC American Association of University Professors (AAUP), Student Coalition Against Labor Exploitation (SCALE), USC Researchers and Fellows United, the National Union of Healthcare Workers, Service Employees International (SEIU) Local 721, and others. In a short time span, it garnered 1,000 individual signatures from community members.

Among the issues caused by the university’s restrictions on campus access, the petition highlighted “significant accessibility, equity, and safety violations…discrimination at these checkpoints based on race, ethnicity, gender, and political affiliation…belongings subject to unpredictable and arbitrary searches.”

Moreover, the petition charged the university with hypocrisy, highlighting that “the fortification of our campus with fencing and checkpoints staffed by private security companies has created a climate of fear and distrust which does not align with USC’s mission statement that purports to support students, faculty, and staff with well-being, open communication, and accountability.”

“This shows USC does not respect our right to free speech as a labor union and we are constantly fighting and trying to be aware of how the university encroaches on our protected right to do this,” Balakrishnan added.

On the final day of signature collection for the campus access petition, USC announced that all pedestrian gates would be open 24/7. But the measures do not go far enough. Fencing and checkpoints staffed by private security companies remain in place.

To this day, if you do not have a USC ID, you cannot enter campus. If you are a guest, you must be pre-registered by a “campus sponsor” before entry. It is evident that USC wishes to create conditions to promote fear of expression and to suppress dissent.

In fact, USC has a long history of monitoring and restricting access to its campus. In 1955, USC president Fred Fagg Jr. announced the project to construct a “Wall of Troy,” effectively fencing off the entire perimeter of USC’s University Park campus for its white students and excluding the surrounding neighborhood which was then predominantly black. And until the securitization of campus and the surveillance of students, faculty, and staff ends, the unchecked privilege that comes with an unjustified lockdown will surely result in the continued rise of discrimination.

Protesting despite restrictions

Despite new repressive limits on free speech, around 50 UCLA community members, mostly undergraduate and graduate students, rallied outside of the Luskin Conference Center during a meeting of the UC Regents on September 19. Protesters were met with heightened security and barred for hours from being allowed to enter the meeting to give public comment.

The rally, led by the UC Divest Coalition, aimed to protest a particular item on the Regents Meeting agenda: the use and purchase of military-grade equipment by the University of California Police Department. In accordance with California Assembly Bill 481, the Board of Regents, the highest governing body at the University of California, is tasked with reviewing and approving a yearly report on the use, acquisition, and maintenance of military equipment by the university police. This year’s report included requests from UCLA for drones, PepperBall semi-automatic launchers, and upgraded kinetic munitions, as well as similar requests from other UC campuses.

“Instead of requesting funds to support academic programs, the UC is requesting military-grade weapons and artillery to use on our peers in the upcoming academic year,” remarked a student activist in a speech at the rally. The Students for Justice in Palestine activist, who chose not to identify themself, drew connections between the university’s requests and the violence student protesters faced at the hands of law enforcement during demonstrations in the spring. “This is fascism. Funded through our tuition money to brutalize our friends as we were on June 10 and throughout last quarter.”

They continued, citing language from the report claiming that the military equipment would be used to safeguard public welfare and protect civil rights on campus, and asking “But is shooting at students chanting for a free Palestine protecting our civil rights? Is safeguarding public safety when me and my friends had bruises on our legs for days from where they shot us?”

A group of protesters planned to attend the meeting to give public comment on the agenda item and heckle the regents. In response, the regents pushed back the time slot for public comment by over two hours, no doubt hoping to wait out the protesters. When eventually the students were allowed into the meeting, they were met with heavy police presence and were eventually given an order to disperse. Roughly a dozen UCPD officers in full riot gear escorted the protesters out of the building.

In the early hours of the next morning, three people were arrested near campus by UCPD on vandalism charges. Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA shared in an Instagram post that the people arrested, which included two students and one alumnus, had been part of the delegation at the rally the day before. The post called on community members to mobilize to the police station where the three were being detained and stated that “These arrests were clearly meant to target and intimidate pro-Palestinian voices calling for divestment from the war and weapons industry and opposition to the increasing repression across all the UC campuses.”

The incident fits into a larger pattern of increased militarization and securitization of the UCLA campus. Since their introduction amid the protests in the spring, private security providers such as Apex Security Group continue to be stationed around the campus, and all campus events see a heightened police presence. Over-policing and surveillance create an atmosphere of suspicion and fear that belies the university’s messaging around the new TPM policies, which purport to improve community safety and foster dialogue across differences.

One year of genocide

October 7, which marks the one-year anniversary of the Hamas attack and the beginning of Israel’s ever-intensifying retaliatory onslaught against the Palestinian people, also saw a surge of protest activity on LA campuses.

At UCLA, members of Students for Justice in Palestine and the Palestinian Solidarity Collective rallied on campus to commemorate a year of Palestinian resistance. The crowd of around 100 marched on campus in the late afternoon, and activists dropped banners off the balcony of the Broad Art Center declaring “76 years of settler colonialism” and “UCPD KKK IOF you’re all the same.”

The protest ended with a rally in front of Murphy Hall, an administrative building, where it was met with a bicycle barricade formed by private security officers.

Across town, student activists with Students for Justice in Palestine at USC organized a Palestine solidarity walkout to commemorate one year of genocide. The walkout started at 11:30 a.m. Reports estimate that about one hundred people gathered at the entrance to campus as students proceeded to march around the perimeter, holding signs and wearing keffiyehs in honor of Palestinian lives lost.

USC gates installed months ago in response to the original encampment served as a monitoring system of close surveillance of the peaceful protest and facilitated police repression. USC closed the gate where protesters gathered, preventing anyone, including non-participants, from going through the gates. The demands of the students remain the same: for USC to divest from financial interests tied to the Israeli military and the ongoing genocide.

Universities double down

Outrageously, on the very plaza where anti-war student protesters were brutally beaten and arrested, their encampment torn down, UCLA hosted the All-In Summit from September 8-10. This meeting of politicians, tech moguls, and venture capitalists included guests like Elon Musk, Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance, and Peter Thiel, the co-founder of Palantir, a military technology company that enthusiastically supports Israel’s war on Gaza.

Perhaps anticipating potential blowback to this event, the University took measures to securitize Dickson Plaza and Royce Hall, the academic building where the talks were held. Campus security officers blocked entry to the Plaza and were posted at the entries to the building, directing members of the UCLA community on long detours to avoid nearing the event. By sanctioning the presence of this group of warmongers and profiteers on campus, all while actively suppressing dissent, the university has chosen a clear side against the peace movement.

At the center of USC’s security complex is Erroll Southers, vice president for safety and risk assurance and president of the Los Angeles Police Commission. The Commission oversees the LAPD, which deployed its riot force and raided the peaceful student encampments last spring.

In a report for the National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events at USC, he warned that extremist indicators include “strong identification with Muslims perceived as being victimized” and “personalized outrage over U.S. or Western foreign policy.”

USC’s wealthy Board of Trustees includes real-estate developer Rick Caruso, who backed USC’s actions last spring and claims Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and far-right Israeli American billionaire Miriam Adelson, who has pledged 100 million dollars to Trump’s presidential campaign and openly advocates for Israeli annexation of the West Bank.