On May 1, 2024, University of California - San Diego (UCSD) students established a Gaza Solidarity Encampment along Library Walk, adjacent to Geisel Library. It was a space of research, education and community engagement about the genocide in Gaza, the occupation of Palestine, and UCSD’s complicity in both. 1 The Encampment featured 1) teach-ins; 2) a library; 3) research on UCSD’s ties to genocide; 4) community speakers; 5) Fandango, Dabka dancing, Shabbat ceremony and Muslim prayer; 6) sharing meals; and 7) Palestinian-Jewish student collaboration. 2, 3, 4
The goals of the encampment addressed UCSD’s complicity in the genocide: 1) End the silence/permit speech on Palestine; 2) Boycott universities and corporations complicit in the genocide; 3) Amnesty for all who had been affected by the weaponization of disciplinary procedures to silence speech on Palestine and the genocide; and 4) Divest from genocide- supporting corporations and Israeli universities. 5
At the time of the establishment of the Encampment there had been 35,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza, almost 80,000 injured, many with limbs amputated, 24 out of 36 hospitals were not functioning and the other 12 were partially functioning, 1.7 million people were internally displaced, 1.1 million people faced catastrophic levels of food insecurity, all universities in Gaza had been bombed and were not operating, and over 100 university professors had been martyred. 6
Genocide is the ultimate form of racism and anti-Muslim bigotry. 7 The Encampment itself was a rejection of that naked racism and UC support for it. As such, the Encampment was the embodiment of UCSD's Principles of Community, specifically the commitment to rejecting “...acts of discrimination based on race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion, and political beliefs, and, [confronting] and appropriately respond[ing] to such acts.” 8 The Encampment rejected the murder and mass slaughter of people in Palestine at the hands of the US-funded Israeli government, facilitated in part by UC research. 9, 10 It rejected the University of California’s investments in the weapons manufacturers that made the genocide possible. 11 For five days, Encampment members bravely stood together to call attention to, reject, and call for action against the genocide in Palestine and UC’s investment in it.
The immediate context for the UCSD Encampment was a string of major Encampments across the U.S. in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza undergoing a genocide, starting with an Encampment formed at Columbia University on April 17, 2024. In a statement released by Columbia University Students for Justice in Palestine and the NYC Palestinian Youth Movement on that day, “We set up this encampment today because Columbia University has continually refused to listen to the student body when we demand that they divest from the ongoing genocide in Gaza.” 12 UCSD’s Encampment was the 107th Gaza Solidarity Encampment in the U.S. 13
Our goal is to present the Encampment as we — members, participants and supporters — observed and experienced it: as a necessary, just space that protested against and persisted in the face of UC San Diego's violent complicity in genocide. Unlike the senior administration's account of the Encampment in their 'Fact Sheet,' which falls short of capturing anything about what actually occurred within the Encampment because of their failure to meaningfully engage with it, our telling of the story reflects the pain, the joy, the relationality, the conviviality, the research, the education and the community formation that permeated that space.
This document includes a discussion of the contexts for the Encampment (the settler colonial university, the legacy of campus protest and the Palestine Exception) and its aftermath, the methods we employ, our retelling of the stories of the Encampment, an Encampment timeline, and a critical analysis of UCSD senior administration’s ‘Fact Sheet’. As scholars, we have made reference to supporting citations where possible, and hope that this document will contribute to archiving what happened at the Encampment and its place in the history of UCSD and in the global Palestine Solidarity Movement. As anti-Muslim bigotry and violence only intensifies — most recently, in the appalling attack on the Islamic Center of San Diego — we must reflect on what our Encampment was, and how it still points to a future for justice and the liberation of Palestine.
Return to Version 1.0 ||| Advance to Contexts
- 1
Students for Justice in Palestine at UC San Diego (2024) UC San Diego Students Launch Gaza Solidarity Encampment, Instagram, May 1. https://www.instagram.com/p/C6b7VunPv59/
- 2
Guardian Staff (2024) Protestors Establish Pro-Palestinian Encampment at UC San Diego, UCSD Guardian, May 1. https://ucsdguardian.org/2024/05/01/protestors-establish-pro-palestinia…
- 3
Guardian Staff (2024) Pro-Palestinian Encampment Continues into Second Day, UCSD Guardian, May 2. https://ucsdguardian.org/2024/05/02/pro-palestinian-encampment-continue…
- 4
Thomas Murphy/Guardian Staff (2024) Updates – Police Sweep UCSD Solidarity for Gaza Encampment, UCSD Guardian, May 6. https://ucsdguardian.org/2024/05/06/daily-updates-ucsd-solidarity-for-g…
- 5
Students for Justice in Palestine at UC San Diego (2024) UC San Diego Students Launch Gaza Solidarity Encampment, Instagram, May 1. https://www.instagram.com/p/C6b7VunPv59/?img_index=2
- 6
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (2024) Hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel - Reported Humanitarian Impact, Fact Sheet, May 1. https://www.ochaopt.org/sites/default/files/Gaza_casualties_info-graphi…
- 7
Deena R. Hurwitz and Walter H White, Jr (2024) Recognizing Islamophobia, Anti- Palestinian Racism, and Antisemitism, American Bar Association Civil Rights and Social Justice Section, November 25. https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/resources/human-rights/2024-nov…
- 8
UC San Diego (2024) UC San Diego Principals of Community, Archived on archive.org, May 1. https://web.archive.org/web/20240501104820/https://ucsd.edu/about/princ…
- 9
UCSD Divest (2024) UCSD's Complicity: A Walking Tour Brochure and Map. https://ugc.production.linktr.ee/d3fd4ddf-fcb2-44a7-8e39-ded8d8da3f97_C…
- 10
UCSD Divest (2024) UC Funds the War Machine. https://datastudio.google.com/reporting/9ceda675-da4b-4157-8584-a8011a5…
- 11
UCSD Divest (2024) Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions at University of California. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vQHFdeJaVJkEo2r4r6bGlYa…
- 12
NYC Palestinian Youth Movement (2024) Columbia has Continually Refused to Listen to the Student Body When We Demand that They Divest from the Ongoing Genocide in Gaza, Instagram, April 17. https://www.instagram.com/p/C54bO1gNkqq/?hl=en
- 13
Dani Miskell (2024) As Encampments Dismantle Across US, UC San Diego Stands Their Ground, ABC 10 News San Diego, May 1. https://www.10news.com/as-encampments-dismantle-across-the-u-s-ucsd-sta…