At Stanford, pro-Hamas anti-Israel activists invaded a university building housing the office of President Richard Saller and locked themselves inside his office. While inside they damaged furniture and wrote slogans on walls. They have now been charged with felony burglary. They have also been suspended from the university, with the seniors among them not allowed to graduate. More on this welcome display of backbone by the Stanford administration can be found here: “Burglary Charges Filed Against Stanford University Anti-Zionist Protesters,” by Dion J. Pierre, Algemeiner, June 7, 2024:
Felony burglary charges have been filed against the 13 Stanford University students who occupied school president Richard Saller’s office earlier this week, The Stanford Daily reported on Friday.
Anti-Israel activists associated with the campus group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) raided Saller’s office on Wednesday, locking themselves inside using, the Daily said, “bike locks, chains, ladders, and chairs.” The incident was part of a larger pro-Hamas demonstration in which SJP demanded that the university adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as the first step to its eventual elimination.
The felony charges came after Stanford announced that the occupiers of Saller’s office will be immediately suspended and, if any are seniors, barred from graduating and receiving their degrees. The protesters’ behavior — which included graffitiing “kill cops” and “De@th 2 Is@hell” on school property — prompted the sharp disciplinary response, provost Jenny Martinez explained in a statement on Wednesday.
“In addition to damage done inside the building, protesters committed extensive graffiti vandalism on the sandstone buildings and columns of the Main Quad this morning,” provost Jenny Martinez said. “This graffiti conveys vile and hateful sentiments that we condemn in the strongest terms. Whether the graffiti was created by members of the Stanford community or outsiders, we expect that the vast majority of our community joins us in rejecting this assault on our campus.”…
The graffiti on the sandstone buildings were not only the usual anti-Israel slogans, such as “From the river to the sea/Palestine shall be free,” which is a call for the elimination of Israel and its replacement by a 23rd Arab state, and “No to Genocide,” which is meant to accuse Israel of that “genocide” to which we must dutifully “say No.” There were also calls for immediate violence — “Intifada Now” — against Israelis and against those who support them, meaning Jews everywhere. There were also anti-police slogans, undeniably violent in content, such short messages of homicidal hate as “kill cops.”
There was no negotiating by the Stanford administration to get the students to leave the school buildings. There was no hint that it would be willing to discuss any of protesters’ demands. There was no suggestion that the university would agree to consider divestment from Israeli companies, or end academic exchanges with Israeli universities. All of those have been on offer at other universities, where administrators have too often given in to some of the protesters’ demands. Stanford has shown it is made of sterner stuff. Now these thirteen students will have a felony conviction on their record. That will be cause for regret. And other students, in colleges across the country, once made aware of what will be meted out to the pro-Hamas protesters at Stanford, from now on will think long and hard before engaging in such violent protests. Stanford has shown the way.
Nunya Biznez says
Im an Israeli jew, and if you dont retract these lies i will bomb your organization and kill Hugh Fitzgerald
Joe says
You just committed a serious crime. I hope they can track, arrest, and convict you. You need to be in jail and doing hard labor to benefit people like Hugh.
Ray Jarman says
I would like to know what these idiots’ majors were. I have no idea from where they received their concept of the 1st Amendment. I have read it many times in the past but I don’t recollect anything about illegal entry nor does it protect them from repercussions from degeneracy. It says that one cannot be confined for one’s expressions (except the yelling fire in a theater) but it does not prevent an employer from firing one nor does it prevent Stanford or any other university from expelling them. There are other caveats but these self- indulging halfwits have been determined to learn the hard way.
somehistory says
Ray, I’m guessing, but the majors were probably something about ‘gender’ …”gender studies,” etc…and the fluff which is of no real value in the world when one has to get a job and earn a living. Probably none of them weer majoring in stem courses.
One ‘student’ who showed up at a professor’s home with a mob, which was doing a lot of yelling, told the professor that the First Amendment gave her the ‘right’ to say to him what she wanted on his private property.
They are rabble rousers. And stupid.
adainv says
How many of these misfits did our feeble “president,” benefit from his taxpayer funded, funded, unconstitutional educational loan forgiveness?
Rick says
Before you decide that Stanford is made of sterner stuff, remember that Stanford has denied conservative student organizations the right to host conservative speakers on campus. Stanford today is a joke.