Student arrested after UCLA police take down ‘Gaza solidarity Sukkah’ and disperse protest

On Monday night, Oct. 22, UC Los Angeles police ordered 40 protestors to leave Dickson Court North, where they had established a “Gaza solidarity Sukkah” and several tents, according to the Los Angeles Times. One student was arrested on suspicion of failing to disperse.

A Sukkah is a temporary hut constructed for use during the week-long Jewish festival of Sukkot, which celebrates the fall harvest and commemorates the 40 years Jews spent in the desert after escaping slavery in Egypt.

Students erected the Sukkah that morning to observe Sukkot and “demand the university divest from companies that do business with Israel and call for an end to the war in Palestine,” according to the Los Angeles Times. It wasn’t until afternoon that students set up several tents.

The University of California Police Department (UCPD) issued a statement at 3:20 p.m. saying that students had violated protest policies by assembling in an area not designated for public expression and using unauthorized structures. The campus enacted these protest policies in September after pro-Palestine protests across the state.

Daily Bruin reporters said a group of pro-Israel counterprotestors arrived at the court around 8 p.m., and pro-Palestinian protestors dismanted their tents at 8:20 p.m.

10 minutes later, the department issued an order to disperse, after which most protestors left the area. University-hired security guards then dismantled the Sukkah. 

“I refuse to observe Sukkot as normal when university investments continue to fund the genocide of Palestinians,” said protest organizer Leah Jacobson in a statement, according to the Los Angeles Times. “The principle of pikuach nefesh, or saving a soul, demands we put other laws aside in order to preserve human life. I am here aligning my Jewish practice with my support for Palestinian liberation.”

Students, faculty sue UCLA for allegedly violating free speech rights

Two UCLA students and two faculty members filed suit against the UC Regents on Oct. 22 for allegedly violating their rights to free speech and expression and unlawfully arresting students and faculty involved in the campus encampment last spring, according to a press release from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

The plaintiffs are represented by the ACLU of Southern California and Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger. They filed their complaint to the Los Angeles County Superior Court.

In April, UCLA erected an encampment that became the topic of national conversation after a night of violence between protestors, counterprotesters and a delayed police response that resulted in 200 arrests.

ACLU said that UCLA protestors protested “certain actions of the State of Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces and the university’s financial entanglements with those actions,” which UCLA historians called an “orderly and self-disciplined environment,” according to their press release.

On May 2, counterprotesters came to the encampment and attacked the site with toxic spray, fireworks, pipes, bottles and other weapons against nonviolent protesters in the encampment, the UCLA Police Department and partner agencies, according to the ACLU. The results were a destroyed encampment and the arrest of more than 200 students, staff members and supporters.

“Students decrying the genocide of Palestinians and the university’s complicity were brutally shut down by the same administrators who profess to support free expression and thinking,” associate professor of political science Graeme Blair said in the ACLU press release, who was a plaintiff in the case and an who was arrested on May 2.  “As an educator, I am ashamed that the university failed our students.” 

The ACLU claimed that when the police broke into the encampment on May 2, protestors were not engaged in any violent or criminal activity, however, the University deemed the protest illegal and called for its dispersal. 

“While administrators claimed that they cleared the encampment in order to protect protesters from further instances of mob violence, our laws prohibit the suppression of speech because it is unpopular or might provoke violent reactions,” ACLU of Southern California Senior Staff Attorney Mohammad Tajsar said in the ACLU press release. “Institutions of higher learning have and should continue to serve as critical spaces to contest ideas, critique mainstream orthodoxies, and encourage dissenting voices.”  

A version of this article appeared on p.2 of the Oct. 24, 2024 edition of the Daily Nexus.

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Lizzy Rager
Lizzy Rager (she/her) is the Lead News Editor for the 2024-25 school year. She can be reached at lizzyrager@dailynexus.com