Pro-Palestinian tent encampments end at Bay Area colleges

Pro-Palestinian protesters at two Bay Area college campuses have dismantled their tent encampments after reaching agreements with administrators following weeks of demonstrations.

San Francisco State University protesters did so Wednesday after coming to a compromise with President Lynn Mahoney and university administration, one day after their counterparts at UC Berkeley tore theirs down following an agreement from the university administration to start a “rigorous examination” of the school’s investments.

Demonstrators at both campuses, as well as numerous others across the country, had called upon their schools’ leaders to demand an immediate cease-fire in Israel’s war with Hamas, as well as for universities and colleges to cut academic, business and financial ties with Israel.

After conversations with Students for Gaza, the organizer behind the SFSU protests , the university agreed to disclose investments and add a “human rights” principle to any future investments. Mahoney praised the activists in a statement and said that SFSU will divest from direct investments in weapons manufacturers.

"Students for Gaza has pushed us to reflect on and commit to working with the SF State Foundation to review and draft a revision to our existing environmental, social, and governance investment policy statement,” Mahoney said.

Students for Gaza wrote to The Examiner in an emailed statement that “this is a starting baseline for us to get to a place of divestment from genocide, aparthied, illegal settlement, occupation and other violations of human rights.”

“We will work with administration over the summer and into the Fall semester in order to meet our other demands,” the group said in the statement, adding that the university didn’t agree to declare that Israel was committing genocide. “We know that our campus is not alone and we are part of a growing student movement on US campuses that is part of the broader student movement for a free Palestine.”

The student encampment at UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza was one of the longest demonstrations in a national wave of student-run mass protests on college campuses, lasting a total of 22 days. Campers disassembled Tuesday, with some protesters moving on to UC Merced to rally ahead of a UC Board of Regents meeting Wednesday.

“This is not a victory,” UCB Divest Coalition, one of the UC Berkeley protesting groups, said in a statement. “Our fight continues to new terrain.”

Yazen Kashlam, a UCB Divest Coalition member, told television station KTVU that the group left Sproul Plaza before all its demands — which included the University of California’s full divestment from companies that profit off the Israel-Hamas war — were met.

“We were able to get, from the university, our demands met to some extent,” he told the outlet, including a letter from UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ, who promised to support an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.

The University of California did not commit to divestment from weapons manufacturers or businesses that have ties to Israeli military operations in Gaza, and investment decisions are handled by the UC Board of Regents, not individual university chancellors.

But in one of two letters sent to protest organizers Wednesday, Christ wrote that “I understand that UCB Divest Coalition believes that the current allocation of the University’s investment portfolio is not consistent with our values.”

“The University of California has decided in the past to divest from businesses that were determined to not be aligned with our values,” she wrote. “We should examine whether UC Berkeley’s investments continue to align with our values or should be modified in order to do so.”

The Jewish Community Relations Council admonished some of the universities for their commitments to protesters. The group wrote a letter to UC President Michael Drake on Wednesday, reviewed by The Examiner via email, expressing “grave concern about the deteriorating climate on campuses.”

“We are alarmed by the commitments and rhetoric that have resulted from the negotiations between universities and encampment leaders,” CEO Tyler Gregory wrote. “We are also alarmed by ... agreements to invite encampment leaders into advisory roles to guide investment policy, such as at San Francisco State University.”

Gregory claimed these negotiations are in direct violation of California law and not in line with UC anti-discrimination policies and statements.

State university officials publicly rebuked one such agreement Wednesday, placing Sonoma State University President Mike Lee on administrative leave after he sent out a campuswide message saying that he had agreed to some of the demonstrators’ demands, including an academic boycott of Israel. California State University Chancellor Mildred García said Lee did so without “appropriate approvals.”