Students for Justice in Palestine and Students for Quality Education held a press conference Wednesday inside the encampment at Sacramento State to discuss the negotiations made with President Luke Wood.
Wood met with the encampment Tuesday night to authorize revisions to Presidential Memoranda, Policy on Policies and Auxiliary Organizations at Sacramento State and Conditions of Maintenance of Good Standing to meet the protesters’ demands.
During the conference it was stated that Sac State is projected to be the first campus within the CSU system to fully divest, ensuring the campus does not rely on companies that benefit from genocide, ethnic cleansing or human rights violations.
Farah Al-Masri, president of Sac State’s SJP and fourth-year political science major, served as a member of the negotiation team that coordinated with administrators.
“No student wants their tuition to ever go toward ethnic cleansing or genocide of anyone,” Al-Masri said.
Last week, the CSU chancellor’s office made no indication it was willing to follow protesters’ demands for policy changes of investments going to Israel or Israel-facing companies. According to the chancellor’s office, to do so would infringe upon “the academic freedom of our students and faculty and the unfettered exchange of ideas on our campuses.”
Michael Lee-Chang, student intern for SQE, spoke at the press conference about the demand of the CSU system to increase transparency and fully disclose investments in companies supporting the ongoing war on Gaza, which include Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Elbit Systems.
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During the press conference, it was said the members of the encampment are not done pursuing changes within the CSU system after packing up the encampment in the Library Quad. They will continue to support other campus encampments.
Donations and supplies left over at the Sac State encampment are to be given to the Davis Popular University for the Liberation of Palestine, the organizers of UC Davis’ encampment that started last week according to The California Aggie.
Lee-Chang said this victory was a first step. Sac State is one of 23 campuses in the CSU system, and SJP intends to support and enable protests until Chancellor Mildred García “has no choice but to capitulate.”
“If tuition is going up, we want to know where that money is going,” Lee-Chang said. “Why should that money be going toward genocide?”
Hamzah, a fourth-year sociology major, spoke to The State Hornet on Monday stating that the protesters were prepared for a much longer presence at the library quad.
“If we don’t stand up for this genocide, if we don’t put the world in check, it will just keep on happening,” Hamzah said.
Lee-Chang also thanked Wood for the way he handled dealing with the encampment, saying that CSU campus presidents are risking their jobs if they take similar actions.
“I want everyone to consider that the administration, including our campus presidents across the entire CSU system, are not unionized, they are not protected, they are at will,” Lee-Chang said. “Luke Wood could be fired for the stances he took today, and I want you all to remember that.”
President Wood released a video Thursday night in support of student activism and the steps the university is taking to ensure students are supported and heard within these efforts.
“We did not sign a treaty or agreement with students to close an encampment,” Wood said in the video. “You sign a treaty with your enemies, not with your students.”
