San Francisco College Admits It Bungled Protest of Jerusalem Mayor

Image by Wikipedia

By Marcy Oster September 6, 2016

— San Francisco State University did not have the proper protocol in place to handle a protest against the mayor of Jerusalem during his speech on campus, an investigation found.

In a letter accompanying the university’s report into the spring incident released Friday, the school’s president said there was significant work to be done to improve the campus climate and safety for students, the student newspaper, the Golden Gate Express, reported Sunday.

“Ensuring the campus is a safe environment for all students is my top priority for the coming year,” Leslie Wong wrote. “We failed our students — both the event attendees and the protesters — through multiple inactions.”

Also accompanying the report was a five-step protocol for campus police and university officials to use to handle such protests in the future, the Express reported.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators affiliated with the campus group the General Union of Palestinian Students’ disrupted the April speech by Nir Barkat in a lecture hall. The demonstrators, who wore traditional Arab headdresses and waved Palestinian flags, chanted into megaphones “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “intifada,” or uprising, according to reports. They also demanded that Barkat be removed from the university.

Campus police and security called to the lecture hall reportedly protected the mayor but did not stop the protesters. The event had been sponsored by San Francisco Hillel.

Following an investigation into the incident, the protesters were punished for unauthorized use of amplification, according to the report. The investigation also found that though some Hillel students felt unsafe during the demonstration, they were not in danger, as the protest was directed at the mayor and not the students, the Express reported.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO