Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

San Francisco College Admits It Bungled Protest of Jerusalem Mayor

— 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.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.