The Cal Poly Humboldt campus is closed today, as dozens of protesters continue to occupy Siemens Hall, having barricaded its entrances, while calling on the university to divest from entities they say fuel Israel’s ongoing war on Hamas in Gaza.
“The message from inside is that, first of all, they feel the university is complicit because of the campus’ investments with weapons companies and Israeli companies,” said Ryan Connelly, a junior biology major who identified himself as a spokesperson for those occupying the building. “Their conditions for release of the building: Divest, and then we’ll talk.”
The building was the epicenter of an intense standoff between protesters — whose ranks reportedly swelled to several hundred yesterday evening — and police from a host of local agencies who attempted to clear the building. The situation seemed to be escalating, with reports of police attempting to arrest protesters only to have them pulled back by the crowd, a request for a special team from the California Highway Patrol and for the deployment of pepper ball guns used to disperse crowd until police withdrew from the area around 10:30 p.m.
Former Arcata Councilmember and longtime local activist Dave Meserve said he arrived on campus when the standoff between protesters and police was well underway and said the police response seemed excessive.
“There were at least 30 cops, maybe more, and a helicopter circling overhead and it just seemed like way excessive, the response to what was going on,” he said, adding that he urged police to stand down and protesters to begin negotiations with the university before leaving campus around 9:30 p.m.
According to Humboldt County jail booking records, one person — Alice Rose Finen — was arrested or detained on suspicion of entering or occupying a building without the owner’s consent and resisting arrest. A university spokesperson, meanwhile, reported that UPD made a total of three arrests last night.
The campus protest came amid a flurry of them on campuses throughout the nation this week. According to the Los Angeles Times, similar protests prompted Columbia University to cancel classes Monday and saw police arrest 60 people camped at Beinecke Plaza on the Yale campus. A “solidarity encampment” demanding the University of California system “divest from the Israel-Hamas war” also sprung up on the University of California at Berkeley’s campus, the paper reported.
At Cal Poly Humboldt, about 60 protesters, including some who brought tents and sleeping bags, entered Siemens Hall around 4:30 p.m., in an effort to bring attention to the war that has seen Israeli forces kill more than 34,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to local health officials, while causing amid widespread destruction in Gaza in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 civilians and saw militants take hundreds of hostages. Israel’s offensive has caused what officials across the globe have deemed a humanitarian crisis, with an estimated 1.7 million people — roughly 75 percent of the population — displaced and limited supplies of food, water and fuel.
In a social media post around 8 p.m. yesterday, the group Humboldt for Palestine reported students had taken Siemens Hall “in solidarity” with counterparts protesting across the country.
“Their demands as we understand them are as follows: 1. For CPH to disclose all holdings and collaborations with the Zionist entity. 2. Academic Boycott, cut all ties with Israeli universities. 3. Divest from all ties to the Zionist entity including companies complicit in the occupation of Palestine. 4. To drop all charges and attacks on student organizers. 5. An immediate ceasefire and end to the occupation of Palestine.”
The post went on to request “bodies to join them in the occupation of Siemens Hall” and urge students, faculty and community members to call UPD and pressure the department to “deescalate” and “allow the students to protest peacefully.”
As tensions escalated between the group occupying the building, a growing number of protestors outside and law enforcement officers from a variety of local agencies, Cal Poly Humboldt issued a press release addressing the “dangerous situation” and announcing the campus would remain closed through Wednesday “for the safety of the campus community.”
“The university is deeply worried about the safety of the students who remain in the building,” the release stated. “The university is urgently asking that the students listen to the directives from the law enforcement that has responded and peacefully leave the building.”
Paul Craft, a spokesperson for CHP, said his agency was brought into assist the University Police Department, redirecting a helicopter from a search and rescue effort in Hoopa that had been suspended for the night to provide aerial support. Craft said UPD also requested the CHP’s Redding-based special response team, a highly trained unit used to respond to “potentially hazardous incidents,” though the unit did not respond to the scene.
This morning, the campus was largely quiet, with just a few people milling around the outside of Siemens Hall, its entry points barricaded with picnic benches, chairs, tables and other items, and no police in sight.
At about 10:15 a.m., CPH Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs Jenn Capps sent faculty an email noting the occupation remained ongoing.
“The most important thing right now is that we communicate with and offer support to our students,” she wrote. “Continue instruction, advising and office hours remotely, where possible. Please reach out to your students before noon today … Faculty will be updated as more information becomes available.”
The Journal reached out to university spokespeople this morning with a number of questions about the ongoing situation — including information about the university’s investment holdings and plans moving forward — but a campus spokesperson declined to comment further at this time.
This article appears in Seeking Salvation.
Young people misled and confused about a conflict they dont understand, a tale as old as time.
The Humboldt for Palestine Instagram post is improperly quoted in the article. In their original post, HfP wrote zionist entity and israeli. They intentionally did not capitalize those words because they do not recognize the legitimacy of the state of Israel. Notably, they did capitalize Palestine.
For these misguided youths, this is about much more than stopping the current conflict in Palestine. They side with Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas their main goal is to wipe Israel off the map.
Nothing much has changed except the issue. We protested outside Siemens Hall about the cutting of old growth redwoods back in the 70s. Seems much more relevant than this current protest for Humboldt County
I wish they would also protest the fact the School wasted over a million dollars on a rebranding campaign for some company outside of Humboldt that could have been a student campaign or student added active and help students participating in the campaign could have put on their resume skill and paid the winers. The new logo has no soul or feeling of Humboldt.
The demands seems to imply the college is directly tied to Israel, or Israel companies, or companies supporting the war but does not specify which ones? Is there any proof the school has these ties?
Hi Thatwasmint,
How do you know the young people in Siemens Hall are misled and confused? Have you spoken to them? I have and I consider myself very well informed and they were better informed than I was.
The old patronizing the young. A tale as old as time.
OnTime,
Where do the protesters expect Israel’s Jewish citizens — the ones who were born there, and whose parents were born there, and whose grandparents were born there — to go, when Palestine is freed from the river to the sea, to be run by terrorists dedicated to the exclusion of Jews from the middle east? Jews who in many cases had to flee from persecution in Arab-controlled states and elsewhere.
The situation is unquestionably tragic, but it is comical to see a bunch of kids thinking disrupting Cal Poly Humboldt is going to accomplish anything.
And, personally, I feel that when an elected government sponsors murderers, rapists, and kidnappers, builds an underground war infrastructure, and fires thousands of rockets at a neighbor, it is understandable that the neighbor does what it can to ensure the safety of its people, even at horrific expense to those living under the elected government.