Seattle, WA – On December 7, students at the University of Washington led an occupation of their administration building, Gerberding Hall.
Beginning in the Quad, students gathered for a march, with student groups joining together under the United Front for Palestinian Liberation at the University of Washington.
After arriving at the administration building, the sit-in was announced. Over 100 protesters entered the building. They announced their demands: to cut ties with Boeing; to end the repression of pro-Palestinian students, faculty and workers; and to materially divest from Israel.
Alon Lapid, a member of Students United For Palestinian Equality and Return, said, “For the last eight weeks we have been organizing on campus for an end to the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. Even here we are facing immense repression just for holding actions, just for speaking on social media, just for advocating for the just right of return.” Militant actions have been held on campus including vigils, marches and rallies, though the only response from administration was to send an email to the student body denouncing disruptive actions.
As the students entered the building, they rushed into the third-floor lobby in front of the administration's offices and pushed into the offices of the vice provosts. During this time UW President Ana Marie Cauce’s chief of staff, Margaret Shepherd, scrambled to address the protesters. After an extended period of time, she told students that they would only get a meeting with the university president if they vacated the premises immediately. Further, she threatened to give them citations for trespassing if they remained in the building past 5:15 p.m.
During the occupation, the police immediately escalated. They stationed officers by every single entrance and tried to prevent anyone from entering the building. Shortly after the arrival of the police, Doug Schulz, a police lieutenant employed by the UWPD, shoved to the ground a person who was getting food from the outside.
Later during the occupation, the police chief and chief of staff entered the offices and tried to remove a Black student from an office chair. Craig Wilson, the police chief of the UWPD, whispered threats in their ear including, “You don’t want to be the Black student that’s arrested.” However, after five minutes of the crowd chanting “Shame on you!” and moving closer, and having people edge their way between the police chief and the student, the police chief and his lackeys left the room to the cheers of the students.
On the outside, about 60 people remained throughout the day despite the rain, with speeches about combatting state repression, praising the resistance of the Palestinian people, and a virtual speech by Husam Marajda, the co-founder of the US Palestinian Communities Network.
During this rally, Oviya Krishnan, a member of South Asians Resisting Imperialism said, “We refuse business as usual, we refuse to be ‘burnt out’, and we refuse this institution’s complacency in genocide!” She said this while speaking out of a window to the crowd outside, refusing to give up her place in the historic sit-in.
The crowd gathered food and other supplies for the sit-in. Several times throughout the afternoon, food was lifted in through a window.
As the deadline of 5 p.m. approached, the growing crowd became more militant, and prepared to respond if arrests were made.
The community beyond the University of Washington came to support the sit-in, including high school students, community activists, and rank-and-file union organizers. Yerusalem Kamara of Nathan Hale High School SDS spoke on the importance of student organizing, saying “I was knee-deep in collaborating with my school’s MSA to organize a walkout advocating for Palestine. It was an eye-opener to the potency of student-led movements. This wasn’t just some casual event: we spent days planning for it.”
By 5 p.m., the administration began to warn the protesters that they were about to call in the University of Washington Police Department. By the time UWPD officially announced their intent to begin detaining protesters, there were 36 people remaining. However, despite warnings of dispersal at 5:15 p.m., police arrived about an hour later. The police’s threats were drowned out among chants of “SPD, KKK, IDF, you’re all the same!”
As UWPD dragged students out of the building, several protesters faced obvious abuse as they were thrown headfirst into the ground, while others saw bruises and injuries on their shins and hands after their encounters.
Mantak Singh of the Progressive Student Union, a chapter of New Students For A Democratic Society, said, “I was dragged out of there, and pushed face first onto the ground, because you know what, they don’t have the capacity to deal with us, they don’t have the manpower to drag 30 students into jail, and they don’t have the willpower to fight a people’s movement.”
During the process of dragging students out, police isolated and tried to intimidate each student individually. Police illegally searched students by emptying their pockets and going through their wallets, phones, and other belongings. They told a female student, “you’re quite the celebrity”, angry at the crowd supporting her, as they moved her away from the crowd to an empty hallway with only another male cop for an hour.
While police attempted to throw students out of the building, students blocked every entrance, prolonging the occupation, essentially, leading rallies at every entrance. Police then threatened the crowd with kidnapping charges, claiming they were forcing the protesters inside the building to remain there, despite the protesters trying to stay and police dragging them out. Police gathered at the edges of the rallies, with 20 riot cops on the other side of Red Square from the front entrance.
Each protester being processed and removed took anywhere between ten to 30 minutes in between, due to the coordinated response from the rally outside to barricade the doors. At 9 p.m., the police began to drag protesters out faster and faster, but the energy and motivation among the protesters still occupying remained high and chants continued, with “Every time the media lies, another child in Gaza dies!” and “Resistance is justified when people are occupied!”
As protesters left the building after being forcefully removed, they received applause and cheers, along with food and water. One of the protesters, Robert Engel, a member of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, spoke about UWPD’s abuse, saying “The people’s movements in Seattle are strong and the police know it! They're afraid of us and we won't stop and that's why we can't lose!”
The December 7 occupation echoed the historic 1968 Black Student Union sit-in at the same building that secured increased enrollment, the Office of Minority Affairs, and ethnic studies at the University of Washington.
With the administration trying to ignore the demands and respond with police repression, actions at the University of Washington will continue in the future, as part of a growing national student movement for the liberation of Palestine.
#SeattleWA #International #Palestine #AntiWar #StudentMovement #SDS #FRSO #USPCN
