UC Riverside Chancellor Kim Wilcox Friday announced a formal agreement between the university and Students for Justice in Palestine containing concessions that led to the promise of a peaceful end to the “solidarity encampment” to protest Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip.
“I am pleased to share that we have reached an agreement that will result in the peaceful conclusion of the encampment by no later than midnight tonight,” Wilcox said late Friday morning. “(The) agreement … will be carried out consistent with state and federal law. It has been my goal to resolve this matter peacefully, and I am encouraged by this outcome — which was generated through constructive dialogue.”
Wilcox emphasized that UCR “values students’ right to practice peaceful free speech.”
“This agreement does not change the realities of the war in Gaza … However, I am grateful that we can have constructive and peaceful conversations on how to address these complex issues,” he said, citing “antisemitism and Islamaphobia” as ongoing concerns.
The agreement spelled out a brief list of actions now on the front-burner for campus administrators, the Academic Senate and Associated Students of UCR generally.
One of the principal items the parties agreed to address was the current orientation of UCR’s endowment to the University of California Investments Office. The UCR chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine included in its demands at the outset of the encampment a withdrawal of any funding “in weapons manufactures and the Israeli genocidal machine.”
The new agreement specifies that a “full disclosure of the list of companies in the (investment) portfolio” will be made publicly available, and the parties unanimously stipulated that any future endowment should be finalized “in a manner that will be financially and ethically sound for the university.”
A task force composed of students and faculty will present a report on the matter to the UCR Board of Trustees next winter.
UCR said its School of Business has now discontinued “Global Programs” in Israel, as well as other countries.
“UCR will modify its approval process for all study-abroad programs to ensure compliance with UC’s Anti-Discriminatory Policies,” the compact stated.
Signatories to the agreement included Wilcox, several vice chancellors and UCR-Students for Justice in Palestine President Hibah Nassar and her fellow negotiator, Samia Alkam, a PhD student.
The close of the UCR encampment was in marked contrast to events at UCLA, where riot gear-clad police stormed the grounds to forcibly arrest and eject student protesters Thursday.
There was no obvious law enforcement presence where the UCR demonstrators established their several dozen tents beneath the Bell Tower at the center of campus on Monday.
“We are joining the student movement, the student Intifada,” Nassar said. “We are not leaving this encampment day and night until the university complies and meets with us to discuss our demands.”
On Wednesday, a group of students staged a walkout from classes and held a rally at the tower, chanting “Israel is a racist state!” and “Free, free, free Palestine!”
Nassar noted in a social media post that there is no “standing university in Gaza” due to the unabated bombing campaign since early October conducted by the Israeli Defense Forces using U.S.-supplied drones and fighter-bombers.
She said the protests at UCR and other campuses were intended to “condemn war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Estimates on the number of campuses where anti-war movements have surfaced over the last month vary, but according to the nonprofit National Students for Justice in Palestine, encampments numbered just over 70 as of May 1.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health and the International Committee of Red Cross-affiliated Palestine Red Crescent Society, nearly 35,000 people have been killed in Gaza — over 14,500 of them children — since the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas incursion into Israel, culminating in the IDF’s invasion of the Strip.
The number of injuries are in excess of 77,000, according to published reports.
Israel’s official casualty rate for the duration of hostilities is 8,730, of which just over 1,000 have been fatalities.
Along with universities, hospitals, refugee camps, mosques, churches and residential complexes in Gaza have been targeted, displacing hundreds of thousands of people, according to reports from the region.
Human Rights Watch has alleged Israel “is using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the Gaza Strip,” and according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the humanitarian crisis caused by the bombardments on infrastructure has resulted in almost 500,000 “displaced persons” requiring shelter and other assistance.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday that of the 97 reporters killed in hostilities since early October, 92 have been Palestinian. Others have been assaulted, injured and arrested. The CPJ said the current “war … has led to the deadliest period for journalists since we began gathering data in 1992.”
Aid workers have also been killed. The United Nations has estimated the number at 220, including seven World Central Kitchen volunteers whose vehicle took a direct hit on April 1 during an IDF drone strike on a convoy.