Community members take part in a Pro-Palestine rally at San Francisco State University Thursday, April 3, 2025, in San Francisco, Calif. Students from thirteen colleges in Northern California rallied in response to the Trump Administration’s legal threats and deportations of students engaging in pro-Palestine expression and speech. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
More than 100 students from across the Bay Area gathered Thursday to condemn what they called the Trump administration’s “repressive crackdown” on the national student movement for Palestine.
At Malcolm X Plaza on San Francisco State University’s campus, students from 13 universities across Northern California joined together to decry the administration’s treatment of pro-Palestinian protesters, which students said represented a chilling attack on their right to free speech.
Students called the Trump administration’s arrests of students and faculty who have expressed support for Palestinians a “fear-mongering tactic” used to send a message that “speaking out for Palestine has severe consequences.”
“We demand the presidents of our universities condemn the illegal abductions of students by ICE and the attack on the civil liberties of students and faculty members,” said the collaborative Students for Justice in Palestine at universities in Northern California, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “The more attacks against our movement, the more it grows and the stronger our collective commitment to justice becomes.”
The joint effort comes as the Trump administration
has opened investigations into 60 universities across the country over allegations of antisemitic discrimination and harassment, including at California State University Sacramento, Stanford University, UC Davis, UC San Diego and UC Berkeley. The University of California
also faces a U.S. Department of Justice investigation over claims the university system allowed an “antisemitic hostile work environment” on its campuses. A federal task force charged with combating antisemitism is set to visit UC Berkeley’s campus to investigate allegations the university failed to protect Jewish students and faculty from harassment and discrimination.
Thursday’s gathering marks the first press conference held by Bay Area students since Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil was arrested and detained by immigration officers at his Columbia University-owned home last month over his role in protests against the Israel-Hamas war. Khalil, who is of Palestinian descent and was raised in Syria, had his green card revoked by the administration. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin
described Khalil’s arrest as being “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting antisemitism.”
Since then,
several other students and faculty members across the country – mostly at campuses on the East Coast – who have protested against the Israel-Hamas war have been detained by federal agents for allegedly promoting antisemitism, spreading Hamas propaganda and posing a threat to national security.
Students said Thursday they feared California schools would be next, although they weren’t aware of any immigration-related arrests at Bay Area universities.
“Because of the list having so many West Coast schools, yes, I think it’s in our best interest to prepare for something like that and not just let it come and be reactionary to it,” said Max Flynt, a San Francisco State University student with the General Union of Palestine Students. “That’s what we see here today is students preparing, working together, coordinating to make sure that we can fight against something like that if it comes here. But also to stand in solidarity with Mahmoud Khalil and all these students that have already been abducted.”
Many Bay Area schools
have been at the forefront of demonstrations related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with months-long protests at Stanford, UC Berkeley and Cal Poly Humboldt last year — some leading to clashes with police and student arrests.
Since then,
university leaders have cracked down on student protests, banning encampments and instituting new rules that limit where students can protest in an attempt to prevent disruptions on campuses.
On Thursday, students presented new demands for university officials, including calls to publicly condemn the arrests of faculty and student activists, to divest assets and investments that support Israel and to refuse collaboration with and prevent immigration officers from accessing college campuses.
UC and CSU have said that
no campus police department would work with federal immigration officers to investigate or remove students from campus.
But the universities also said that as public universities, their campuses are open to the general public, which means they are also open to federal immigration officers and unable to prohibit immigration officers from coming on campus. The universities said any space physically restricted by a key card, locked door or monitored entryway – including campus housing or some classrooms and faculty offices – limit public access and immigration officers who don’t have a warrant to enter.
Students also called for university officials to protect faculty and students from doxxing, stalking and harassment for speaking out against the Israel-Hamas war.
Omar Zahzah, an assistant professor of Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies at San Francisco State said his personal information and photograph has been leaked on a public website known for tracking anti-Zionist campus activists since 2015, when he was still a student.
Some civil rights advocates have expressed concern that immigration officers are using those websites to target international students and faculty for deportation.
“Now, more than ever, it’s incumbent upon all institutions to actually take this seriously and to really work to make sure that students and faculty remain protected from doxxing, from harassment and from blacklisting of all kinds for their political views,” Zahzah said.
But Zahzah also said the “criminalization” of student activism didn’t begin with President Donald Trump, pointing out last year’ s campus protests which resulted in clashes with police and several students’ arrests.
“This began and really was given the green light under the Biden administration,” Zahzah said. “Any administration that allows for student speech to be criminalized in this way is going to only provide an opportunity for the next incoming administration to up the ante even more.”
