Students organized a general assembly and speak-out against war rousing calls for action targeted at the San José State University administration on Tuesday at the Students for a Democratic Society’s first public demonstration on campus this semester.
Students for a Democratic Society is a national progressive student activist group with chapters at campuses all over the U.S., including SJSU, according to the organization’s About page.
Dozens of students and community members gathered on Tower Lawn on campus in protest of mass incarceration, administrative investments and the Israeli military’s bombardment of Gaza.
“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” the crowd chanted in front of Washington Square Hall.
Fourth-year history student Aidan Rauh and member of Students for a Democratic Society at SJSU was one of the handful of speakers at the event.
“We are witnessing the next wave of this colonial project and it started again with the genocide of Palestine,” Rauh said. “A new wave of violence and mimicry in order to perpetuate the exploitation of people and the deaths of Indigenous people.”
Around 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in the past 10 months as a result of Israeli military attacks, according to an Aug. 16 report from CNN.
Second-year animation and illustration student Oli Harter vocalized demands for SJSU to reallocate funds away from companies that contribute to conflicts like in Gaza.
“We divest millions and millions of dollars into war profiteers such as Lockheed Martin,” Harter said. “We are looking to end support with Lockheed Martin and put those investments towards students.”
Lockheed Martin is one of the largest military contractors in the world selling weapons to governments globally, including Israel, making it a boycott target for pro-Palestinian activists according to the American Friends Service Committee’s “Investigate” project.
Harter explained that other SJSU students should be invested in divestment as it concerns where their tuition money is being appropriated.
“So even if you are like, ‘I don’t know, what can I do in San José for people in Gaza, for Palestine?’,” Harter said. “If not for them, then do it for yourself.”
The demonstration attracted members outside of the SJSU community, including representatives from the Green Party of Santa Clara County.
Nassim Nouri, a council member for the Green Party of Santa Clara County, said she has been following student activism at SJSU and came to the assembly to show the party’s solidarity.
“The students on this campus have been amazing because they have been speaking from the heart and from their minds against injustice, against genocide, and against the oppression and marginalization of our sisters and brothers around the world,” Nouri said.
More than bringing awareness, Nouri said she hopes the speak-out encourages students to take action to make the changes they want to see.
“We want people to know they have the power to electorally push for policies they want,” She said.
Members said Students for a Democratic Society at SJSU has been impacted in its activities this semester as a result of new policies from SJSU and California State University administration limiting free speech activities on campuses.
“The reason that we have not held something on this scale before now has been fear of the new Time, Place and Manner,” Rauh said. “We have not received any clarification on what is and isn’t allowed so we’ve been hesitant to engage in something like this.”
Dialogue with SJSU’s Time, Place and Manner officials has been challenging for Rauh and the rest of the Students for a Democratic Society chapter, citing a town hall on free speech where administrators were expected to speak with the organization and answer questions about the new policy but never showed.
“Student Affairs and the president, anyone with the ability to clarify and interpret the TPM has not responded to us, has not made any clarifying statement about TPM, completely ignored every attempt at communication,” Rauh said.
Despite hesitations with organizing under the new Time, Place and Manner restrictions, SJSU’s Students for a Democratic Society chapter plans to hold a rally and protest on October 7th as a part of the “Week of Rage,” a nationwide protest helmed by Students for Justice in Palestine.
Robin McMahon, a sixth-year history student, highlighted the importance of activism as community-building, something she said is often overlooked
“Think about the ways that you can help the people around you be secure without being dependent on capital power, without being dependent on police violence, without being dependent on a carceral state, without being dependent on an Army overseas doing violence in their name,” McMahon said.