The University of California, Los Angeles' Academic Senate formally reprimands the school's President Gene Block after pro-Palestinian protesters attacked more than 200 protesters for several hours last week without police intervention. There was no vote Friday on whether or not to do so. The protesters were later arrested when the encampment was cleared.
The virtual meeting was attended by hundreds of senators, including all faculty members who met certain criteria. Only members of a small group known as the Legislative Assembly, made up of representatives elected by campus departments, were allowed to vote on motions of no confidence and censure.
A no-confidence motion against Mr. Bullock would be the tougher of the two measures.
“For many of us, we feel strongly that the prime minister's actions and inactions merit a vote of no confidence,” Carlos Santos, an associate professor of social work who represents the Luskin School of Public Affairs in Congress, said before the meeting. . . “We put the safety of our students first and foremost, and we feel strongly that it is important to make history.”
But after more than three hours of discussion, much of it spent on parliamentary procedure, the meeting ended without a vote. The group plans to take up the issue again at its next meeting on May 16.
Bullock, 75, did not comment on the resolution Friday. He has been UCLA's president since 2007 and has already said he will step down at the end of July. But the poll could still serve as an important indicator of how faculty at elite public universities feel about free speech and campus climate in a polarized era.
On Friday, dozens of speakers said they rushed to help students who had been hit, their eyes watering with chemicals. Faculty members at the medical school described stories they had heard from medical students and residents who were attacked while treating injured protesters.
Many stressed that the no-confidence vote simply shows that Bullock has lost faculty support and is a sign to the incoming administration that faculty will not be afraid to speak up for students. . They say this was not a referendum on the protesters' own opinions.
Although there were relatively few speakers opposing the measure, several expressed concerns about anti-Semitism among demonstrators at the camp.
If the Senate passes one or both resolutions, UCLA will join the list of universities whose faculty have united with protesters to denounce administrators' response to pro-Palestinian protests.
Earlier this week, the University of Southern California's Academic Senate voted to censure the president. Last month, the University Senate at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, voted no confidence in President Tom Jackson Jr. after law enforcement officers in riot gear responded to activists who had occupied an administrative building.
Frustration with Mr. Block had been growing since the night of April 30, when a large group of counter-demonstrators confronted a pro-Palestinian encampment that had spread across a quarter of the campus days earlier.
Administrators initially cited the University of California's policy of calling law enforcement “only when absolutely necessary to protect the physical safety of the campus community,” and responded to encampments more aggressively than other universities. We took a more interventionist approach.
However, on April 30, the sixth day of the encampment, Block declared the site illegal and warned protesters to leave. He cited several incidents of violence between demonstrators and counter-protesters, as well as pro-Palestinian demonstrators blocking access to parts of the campus.
Counter-protesters arrived later that night and sprayed students with pepper spray, fired fireworks into the encampment, and attacked protesters with metal pipes and other objects. Police and security officials who were present at some of the scuffles did not intervene for hours, and no arrests were made in the attacks.
The next night, administrators authorized police officers from three agencies to clear the encampment.
Criticism poured in from members of the campus community as well as state and local officials. Block called it “a dark chapter in the history of our campus.”
He then established the Office of Campus Safety, headed by a former police chief, to oversee the university's police department. He also brought in an outside consultant to investigate what happened during the attack.
Until then, “we thought the university's response was great,” said Matt Barrett, a political science and Chicano studies professor who has served as a spokesperson for faculty groups supporting protesters. . So the sudden change in approach, especially what Barrett characterized as an overly violent police response, was jarring.
However, some Jewish groups were outraged by footage of protesters blocking students who did not renounce Zionism from accessing sidewalks and buildings. The Jewish Federation of Los Angeles said the climate had become hostile to Jewish students and there had been a “horrific escalation of anti-Semitism.”
