Despite students approaching Day 4 of their hunger strike in protest of the conditions in Gaza, the California State University system is refusing to alter its investments.
Guisselle Nuñez, the SJSU’s marketing communications senior associate vice president, provided a statement from the CSU to the Spartan Daily.
“While the CSU and its 23 universities honor the right to protest and the diverse convictions expressed across our campuses, the CSU will not be altering its investment policies,” the CSU said. “We will continue to uphold the values of free inquiry, peaceful protest, and academic freedom – while keeping student health, safety, and our mission at the forefront of all we do.”
The CSU urged students to consider other forms of expression and not to jeopardize their health and well-being.
The university system holds $3.2 million of indirect investments in Israel-based firms, according to a May 22, 2024, EdSource article.
Rochelle McLaughlin, a former lecturer in the College of Health and Human Sciences, resigned in December because of SJSU’s response to pro-Palestinian activism on campus.
“I am very proud of the students for engaging in the hunger strike,” McLaughlin said. “ ... They are a beacon of hope for humanity, ultimately. So, I have deep gratitude and I am here for them.”
She is joining in solidarity with the students and beginning her first day of the hunger strike.
Since January, there have been 10,000 cases of acute malnutrition in children in Gaza with 1,600 of those cases being severe acute malnutrition, according to an April 28, United Nations report.
Humanitarian partners are warning that the nutrition situation across Gaza is worsening, according to the same source.
Haddy Barghouti, a third-year journalism student, is also participating in the hunger strike.
“It’s to see what the people in Gaza are feeling,” Barghouti said. “They’re left without food and water and they’ve been left without food and water for months.”
Sang Hea Kil, a member of the Caucus of Rank-and-file Education Workers within the California Faculty Association, has been suspended for nearly a year from her position at SJSU following her activism.
Hea Kil was suspended for her involvement with pro-Palestinian groups on campus, according to a May 29, 2024, NBC Bay Area article.
“I think what the students did was actually really poignant and beautiful,” Hea Kil said. “The mass starvation happening in Gaza is sickening and you see children in skeletal forms. So, I think what the students (are) highlighting is the lack of humanity.”
Among CSU-wide divestment from military equipment contractors, protesters demand ending ties to Israeli institutions in the study abroad programs, ending the Time, Place and Manner policy and openly establishing sanctuary campuses, according to a Students for Justice in Palestine CSU Long Beach Instagram post.
SJSU currently offers a study abroad program in Israel, according to the SJSU Study Abroad and Away webpage.
“It makes me feel gutted to see they do have that program,” Barghouti said. “It shows the university’s support towards Israel.”
Nuñez said in an email sent to the Spartan Daily that a student has not been enrolled in the program for more than a decade.
Mitch Reitman, the assistant director of Hillel of Silicon Valley, said actions like the hunger strike and past protests affect Jewish students.
“Many in our community feel marginalized and unsafe when activism crosses the line into rhetoric or demands that deny Israel’s right to exist, misrepresent the conflict, or fail to acknowledge the trauma of October 7 and the ongoing hostage crisis,” Reitman wrote in a Monday email to the Spartan Daily.
When the Spartan Daily reached out to Reitman to expound on this, he declined to comment.
Between Oct. 7, 2023, and the end of 2023, the Anti-Defamation League saw 5,204 incidents of antisemitism, more than the total incidents in 2022, according to a 2023 audit from the Anti-Defamation League.
Among those incidents, 52% had references to Israel, Zionism or Palestine, according to the same audit.
“I think that the greatest threat to democracy and free speech in the nation as well as in our campuses, is this conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism,” Hea Kil said.
As defined by the Anti-Defamation League, Zionism is a movement for the self-determination and statehood for Jewish people in Israel.
Antisemitism is the hate and prejudice against Jewish individuals, as defined by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Jewish Voice for Peace, a grassroots Jewish activist organization, has said the conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism is dangerous as white supremacists and nationalists use it to promote antisemitism, Islamophobia and racism, according to the organization's website.
“It (the conflation) pulls attention away from the fact that there are many Jewish students who are anti-genocide, who are participating in the hunger strike, but also in the protests in general,” McLaughlin said.
As of publication, Dominguez Hills and CSU East Bay have joined the hunger strike, according to a Wednesday Norcal Students for Justice in Palestine Instagram post.
“We’re doing this to help the Palestinians in Gaza and we’re doing this also to help our campus be better,” Barghouti said.
