UCLA Faculty Defend Student Activists - YES! Magazine Solutions Journalism

May 9, 2024

Just as the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) began resuming classes after a week of violent attacks on students from vigilantes and law enforcement, police in a campus parking garage on charges of 鈥渃onspiracy to commit burglary.鈥� An encampment set up by student activists to protest Israel鈥檚 genocide in Gaza has been at the center of campus tensions.

Late in the evening on April 30, into the early morning hours of May 1, a group of parts of the encampment and , while for hours. Then, on May 2, Los Angeles police the camp, arresting more than 200 students. The university announced it would create a new in response to accusations of exposing students to violence.

Members of the UCLA community are outraged over the violence, and many faculty members have stepped forward to defend students. Among them are聽, Distinguished Professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History at UCLA. Kelley, who is known for his acclaimed book , spoke with YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali about the significance of the attacks on UCLA鈥檚 anti-genocide activists.

Sonali Kolhatkar joined YES! in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of聽YES! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent 麻豆社事件 Institute鈥檚 Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of聽Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice聽(2023) and聽Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence聽(2005). Her forthcoming book is called聽Talking About Abolition聽(Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women鈥檚 Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master鈥檚 in Astronomy from the University of Hawai鈥檌, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on 鈥淢y Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host鈥� in her 2014聽聽of the same name.