On Monday evening, April 22, we began noticing the sound of a large helicopter circling above. We're used to hearing the Coast Guard copter passing by, and occasionally returning in a wide circle if it is on a search or rescue mission over the ocean. But these were tighter circles and more persistent. Yet it was a large helicopter, flying at high altitude, so it was hard to figure out what it was doing. It was too big and too high to be engaged in a law enforcement operation, I thought. Besides, this isn't Los Angeles.
Then Margaret, as HSU faculty emeritis, got a text from the university, warning her to stay away from campus because of an ongoing dangerous situation. We soon learned what it was: police were swarming onto campus to extract protesting students from Sieman's Hall, a building that houses administrative offices and classrooms. The helicopter, which people online were saying had been diverted from a search and rescue, belonged to the state police. The police action was unsuccessful, resulting in some injuries, and it was suddenly ended. The occupation began.
Back in the Civil Rights and Vietnam era, I knew about and participated in various forms of protest, including the occupation of a college administrative office in the spring of 1970, in another part of the country. There are a lot of differences now, and I know nothing of the people involved in the Humboldt occupation. I know nothing of any of the involved individual's motives, character, behavior, anything. Though I spent considerable time on the HSU campus over several decades, I haven't set foot on it in almost exactly 8 years, even though it is an easy walk away. But there are similarities to the context: students involved in an occupation while people are being killed thousands of miles away, and there are widespread and similar actions on campuses across the country. And the basics of the situation are pretty much the same. Which is why I knew that massive police action at the beginning was a fatal mistake.
In general, these occupations occur for several reasons. First is to express opposition to what is happening and to emphasize both awareness of it--in this case, Gaza--and the depth of concern. The second is simply to express the pain and anger and other emotions in response to it, including frustration that it is not being effectively addressed. For some who get involved, it is an opportunity to express ideological beliefs and commitments, and perhaps to push a larger political agenda. These are protests. But such continuing actions of disruption such as strikes and sit-ins have their roots not only in political protest, but beyond them in the labor movement, and they have specific goals: demands to be addressed. An occupation combines expression with specific objectives. Typically, most who are involved are there for expression, and general objectives. Demands often come from a smaller group within the protesters, and may not emerge immediately.
At the earliest stages, there is typically a broad mix of views and objectives among the protesters. The action is something they can all agree to do together. I've read a number of accounts of how the Humboldt occupation started, and they seem to agree that the initial action was planned as something like a sit-in, limited in extent and in duration. A massive police operation to extract protesters at this early stage has always been a mistake, and it was an especially expensive blunder in this specific situation, because the protesters resisted.
Who ordered this police action? According to Thadeus Greenson in the North Coast Journal, the Journal repeatedly asked the university and the Chancellor's office of the state university system that very question, and got no answer. Kelly Lincoln's report in the Independent (a southern Humboldt County newspaper) quotes Cal Poly Humboldt's Dean of Students Mitch Mitchell as saying, "The administration did not call the police." Well, somebody did. Somebody assembled various police forces, including that state police helicopter. Somebody (though the timing of this is still unclear to me) alerted Mad River Hospital to prepare for mass casualties. Either someone in the university with the authority to make the request, or some law enforcement official or officials who got it rolling themselves. If I were an editor or reporter on this story right now, this would be the first question I would pursue.
Most of what happened subsequently was precipitated by this initial response. The possibility of such a student action must have occurred to somebody, at least when it began happening elsewhere. Did the administration even have a plan? Was this it? Or was it a panic response?
On April 25, the Humboldt faculty voted a no confidence resolution in university president Tom Jackson and his chief of staff, and requested their resignations, mainly citing the police response and Jackson's absence from campus, but apparently this was all the last straw, after previous grievances. In my experience, such a vote is very serious, and has brought down more than one university president. But so far it has passed almost unnoticed. The awkward New York Times story (which insisted on the formal title of California Polytechnic University, Humboldt) did not even mention it. So that's another question I would pursue: what institutionally is the effect of such a resolution? What is the process, the applicable history within the CA state university system?
Another question I would pursue concerns the student suspensions. The affected students are confused about what they mean. What do they mean? Did these students get due process? It doesn't seem like it. Suspensions are a serious matter, and in my knowledge of other schools, they had to pass through a committee process, often with the students able to defend themselves at some point. Suspensions in fact may turn out to be more consequential than arrests, since most of those are likely to go nowhere.
But speaking of process, this was a fatal problem for some of the demands, as no one could grant some of them without a process involving many others over some amount of time. And the relevance or appropriateness of others posed knotty problems. They weren't so simple as the demands of labor sit-ins--for instance: raise our wages, since you have the power to do so.
The question of anti-Semitic prejudice is particularly fraught, while the long-evolving Middle East situation, and the fact that the US is indirectly involved but not (like Vietnam) one of the main agents, distinguishes this political situation from Vietnam. How widespread prejudice against Jews actually is on this campus or other campuses is unknown, as is the extent of targeting Jewish students because of Israeli actions. But several Humboldt County Jewish leaders signed a letter to two local (Democratic) political leaders countering their claim, saying that they did not regard the student protest as anti-Semitic, and they are offended that others made that claim without even consulting them. Nationally, it's clear that Republicans are inflating anti-Semitic claims for their political purposes, and I've heard persuasive suggestions that Russian and Chinese disinformation have been whipping up these claims on social media (namely Tiktok) in their ongoing efforts to create conflict and chaos in this election year.
The occupation ended with an even more massive police action--close it seems to a military operation-- though the number of students in the building had apparently dwindled to fewer than 50, perhaps half that. As it did in the Vietnam era, this overkill of official force is itself an educational experience, as likely was the experience of the occupation itself.
Apart from militarized police confronting unarmed civilians, the involvement then and now of so-called academic institutions in what then became known as the military-industrial-education complex stands as a potent and poignant issue, though I don't know the specific applications to Humboldt.
Approaching the 101 Sunset exit from the north the day after the occupation was ended, I saw a sign that normally would be flashing traffic or construction information, but this time it said: Campus closure will be enforced. That pretty much signals the end of Humboldt as an open academic and community institution, at least for now. Papers, please. The ACLU says the complete closing is unconstitutional, and violates Cal State policy.
The protests here and nationally have the unfortunate effect of taking attention away from the situation they were protesting, namely Gaza. That's somewhat inevitable, but worse in this current period of multiple extremism and social media. Such an occupying action seems best when it is brief. Administration policy is best when it is characterized by patience (does anyone believe order would never have been restored?)
The allegations of damage to the building are troublesome but seem overheated. Eyewitnesses did not discern damages that rise to the "millions of dollars" level that the administration claimed and fed to media and politicians. It's likely they are including the costs of underwriting all that police involvement, much more expensive than cleaning up graffiti. The ACLU noted that the campus is closed to news media except by permission, so independent assessments of damage are less likely.
Humboldt County is not currently endowed with an abundance of news media. But the Lost Coast Outpost and Redheaded Blackbelt online passed on timely information, and the three print stories I read (in the Journal, the Independent and the Lumberjack) had good reporting on events and timeline. The Lumberjack had more detail on what was going on within the protesting group, including the allegation of militant outsiders showing up and muscling in. Rigid ideologues and provocateurs with hidden badges are familiar dangers. Let's hope existing news media has the resources to go deeper into this story.
I thought the best of the reports was Kelly Lincoln's in the Independent in the April 30 issue. Particularly poignant for me was the long quote from Laurie Krause, specifically decrying the initial police action at Humboldt. She's the sister of Allison Krause, one of the four students shot and killed by members of the Ohio National Guard at Kent State on May 4, 1970. Allison (with two ls, unlike the more recent singer) was much on my mind that week of the occupation I participated in. While we were inside, other students were killed in a protest at Jackson State. Allison was 19, just a few years younger than me at the time, also from western Pennsylvania as I was. Her sister and I have lived another 54 years, but she did not--one of her last acts was placing a flower in a soldier's gun barrel.
As Laurie suggests, Allison's death was caused in large part by a failure of university leadership, as well as by those who jump to a military solution that victimizes the defenseless. But at that time we knew that this was the reality for many Vietnamese, just as we know that this is the reality day after day in Gaza. Beyond justifications and provocations, that's what links these events, as it always has.
