CORRECTION: Nancy Gilson’s lack of involvement in the original “Israel Today” event was clarified on May 21.
At around 3:45 p.m. today, UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla and Academic Senate Chair Olivia Graeve sent out a campus-wide email with the subject line: “Joint Message from Chancellor Khosla and Academic Senate Chair Graeve Regarding Event Disruption.” Their message addressed two protests held yesterday at 4:30 p.m. by Students for Justice in Palestine San Diego and the Faculty Defense Group. Attendees protested against the School of Global Policy and Strategy’s public lecture with the former Israeli ambassador for the Consul General of Israel in New York and the Tri-State Area, Ido Aharoni, at the Gardner Room.
“Last night, a group of protesters, many of them wearing masks, disrupted a public lecture by an invited speaker on our campus,” the message read. “This conduct is an affront to the mission of our university. It violates campus policies and our Principles of Community, and is antithetical to our values and the educational mission of UC San Diego.”
Khosla and Graeve reiterated these values: “We encourage every member of the Triton community to recommit to free expression that is enshrined in civility and decency for all.”
Their message also apologized to “those who experienced the disruption yesterday,” writing that they will be “reviewing this event to determine what steps we can take to try to prevent unacceptable disruptions moving forward.”
The UCSD Guardian reached out to University Communications for comment on its definition of “unacceptable” and how this investigation will proceed. There has not yet been a response.
Khosla and Graeve’s message followed an email statement the dean of GPS, Caroline Freund, sent at 2 p.m. to the students, staff, and faculty of GPS. Freund’s statement reflected similar sentiments and offered office hours to GPS students interested in discussing the event.
GPS’s announcement of Aharoni’s lecture, titled “Israel Today: Threats and Opportunities,” immediately sparked controversy; various community members spoke out against the event before May 19.
On Thursday, May 15, a group of GPS students penned an open letter addressed to GPS administration to voice their concerns over the event, especially the lack of representation of different perspectives. They cited that through this event, GPS was not sufficiently upholding its stated values of “Impact and Inclusion.” The letter had over 30 signatories.
“We question the legitimacy of this event because the complex security challenges, geopolitical dynamics, and emerging opportunities facing Israel are inherently intertwined with the Palestinian statehood,” the letter read.
The GPS students specifically requested the presence of a co-moderator, a live fact-checker, and a restructuring of the lecture to include Palestinian panelists, as well as two long-term policy pursuits on event guidelines and student involvement in event planning.
Though the letter was addressed to Director of GPS Nancy Gilson — who is the administrative point of contact for GPS students — their intended recipient was Dean Caroline Fruend. Gilson was not involved in any aspect of the event. The students hand-delivered their message to Freund on Thursday, May 15.
At the time of the letter’s delivery, an anonymous GPS student told The Guardian that Freund suggested that concerned students should attend the event and silently walk out.
“It was Dean Freund that suggested to first, attend, but if we felt like it crossed a line, we should silently get up and walk out. So we did,” the student said. Eight students participated in this silent walk-out.
GPS students were not the only ones who shared their concerns about the event. On Monday, May 18, the Faculty Defense Group released a statement announcing its protest against the event:
“Our aim in this protest is not to cancel or censor the speech of Ambassador Aharoni. Instead, we want to call attention to the one-sidedness of the event at a time when speech on our campus, and campuses everywhere, decrying the genocide perpetrated by Israel and enabled by the U.S., is being censored and criminalized.”
It emphasized in the statement that this protest would be peaceful and “consist of faculty holding placards and banners denouncing what Israel has done in Gaza” with tape over their mouths.
“Ambassador Ido Aharoni is hardly a scholar,” the statement read. “He is instead a master propagandist and a doctor of Orwellian newspeak, with a mission of justifying what is unjustifiable and concealing what is criminal.”
The Guardian was on the scene at the two protests yesterday. Attendees chanted, and some representatives gave speeches while the Faculty Defense Group held signs condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza and the University’s response to the 2024 Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Around 75 protestors attended.
According to Khosla and Graeve’s message, “The protesters crowded entryways and used amplified sound to effectively shout down the speaker and force the event to end.”
The Guardian did not witness any obstruction of entryways or sidewalks during the event until police sealed off the area at 6:17 p.m., blocking the path between entrances to the Gardner Room and preventing movement toward the west side of the Robinson Complex. Police allowed event organizers to pass.
Officers from the University of California Police Department and San Diego police were present starting at around 4:40 p.m., arriving in waves until 14 were on scene. Throughout the event, The Guardian heard from police officers that they had been called in to respond to an “increased patrol request.” The Guardian reporters also saw police threaten arrest and discuss whether or not to “hold back” protestors.
The Guardian is monitoring the GPS event, protests against it, and its fallout, and will release our full coverage soon.
