When pro-Palestinian student protests swept college campuses across the country two years ago, the movement at San Francisco State University was an outlier.
Elsewhere, many of the campus encampments and demonstrations against Israel’s war on Gaza had led to clashes with administrators or violent crackdowns by law enforcement. Meanwhile, at SF State, President Lynn Mahoney sat down in front of hundreds on Malcolm X Plaza for what was believed to have been a first-of-its-kind public negotiation session between school leaders and students, which led to a change to the school’s endowment investment policy.
Read more Bay Area Nature Camp Wins Key Approval for New Home After Fighting ‘Bureaucracy and NIMBYism’
“We are one of the only schools in the entire nation that got divestment,” said Sam Silva, a graduate student in SF State’s communication studies department. “That is a pretty huge deal.”
Read more SF Public Schools Are Set for New History Textbooks for the First Time in 20 Years
Read more When Teachers Can’t Afford to Live in the Bay Area, Districts Get Into the Housing Game