Courageous Solidarity With Student Activists

As detailed in recent reporting from the New York Times, the nonviolent student activist movement has faced harsh suppression and criminalization on campuses across the United States. At Columbia University, https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/30/nyregion/columbia-protests-college, over 100 students were arrested on April 18th for occupying a building as part of pro-Palestinian demonstrations. The university is now threatening to expel any remaining protesters.

The crackdown has reverberated nationwide. Police in riot gear employed pepper spray to break up a protest at Virginia Commonwealth University, charging 13 people including 6 students. Around 30 students were arrested at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as police dismantled their encampment.
In total, the Times reports that over 1,000 activists have now been taken into custody on U.S. campuses for demonstrating in solidarity with Palestinians and calling for divestment from companies linked to the violence in Gaza. This intrepid moral witness from our nation's youth has come at an immense personal cost - risking their education, their futures, and their very freedom.
Such a profound display of conscience should shake us all and demand a response from communities of faith and moral courage...

As a pastor of a progressive Bay Area United Church of Christ congregation, I have witnessed firsthand the attempts to intimidate and silence our voices for just peace for all people. May we feel emboldened to speak out even more fervently in support of the Palestinian people suffering immense violence and deprivation in the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza. We stand with the global coalition of individuals, activists, and faith communities calling for an immediate ceasefire and provision of humanitarian aid.

We are inspired by the courage of students and faculty across the United States who have raised their voices, enacted peaceful protests, and made great personal sacrifices to demand justice and peace in Gaza. As detailed in the recent reports, some of these activists have been met with harsh suppression, beatings, arrests, and expulsions simply for exercising their constitutional right to free speech.

To all the Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace chapters, and allied human rights groups on campuses nationwide, we say: You are not alone. The moral cause you fight for compels us in faith communities to have your back and uplift your struggle. Your conscience and conviction in the face of unjust persecution is a profound witness that challenges us all.
We call on all people of faith and good conscience to let compassion and a thirst for justice be our guides. Instead of working to silence cries for peace, we must focus our efforts on promoting an immediate end to the violence and establishing a just resolution for all people. Solidarity, not intimidation, must be our compass in these troubled times. We will continue raising our voices for human rights and human dignity until true peace and justice prevail.

While we faced intimidation through the destruction of our public statements for peace and justice in Gaza, our students have faced far graver suppression. Handcuffs, riot police, suspensions, expulsions, and over a thousand arrests - simply for raising their voices against injustice.

We call on all people of faith and good conscience to reject the criminalization of these activist voices so clearly aligned with the Biblical call to "learn to do good; seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the oppressed" (Isaiah 1:17). As our youth embrace the gospel demand to stand with "the least of these" (Matthew 25:40), so too must we have their back through prayer, solidarity, humanitarian aid and support.

Instead of working to silence those crying out for the human rights of the Palestinian people, we must raise our own voices and focus our efforts on promoting an immediate cessation of violence and the provision of a just resolution for all.

Reverend Laurie J Manning, UCC Bay Area Pastor