The Gaza protests and the tree sitters of Humboldt County.
I kept switching news channels last night, watching as hundreds of New York cops occupied the campus of Columbia University.
Summoned by Columbia’s administration, the NYPD plans to occupy the Manhattan campus until mid-May.
The irony of an occupied Columbia University mirroring Israel’s occupation of Palestine (although without the tens of thousands of deaths) was not lost on me and hopefully others watching CNN and MSNBC.
Three thousand miles away, students at California’s Humboldt Poly-Tech are continuing their sit-in as that university’s administration threatens action similar to Columbia.
However, in a protest tactic unique to that area of California, it doesn’t appear as I write this that the protesters aren’t going anywhere.
Free Gaza protesters at Humboldt University are tree-sitting.
Just like when over a quarter century ago Julia Butterfly Hill sat in a tree in Humboldt County.
One protest above all captured the nation’s attention. In December 1997, a young woman ascended a redwood older than the Magna Carta and vowed not to come down until assurances were made to save the trees.
Julia “Butterfly” Hill’s feet didn’t touch the ground for another 738 days.
She endured loneliness and sometimes harsh weather, surviving on food hoisted to her platform 180 feet up the tree, which she named Luna. Hill’s stand captivated the news media and made her an emblem of the anti-logging movement.
It was this week in 1999 that she finally descended after reaching a deal with Pacific Lumber to protect the tree and a surrounding buffer zone.
Humboldt Cal-Poly, about 250 miles north of San Francisco, is located in the heart of Redwood country.
It is only natural that Gaza protest and current tactics would draw on the rich protest history of the region.
Plus, the university’s president has given them plenty of reason to draw on that history.
While previous campus presidents engaged with student protesters and generally allowed sit-ins, Mr. Jackson (Humboldt’s president) was more distant and took a harder-line approach, Mr. Graham said.
In November, after the university discovered that some students were living in their vehicles on campus because they could not afford housing, the school ordered them to move out or face disciplinary action. In 2022, Mr. Jackson apologized for commentshe made during a welcome address that some saw as an attempt to hide reports of sexual assault in the campus community.
“That was sort of the beginning of him totally disappearing,” said Cindy Moyer, the chair of the university’s department of dance, music and theater. “He does not appear to take controversy well.”
Mr. Jackson was unavailable for comment, according to a spokeswoman. But last Friday, he told the local Times-Standard newspaper that the protesters were “criminals” and did not rule out sending in police at some point. “Everything is on the table,” he said.
Will the Humboldt protests be intimidated by President Jackson?
Not likely.
Over the weekend, as the likelihood of a police incursion increased, protesters beefed up the barricades that blocked off their encampment with chain-link fences, rows of chairs and large sheets of glass. In a nod to the past environmental protests in the area, they installed a “tree sit” about 60 feet up in a redwood near the quad, with a wooden platform that had the phrases “Free Gaza” and “End Empire.” The protester manning the perch — who would not give a name, other than “Ripples” — settled in with a mattress pad, sleeping bag and crank radio.
“A tree sitter actually indicates that there’s a desire for a much longer occupation,” Ms. Hunter, the graduate student, said. “Because a tree sitter — especially in this region after Julia Butterfly Hill — is just like, ‘Oh, I’m down to sit for Palestine until there is complete U.S. divestment.’ That’s essentially what that move means.”