About 20 UCLA school members protested Saturday night time outdoors the UCLA Hammer Museum’s celebrity-heavy gala, calling for amnesty to be granted to pro-Palestinian college students arrested on campus this week and demanding that Chancellor Gene Block resign instantly.
As a well-heeled crowd in cocktail apparel filed into the museum for the annual Gala within the Backyard, sipping bespoke cocktails and noshing on small bites from handed trays, English division professor Jonathan Grossman blamed Block for what he and his colleagues mentioned have been twin wrongs finished to pro-Palestinian scholar activists. On Wednesday, they mentioned, college students obtained unnecessarily tough therapy from police as their encampment was cleared. The night time earlier than, he mentioned, police failed to guard the identical college students from violent counterprotesters’ assaults.
Elizabeth O’Brien, a professor within the historical past division, mentioned she was current Tuesday night time and witnessed “a horrifying mob” assault pro-Palestinian college students for 4 hours.
“Together with a colleague, I begged the police to intervene,” O’Brien mentioned. “A police officer threatened us with a weapon in response to our pleas to guard the scholars from the mob.”
O’Brien confirmed what she mentioned was an X-ray of damaged bones in certainly one of her scholar’s fingers.
“She was simply protesting peacefully, and so they shot her with rubber bullets,” O’Brien mentioned, including, “Chancellor Block failed egregiously to guard the scholars.”
UCLA’s police chief, John Thomas, denied allegations of safety lapses and mentioned he did every little thing he may to maintain college students protected. In a press release, Block described the assault on pro-Palestinian protesters as “a darkish chapter in our campus’s historical past” and mentioned the college was re-examining its procedures because of this.
The Hammer’s gala, which normally attracts one of many starriest crowds in L.A.’s museum fund-raising circuit, had a confirmed visitor checklist {that a} spokesperson mentioned included Jane Fonda, Ava DuVernay, Keanu Reeves, Will Ferrell, Joel McHale and Owen Wilson. Singer ok.d. lang was scheduled to carry out.
Jodie Foster was readily available to honor Ann Philbin, the longtime Hammer director who has introduced her forthcoming retirement. Earlier than introducing Philbin, Foster acknowledged the Gaza protests at UCLA in addition to at different universities across the nation. Talking out, Foster mentioned, is what the humanities are all about.
“We’re all so keenly conscious of what’s taking place on this planet and the protests,” Philbin mentioned to the gala crowd, including that the violence on UCLA’s campus tempered the enjoyment of the night. “I acknowledge what a troublesome time that is for celebration and I admire that you just’re all right here.”
She added later: “We are going to defend the sacrosanct proper to freedom of expression and the precise to protest.”
Occasions employees author Teresa Watanabe contributed to this report.
