Members of the South West Asian and North African (SWANA) community met with President Jeffrey Armstrong, Vice President for Student Affairs Keith Humphrey, Office of University Diversity and Inclusion Vice President Denise Isom and Chief of Staff Jennifer Haft to discuss issues the SWANA community is facing on campus on May 23.
During the meeting, SWANA identifying students said they haven’t felt heard by the university for the entirety of their college experience and for them this meeting didn’t change much.
Members of the SWANA community, who wished to remain anonymous for safety reasons, iterated their grievances against the university’s handling and messaging around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the lack of recognition toward SWANA students on campus, the police presence on campus, censorship of pro-Palestinian voices and campus protests.
Twenty-five students assembled in the Vista Grande Conference room after members of the SWANA community made repeated requests for a meeting with university officials. The students were given an hour to speak to university administrators. President Armstrong closed the meeting with 10 minutes of responses to them.
Students raised the issue of the police presence on campus during pro-Palestinian demonstrations such as the die-ins and the protest which blocked off California Street the morning of May 23.
“When we want to finally speak up and show our opinions, the response from the school is police presence,” one student said.
The student added that members of the Muslim Student Association and pro-Palestinian tablers felt threatened by the university’s decision to deploy a police car across from their table on Dexter Lawn for three hours.
Other students reiterated that they felt the police presence was disproportionately deployed against SWANA students, especially in regards to pro-Palestinian activism.
In response, Armstrong told the group that “there have been incidents over the years where you just can’t afford to be surprised.”
“I really believe we work hard, in a content neutral way, to provide safety,” Armstrong said. “There are times when there’s more than you might think, but they’re professionals, they’re trying to figure out things.”
Some members of the SWANA community similarly found this response to be disappointing in a follow-up conversation with Mustang News.
“It felt like a real slap in the face,” one student said.
“The disproportionate [amount of] police there [at pro-Palestinian protests] is scary, especially as a community that has continuously been surveilled, that has continuously been stereotyped and called violent,” another student added.
Teach-in cancellation a major point of contention
Members of the group said when they attempt to work within the university’s framework to bring Palestinian issues to the forefront – such as the social justice teach-in – they are censored and when they protest they are met with police.
“There’s not both sides-ism in talking about a country that exists,” one student said in response to the University’s decision to cancel the social justice teach-in over issues of “balance” with the Palestinian tracts. “If we had a session about Armenia, you wouldn’t go and schedule a bunch of [sessions] about Turkey and like Azerbaijan — for some reason, every single time it’s Palestine, there’s always some altercation [with] the school.”
President Armstrong said it was “not the university’s job” to teach students what to think, but rather “think critically” in regards to the university’s decision to cancel the teach-in.
“I’m not gonna choose who gets to speak,” Armstrong said.
However, Armstrong qualified that at university sponsored events “you wouldn’t expect… [to] hear a political speech or a view on any particular thing… you want to come and hear yourself be recognized, you don’t want that obstructed.”
One student found President Armstrong’s justification toward canceling the teach-in hypocritical given his comments in the follow-up conversation.
“He does get to choose who will speak because it was his, President Armstrong’s office, that decided to postpone the CLA teach-in,” one student said. “Censorship of students is much more important [to Armstrong] than any critical censorship of a company,” another student added.
One student said of Armstrong bringing up how graduation will not feature politically charged speakers “tone deaf” and a veiled threat, in the follow-up conversation.
“It feels like President Armstrong and his office are anticipating something will happen at graduation and therefore, wants to bring that up before that happens,” the student added.
Armstrong similarly previously told the same student, who is a rep for the university, that there will be extra security at graduation at a university rep breakfast on May 20.
“I thought that was incredibly strange,” the student said. “That he would bring up to me, a SWANA student, that comment.”
Students similarly pressed President Armstrong on the university’s connections to defense contractors.
“Can you imagine?” one student asked. “I am from Gaza and I go to a school that has ties with companies that bomb my own family.”
Other students pressed Armstrong on divesting and cutting ties with defense contractors.
“I’m not gonna choose which company comes to campus or not,” Armstrong said to the group.
Some members of the group found Armstrong’s response unsatisfactory but not surprising, mentioning the presence of defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Northup Grumman on campus.
“They are lining his pockets and we can’t say anything about it,” one student said.
“Are our students understanding that when you work for Boeing… you are going to be working on… weaponry that is going to be used on our countries, our homelands, our people?” one student said.
Another student pointed out the presence of people with ties to the defense industry in positions of power at Cal Poly such as chairman of the Cal Poly Foundation board and former CEO of Raytheon Bill Swanson and vice chairman of the Cal Poly Foundation board and former CEO of Parsons Charles Harrington.
Erasure and recognition of SWANA students at Cal Poly
Other members felt as though the group was being censored and erased by the school. Members pointed out the fact that OUDI did not send out any SWANA Heritage Month emails detailing the SWANA student-led events being held that month despite OUDI sending out emails for other groups’ heritage months.
One student pointed out the school avoided discussing the SWANA community as if it were a “slur.”
“We’ve done things for the SWANA community,” Armstrong said. “And do we need to do more? I would agree.”
However, Armstrong did not directly address students’ request for the school to send out an email for SWANA heritage month.
“I don’t want to adjudicate every note I’ve sent out in the past and, quite frankly, in the future I’m probably going to send out less,” Armstrong said in response to the students’ calls for recognition in his emails. “Because it’s back to ‘Well, whose voice, which issue?’ and I want to take real good care of what we’re doing here.”
Student reflections on the meeting
The SWANA community members Mustang News spoke to were not pleased with the university’s handling of the meeting, nor President Armstrong’s comments.
“The people are amazing,” one student said in reference to what they’d tell a SWANA student thinking of coming to Cal Poly. “Just brace yourself if getting recognition from administration and having that sense of belonging from administration and being properly acknowledged is really important to you, then maybe just reassess your options.”
Other students added they felt they had to work “10 times harder” to have their identities recognized by the university.
President Armstrong’s office sent a two-page letter to students who attended the meeting on May 30, which reiterated what he said at the meeting. Armstrong added that OUDI will be sending out a SWANA heritage month email from now on after students pressed Armstrong and Isom in the meeting on why OUDI did not send one in April.