The Student Services building at Cal State Los Angeles is in need of significant repairs after Pro-Palestinian demonstrators took over the building Wednesday night.
Erik Frost Hollins, Executive Director of Strategic Communications at Cal State L.A., told reporters the lower floors of the Student Services building took a beating.
“The unfortunate thing about this is these are student-facing services,” he said. “These are our student service building. So things like financial aid and advising. So we are doing an assessment of how severe the damage is and how long it will take to get those services back online.”
He added that because certain services are difficult to do remotely, it’s going to have a significant impact in the long term.
The demonstration began around 4 p.m. Hollins noted that while there had been a small group of demonstrators on campus for weeks, the group became bigger before the takeover of the Student Services Building.
“The numbers in the encampment were actually relatively small in terms of a standing number and then grew appreciably yesterday,” he said. “I do not know who the additional individuals were, but it was not our standard compliment for the encampment.”
When the demonstrators moved into the building, they barricaded the exits on the first floor, blocked walkways, and created makeshift barricades outside in the plaza with overturned tables and golf carts.
An alert was sent out to students and staffers by university officials, urging those inside the building to shelter in place. President Berenecea Johnson Eanes was one of the 58 employees sheltering in place, Hollins confirmed.
The protestors stayed until 1:15 a.m. when they left the building voluntarily, Hollins confirmed. He added that while most of those who sheltered in place stayed until 6 p.m., Earnes and some other employees chose to stay until the early morning hours Thursday to deal with the situation.
He said all campus buildings have since been secured.
“...I think we have committed to staying remote as long as we need to actually be sure that this is fully resolved before we bring employees and students back to these students that were involved,” he said.
The demonstration prompted summer classes to go virtual on Thursday. It also caused freshman orientation to be canceled, frustrating those who traveled far to be there.
Vanessa, who drove up from the Inland Empire, told KNX News’ Jon Baird said she was disappointed.
“I'm just kind of a little bit annoyed because I did kind of just like show up from kind of far away and then they canceled it from last night,” she said.
Another student said she came here from the Bay Area.
“My dad's making me go talk to people from the school and see whether or not when they're gonna like reschedule it because I also have other like events that I scheduled to go to,” she said.
This incident comes days after 25 pro-Palestinian demonstrators were arrested at UCLA.
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