Arraignment of 12 pro-Palestine protestors draws demonstrators, police presence

Following the arraignment hearing of 12 pro-Palestine protesters who face felony charges for occupying Building 10 last June, approximately 200 demonstrators assembled outside the Palo Alto Courthouse on Thursday. The crowd called on Santa Clara County District Attorney (DA) Jeff Rosen to drop the felony charges against the protesters.

Judge Thang Nguyen Barrett scheduled entry of plea on July 17 for all 12 protesters, when they will plead guilty or not guilty. The defendants each waived their right to a formal reading of the arraignment.

The rally — organized by Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Stanford Black Action Contingent (BAC), the Bay Area chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), the San Francisco Bay Area Office of the Council for American-Islamic Relations (SFBA-CAIR) and Stanford Asian American Action Committee (SAAAC) — called for Stanford to divest from Israel-backed corporations and take action to defend student protesters and international students. 

“We continue to respect the rights of students to express their views in ways within the limits of the University’s viewpoint-neutral time, place, and manner rules,” University media relations director Luisa Rapport wrote in an email to The Daily. She added that the University will “respect [the DA’s] decision in this matter.”

The Daily has reached out to the DA’s office for comment.

After breaking into and barricading themselves inside Building 10 on June 5, 2024, the 12 protestors were suspended or barred from graduating that year. Daily editor Dilan Gohill ’27, who was reporting on the occupation for The Daily, was arrested alongside the protesters.

While Rosen declined to press charges against Gohill in March, the 12 protesters face charges of vandalism and felony conspiracy to trespass. Because charges were not yet filed at the time of the 13 defendants’ August arraignment, legal processes were deferred for a further nine months.

Three of the defendants — Zoe Edelman ’25, German Gonzalez ’26 and Amy Zhai ’25 — will be tried under the provisions of the Young Adult Deferred Entry of Judgment (YADEJ) program, a collaborative criminal court piloted by Santa Clara County.

The YADEJ program evaluates defendants aged 18 to 21 who have committed non-serious, non-violent felonies under a “lifestyle triage” that mandates participation in court-ordered programs and community service. At the close of the program, the records of participants’ convictions are cleared and sealed.

The other nine defendants do not fall under the age limit to be tried under the YADEJ provision.

Following the arraignment, student and community protestors delivered speeches in the parking lot outside the courthouse. The 12 individuals being arraigned also spoke. 

“I have hope for a world where my family and I could have lived in our country in peace and not in a suffering, and in the same way that I came to realize institutions like Stanford work to destroy that hope,” Gonzalez said. “I learned and I internalized that we, everyday people, are the ones that need to make this hope a reality.”

Throughout the speeches, police cars parked on the curb beside the protestors. Several police officers with riot gear also assembled in front of the courthouse, blocking the entrances to the building and parking lot, prompting the protesters to boo the police officers.

According to Amanda Campos ’26, a student activist in SJP, the police had previously ordered the protestors not to use sound-amplifying devices.

After about an hour, the police ordered an official dispersal order and threatened to begin making arrests if the protesters did not comply. 

“The police tried to infringe on our First Amendment rights by not allowing any amplified sound, they tried to put their sirens on so we weren’t able to speak,” Campos said. “The police repression at Stanford, but now here especially, is very clear.”

After the dispersal order, the protestors walked several blocks away from the courthouse while chanting. Police officers, cars and motorcycles followed the protestors to Sarah Wallis Park, where protestors continued to give speeches and the crowd chanted, “Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest,” and “Stanford Stanford, you can’t hide. We charge you with genocide.”

“We all have a moral obligation to show up for ourselves as students, especially as privileged private university students in America who directly benefit from the University’s financial commitments in Israel,” rally attendee Kylan Denney ’27 said. “Being committed to justice in other parts of the world does not take moving mountains. Showing up is what it means to be supportive, to have morals and to stand on them.”

This article has been updated to include comment from the University.

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