Las Positas College: Rally for Gaza

The cities of the Tri-Valley (Dublin, Pleasanton and Livermore) have long been the source of violence that extends to our community in the Bay Area and around the world. These cities hold the Santa Rita Jail, Federal Correctional Institute (FCI), BART/PleasantonPD station, Lawrence Livermore National Labs (LLNL), and Boeing offices, among other carceral and violent institutions. Santa Rita is one of the deadliest jails in the country, and its policing regime has tragically taken 70 lives in the last 10 years. FCI was recently investigated for rampant sexual and physical abuse, resulting in a harmful and haphazard closure. LLNL has designed nuclear weapons as well as conventional weapons such as Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME), which are used in the US imperialist violence in Palestine and around the world. Many of our institutions, including colleges, hold investments that work to prop up the same policing and imperialist violence; most notably, the Chabot/Las Positas school district, overseen by the Retirement Board of Authority, invests in weapons manufacturers and other actors responsible for israeli apartheid to finance employee retirement funds. Las Positas College (LPC) fortifies the violent institutions of our cities. LPC job fairs and internship programs ensure policing and weapons programs will continue to be staffed. LPC lecture series help weapons designers obscure their atrocities. LPC's campus events promote collaboration between police departments. By doing this Las Positas becomes a perpetrator and collaborator of the abuses of Santa Rita Jail, the deaths at the hands of LLNL-designed weapons, the assaults of FCI, and the deaths of those at the hands of weapons manufacturers.

Last week, students, alumni, and community members attempted to intervene in the functioning of Las Positas College. For their commitment to ending the war machine at LPC and in our cities, Las Positas has attempted to discipline all actors. Those most vulnerable to that discipline are students because of the work of Dean Joel and his weaponization of the Student Code of Conduct. While he may pretend it is for the safety and security of the school, constant repression has showed us is that there is no acceptable action in solidarity with Palestine except that which allows their investments in genocide and their school to be unbothered.

We must continue to escalate and we must resist repression. We ask those in our community to organize actions at the plentiful targets in our cities and support students who are facing repression. 

Join us 5/21/2024 at noon to mobilize at Las Positas College