Chants of “Workers have the power” and “Engineering, you can’t hide; you are building genocide” could be heard across UC Santa Barbara’s engineering concourse as more than 100 students, faculty, and community members held a walkout on Wednesday in support of Palestine and university divestment from military contractors.
Student groups UCSB Divest and UCSB Students for Justice in Palestine promoted the walkout and rally, held on International Workers’ Day, also known as May Day. The rally was billed as “UCSB Workers for Palestine.”
From Davidson Library, the group marched to the greens near the engineering buildings, where students and faculty spoke, chanted, and danced the dabke, a traditional dance from the Levantine region, where Palestine is located. Many attendees held signs and Palestinian flags and donned keffiyehs, a head scarf that has become associated with support for the Palestinian cause.