Felony charges for pro-Palestinian Stanford students? Trump will love this

With masks on and wearing layers of clothing in the hopes of changing their looks before escaping, a dozen pro-Palestinian activists broke a window in the building housing the president’s office at Stanford University last June, so one of them could crawl through and open doors for the rest.

They had spent weeks if not more planning the attack on encrypted chats, and drew their tactics from an online manual that encouraged them to develop a “certain spirit” when it came to protesting, prosecutors say.

Thursday, those 12, all but one of them current or former Stanford students, were charged with two felonies each.

It’s the first large-scale charging of student protesters in California, carrying the most serious possible penalties, leveled by Santa Clara County Dist. Atty. Jeff Rosen.

Santa Clara County Dist. Atty. Jeff Rosen, center, announces felony charges against 12 pro-Palestinian protesters who in June allegedly broke into and vandalized a Stanford University administration building, barricading themselves inside before being arrested that same day.

(Suzanne Rust/Suzanne Rust/Los Angeles Times)

You can see how quickly this is going to turn into fraught political fodder — a Jewish district attorney filing charges against pro-Palestinian kids. Trump is sure to approve.

But here’s the tough part. So do I.

If we turn these charges into politics without bothering to look at the details and nuances, we fall into a Trump trap, claiming a side based on emotion and partisanship rather than law.

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Within an hour, law enforcement officers tried to break open a door and enter the building as protesters outside chanted ‘Free, Free Palestine.’

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Justice is supposed to be blind (though she often peeks) but in this case, we need her to be deaf to the reasons these students took their actions. No different than the (now pardoned) Jan. 6 folks who broke into our nation’s Capitol and trashed the joint, these students went a step too far.

But so has the government’s response when it comes to Israel and Gaza, antisemitism and free speech.

“There is a political game being played here,” said Brian Levin, a professor emeritus at Cal State San Bernardino and an expert on extremism. “There are dishonest people who conflate passionate and heartfelt political protest to save the lives of Palestinian children, with those who are out of bounds and use undeniable symbols related to foreign terrorist groups or abject antisemitism and severe criminality. But they are the minority. And it requires merely a dose of objectivity and common sense to separate them.”

But, of course, there is no desire to separate the peaceful protesters from the others right now.

Let’s be real — our country is on the brink of lawlessness, mostly because of the president’s claims that his powers exceed those of the courts. Pro-Palestinian activists are being rounded up and disappeared into an opaque deportation system, leaving even U.S. citizens fearful to speak out (all of the people charged in the Stanford case are U.S. citizens).

At the same time, universities are seeing their federal funds pulled over claims of failing to protect Jewish students — which is also true.

Hate crimes skyrocketed during and after the pandemic, but began to fall in California in 2023. But not those against Jewish people, Muslims or those of Arab descent.

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After a trip to Alabama that helped him see the connection between slavery and the death penalty, Santa Clara County Dist. Atty. Jeff Rosen is working to call back the death sentences of 14 men convicted from his county.

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The Public Policy Institute of California pointed out that “reported anti-Jewish and anti-Arab/Muslim hate crimes more than doubled between 2020 and 2023.” Anti-Jewish crimes increased 56%. Hate crimes motivated by anti-Arab or anti-Muslim sentiment went up 35%.

In 2024, research by Levin found that anti-Jewish crimes increased by 12%, and anti-Muslim crime by 18%. So this is not something of the past. As recently as a few weeks ago, Elon Musk, the South African billionaire who most certainly did not mean to do a Nazi salute at an inauguration event, claimed Jewish billionaire George Soros was helping to agitate against Musk’s car company, Tesla.

There is a clear attempt by the administration to use its fight against antisemitism as a righteous weapon, and to paint all pro-Palestinian sentiment as pro-Hamas. But underneath those waves is a deep ocean of hidden intent, in which lurks the power to quell dissent on any topic if the government is successful in smashing free speech on this topic.

What can we not speak of next? Voting rights?

If we take a message from Rosen’s decision to charge these individuals with felonies, it should be that enforcing laws reasonably ultimately protects free speech, and protects us from those political games.

I talked to him Thursday before he announced the charges, and asked him what went into making this decision, as a Jewish man and as an elected prosecutor.

“I’m Jewish, and so are people going to, you know, question this decision because of that,” he acknowledged. “And I think that everybody has biases. I do, everyone does. And I think the best we can hope for in our elected officials is that they recognize the biases, that they set them aside and do their duty. And that’s what I do every day.”

He’s “trying to play this down the middle” and “do the right thing.”

Rosen did not charge any hate crimes, and said there simply wasn’t enough evidence, in his mind, to show that what motivated these students was animus of Jewish people rather than anger at the actions of Israel.

He’s charging them with vandalism, he said, because of the extent of damage they did in the short few hours or so they were in the building — broken doors, fake blood thrown around, offices broken into, personal items of employees ruined. In all, the university estimates it was $250,000 worth of destruction, far beyond the threshold for a felony.

Then there is the conspiracy to trespass and all the forethought that allegedly went into this. They had code names, covered surveillance cameras and tried to erase chats from their phones, prosecutors say.

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‘Dissent is American. Vandalism is criminal.’ Pro-Palestinian Stanford protesters face felony charges

Felony charges have been filed against 12 pro-Palestinian protesters allegedly involved in vandalism at Stanford. The charges are among the most serious faced by those involved in campus protests last year.

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The “how-to-occupy” manual is extremely detailed, explaining how to remove deadbolts with a crowbar, the value of battery-operated power tools over their plug-in counterparts, the possibility of vandalism being a good outcome if occupiers are evicted. The students, being Stanford-type achievers, seem to have studied and followed the guide closely, according to charging documents — casing the building in days prior. So conspiracy, if the jury agrees.

But still, Rosen knows he’s dealing with students (ranging in age from 18 to 32 when the incident occurred) who acted with as much passion as premeditation. He’s not out to ruin lives, or to chill free speech.

“This is going to sound biblical,” he told me. “But they caused all this damage, right? They vandalized. They did all this damage. So I would like their punishment to be cleaning things up.”

(The attorney for one of those accused told The Times that his client understood there would be consequences, but stressed that his client and others have had months-long suspensions, costing them their housing, health insurance and classes — and putting their academic futures in limbo.)

Though the maximum penalty could be more than three years in jail, Rosen said he would like to see some sort of diversion — maybe picking trash up on the side of the road.

“I’m not looking to send them to prison. I think that what I would like to see happen here is that they plead guilty, they accept responsibility,” he said. “The individuals here, they didn’t engage in a debate. They just committed these criminal acts. And it’s impulsive, and they’re wrapped up with the merit of their cause, and so damn everybody else. And I’m trying to be thoughtful and role model the kinds of behaviors that we want to have here.”

As these charges are debated, may we all be so thoughtful. Protesting is a crucial part of democracy, both a power and a right.

Breaking locks with a crowbar? As Levin told me, we should look at it with “a heavy dose of mercy.”

Then apply the law, blind and deaf — especially to politics.