Draft:Edward Said Hall

Edward Said Hall
Edward Said Hall, officially labeled Girvetz Hall, is a classroom building located on the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). The renaming of the building was a result of pro-Palestine activism and a demand that the university to acknowledge Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. The revised label is associated with a three-day occupation of the space from June 10–12, 2024, during which participants published the name in honor of Edward Wadie Said, a Palestinian academic of post-colonial studies and advocate of the Palestinian right of return.

History
During the early morning of June 10th, 2024, student activists under the label Say "Genocide" entered Girvetz Hall and barricaded entrances to the building. Dressed in matching clothes and masks to remain anonymous, the students went on to hang banners from the classroom windows and from the roof of The Arbor, a campus market adjacent to the building. The signs pointed to abuses by the Israeli Defense Forces in Palestine and the university's financial support of the military campaign. They also outlined the activists' demand that UCSB's administration send an announcement to the student body, acknowledging international rulings on the ongoing genocide. The building takeover took place on the first day of the university's finals week, blocking exams and adding pressure to meet the students' demand. The occupation of Edward Said Hall was accompanied by artistic demonstrations by the student activists inside, who used mannequins, fake rubble, and paint to convert some of the classrooms into a simulation of those found in bombarded Gaza. Meanwhile, protestors outside the building made similar demonstrations on the patio.

On the night of June 10th, counterprotestors Will Tatis, Braiden Dishman, Ethan Rashtian, and Tom Hirshfeld, wielding rocks and metal pipes, circumvented the barricades, leading to an assault on the activists that was repelled following injuries on both sides.

During the second night of the occupation, the activists at Edward Said Hall learned of a police mobilization in the adjacent community of Isla Vista and decided to slip out of the building, leaving the barricades and converted classrooms behind. At around midnight on June 12th, police SUVs and armored SWAT vehicles pulled up to the plaza between the building and the library. They were met by chants from pro-Palestine activists and other onlookers as they knocked down the barricades and swept the vacated building.

Facility
The two-story Edward Said Hall contains 20 traditional classrooms and a lecture hall. The building also has an administrative wing which houses the Office of the Ombudsman, among others. The academic section also contains "The Department of Gnome Studies", a title given to the imagined space behind a comically small unmarked door along the staircase.