Over ten Stanford affiliates — mostly students and some faculty — have undertaken an indefinite hunger strike and tabling campaign to advocate for Palestine. The strike commenced with a “solidarity rally” hosted by Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) in White Plaza Monday, which featured speeches and drew a crowd between 50 and 100 people.
Over 70 days have passed since Israel ordered a halt to all humanitarian aid entering Gaza, including food, fuel and medicine. As of March 22, the United Nations estimated that 91% of the population faces food insecurity, with most suffering at “emergency” or “catastrophic” levels.
Over the past year, activist groups at Stanford have demanded that the University take a stand against the war on Palestine. In October, the Board of Trustees rejected SJP’s petition to divest from defense companies tied to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The hunger strike marks a renewed effort to persuade the University to meet activists’ demands. “When all other means fail… you put your bodies on the line,” said David Palumbo-Liu, a comparative literature professor and member of Stanford Faculty & Staff for Justice in Palestine, during a speech at the Monday rally. Palumbo-Liu is not a participant in the hunger strike.
The strike is part of a larger movement involving pro-Palestinian protesters at San Jose State University, San Francisco State University, Sacramento State University, California State University (CSU) Long Beach and CSU East Bay. It draws inspiration from the coordinated fasts of Palestinian political prisoners, the 1981 H-Block strike in Northern Ireland and other hunger strikes throughout history, according to SJP’s Instagram posts.
Protesters who spoke to The Daily and delivered speeches outlined four demands they have for Stanford. The first is greater transparency in the University endowment and divestment from Israel.
“I think it’s just crazy to walk from day to day to class and know that there’s money in our university being invested into companies that create missiles, that create bombs that are tearing children apart,” Arwa Faruk ’25, a participant in the hunger strike, told The Daily.
The protesters’ speeches also called on University president Jonathan Levin ’94 to publicly urge Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen to drop felony charges against 12 Stanford affiliates who were arrested during a pro-Palestinian protest in June. The 12 broke into the University president’s office, barricaded themselves inside and vandalized parts of Main Quad.
The demonstrators also demanded that Levin sign the American Association of Colleges and Universities’ (AAC&U) statement denouncing “unprecedented government overreach and political interference” in higher education by the Trump administration.
The group’s final demand is the withdrawal of Stanford’s free speech guidelines, which were enacted in response to the pro-Palestinian encampment last year. The guidelines limit the location of on-campus demonstrations and prohibit overnight camping. Critics argue these restrictions have a chilling effect on student activism and free speech.
The protesters told The Daily that they plan to continue their hunger strike until their demands are met.
In a Thursday email to The Daily, University spokesperson Lusia Rapport wrote that “Stanford does not intend to negotiate in response to their demands,” a message they “communicated to the students who wrote the University regarding their plans to participate in a hunger strike.”
“My body will be a site of protest, because of the conditions that have been imposed on my brothers and sisters that necessitate that we do something,” Faruk said in her speech at the Monday rally. “What is the significance of our degrees, of our internships, of our careers, if we turn our heads away from genocide?”
Areeq Hasan, a first-year Ph.D. student in applied physics, similarly said his motivation to participate in the hunger strike came from a sense of responsibility to his “brothers and sisters” around the world. He cited the Islamic idea that a community of believers is like a body. “When one limb… is suffering, the entire body is sleepless and feverish,” Hasan said.
Rapport wrote to The Daily, “While we 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, we are urging them to consider forms of expression that do not jeopardize their health and well-being.”
Rupa Marya, a physician at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and several medical professionals who work at Stanford are currently supporting the health of Hasan and the other hunger strikers by taking their vitals, providing them with electrolytes and vitamins and remaining available for medical questions.
Marya said in a speech that after 23 years working at UCSF, she received notice two weeks ago of the University’s intention to fire her for alleged violations of the faculty code of conduct. Marya claimed that her firing was a “sham” being used across the country to silence pro-Palestinian advocacy by faculty, staff and students.
“If standing in opposition to genocide… is a violation of our faculty code of conduct, then that code of conduct must be rewritten,” Marya said.
Activist and novelist Hilton Obenzinger Ph.D. ’97 delivered a short speech at the Monday rally, sharing that his “family was murdered by the Nazis” and drawing a parallel between the Holocaust and the modern Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
As a student, Obenzinger participated in the Columbia University protests of 1968 that opposed the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War.
“The students today who are taking a stand to hunger strike are going to be remembered as people who stood up and spoke out and did the right thing in the face of genocide,” Obenzinger said.
The hunger strikers have also been tabling in White Plaza from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. every day. In a letter they posted to their Instagram on Sunday, SJP called for Levin and Provost Martinez to join them at the table for discussion over their demands.
Yousef Helal M.S. ’26, a master’s student in electrical engineering and hunger strike participant, said that the protesters’ broader goal extends beyond the Stanford campus.
“We’re going to continue escalating and standing up for what we believe and what we know is right, until we have full and complete liberation for the Palestinian people,” Helal said.
This article has been updated with additional comment from the University.