Five Stanford University students who faced prison sentences and thousands of dollars in restitution in connection to a campus protest against Israel’s war on Gaza had all charges dropped on Monday. The students also had their restitution severely reduced, ending a two-year legal saga that also saw the lead prosecutor in the case removed by the court. Part of a group of 12, the students had been charged with felony conspiracy to trespass and felony vandalism in connection to an hour-long, June 2024 occupation during which the group barricaded themselves inside the university president’s office to demand Stanford consider a student resolution to divest from Israel, among other requests.
Some accepted plea deals or other diversion offers but five of the students went to trial earlier this year. The month-long trial ended with a hung jury but Jeff Rosen, the Santa Clara county district attorney, immediately announced his intention to retry the case before a judge ordered his recusal in May over a conflict of interest that, the judge said during court proceedings, would “render it unlikely that the defendants will receive fair treatment”. The case has since been taken over by the California attorney general’s office, which reached a resolution with the students.
That resolution meant dropping all charges in exchange for 100 hours of community service at a nonprofit of their choosing and a total restitution of about $50,000, far less than the $1m prosecutors initially threatened them with and the $ 329,000 they each risked being found liable for at trial. The charges were the most severe handed out against students in connection to pro-Palestine protests on campus. A spokesperson for Rosen referred questions about the case to the California attorney general’s office.
The attorney general’s office and Stanford University did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s requests for comment. Three of the students who had previously accepted misdemeanor pleas will also have their convictions withdrawn as part of Monday’s agreement once they complete the required community service. Two of the defendants who went to trial earlier this year, German Gonzalez and Amy Zhai, spoke of their relief in exclusive interviews with the Guardian.
The ordeal severely upended their lives and they shared their deep frustration at what they saw as Stanford and Rosen’s effort to criminalize and silence speech in support of Palestinians. They said that they hoped their win would encourage other students to continue to speak out. It takes victories like this one to encourage people to turn their beliefs into action.” Thousands of students were arrested over their involvement in pro-Palestinian campus protests in the spring of 2024.
Dozens were suspended or expelled from their universities, but most of those who also faced criminal charges have seen those charges dropped. Abbee Cox, a member of the Stanford students’ legal team, told the Guardian that Monday’s resolution was in line with those reached in other cases relating to campus protests, which have mostly ended in diversion deals rather than severe sentences. And it took a fair prosecutor to get us there in the end.” As protests flared up on campuses across the country in the first year of the Gaza war, the Stanford students briefly occupied the president’s office, renaming the building after Adnan al-Bursh, a Palestinian surgeon who was reportedly tortured to death while in Israeli detention.
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