By Robert Cassanello, HELU Delegate and President of the United Faculty of Florida (UFF) and Marcus Polzer, President of University of Central Florida Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
On Tuesday October 21, 2025 the UCF Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the UCF Young Democratic Socialists of America (UCF ydsa), Students for Education in Prison (SFEP) organized a rally and march alongside the United Faculty of Florida at the University of Central Florida (UFF-UCF) to demand UCF become a sanctuary campus and in support of HELU’s International Campus Worker Protections Campaign. The evening previous the student organizations hosted a teach-in meant to educate students and the campus community on immigration policy and ICE on campus.
In these times it is important that we collaborate — unions and student organizations alike — on our shared values. SDS has been around college campuses since the 1960s and was formed out of the anti-war movement. We have found moments of solidarity around attacks against academic freedom on campus, the right to protest against Israeli policy toward Gaza and of course the treatment of international workers and students by our campus ICE policies.
From the onset of the rally, dozens of police officers gathered around the protest. While they claim it was to protect the students from counter protestors, there were only about 10 counter protestors. The students marched from Memory Mall to the main administrative building, Millican Hall, where the protesting students and faculty were met with UCF PD officers blocking the entrance to the building, preventing the protestors from entering the building and forcing us to deliver our demands to a lone member of administration waiting outside.
