Police shot students in the head with rubber bullets. Administrators allowed counter-protesters to beat students with poles and spray them with bear mace for hours before intervening.

No consequences.

Protesters affiliated with student groups vandalized a UC regent’s home and temporarily blocked his family from leaving.

Immediate action.

Chancellor Julio Frenk announced the interim suspension of Students for Justice in Palestine and Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA in a Feb. 12 email. Students responded strongly to the suspensions, making their anger about the decision clear at a protest the following week that garnered around 150 people demanding the reinstatement of the two campus groups.

In the campuswide email, Frenk pledged to stand against acts of violence committed against any member of the UCLA community.

“At UCLA, there is always room for discourse and for passionate debate of different points of view,” Frenk said in the emailed statement. “What there should never be room for is violence.”

The suspension came a week after members of SJP and Graduate SJP protested outside UC Regent Jay Sures’ Brentwood home. Sures – whose talent agency represents the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that has regularly supported Israel – proposed a policy last year that would prohibit UC department websites from posting political messages on their homepages. The Regents approved an amended version of the policy over the summer.

According to an emailed statement from a neighbor of Sures, protesters chanted “Jonathan Sures, you will pay, until you see your final day” and painted red handprints on his garage door. Frenk’s email highlighted these actions – alongside students surrounding a family member’s car and stopping them from free movement – as violations of UCLA’s community values around safety.

But for a university that claims no one should need to be afraid for their safety, they seem to be the ones creating that fear.

Frenk might not have been around long enough to remember, but it’s difficult for students to forget the violence that occurred when counter-protesters stormed the Palestine solidarity encampment last April. At least 25 protesters were hospitalized, according to the UC Divest Coalition, although medical professionals on the ground suspected that there were more injured who were left unaccounted for.

Law enforcement, however, didn’t arrive on the scene until nearly four hours after counter-protesters tried to break down the barricade around the Palestine solidarity encampment. For hours, administrators simply watched.

And it’s especially difficult for students to forget the violence when the institution of higher learning that we all attend – which is supposed to protect free speech – allowed the police to sweep what was intended to be a peaceful protest last May. The police used an arsenal of less-lethal weapons – launching flash bangs and striking protesters with batons – as they dispersed and arrested students.

As UCLA’s administrators consider taking action against SJP and Graduate SJP, The Bruin’s Editorial Board has a few questions for them.

What does UCLA consider violence?

Broken bones and bleeding skulls? Or cloth banners and red handprints?

Make no mistake, the board wholeheartedly supports UCLA’s commitment to a campus free of violence and harm. But UCLA should make its decisions in a neutral way – and never to target and suppress the speech of particular groups.

Did UCLA suspend SJP and Graduate SJP because they are violent? Or is this about shutting down viewpoints?

Former Chancellor Gene Block’s legacy will forever be tarnished by the actions his administration executed against its very own students last spring. Frenk must not allow the same mistakes that stained Block’s tenure.

And if he fails in this regard, he must be held accountable. If this administration believes SJP should face suspension because of its protest at Sures’ home, it must deliver the same reprimands to any group that produces similar actions. To maintain a commitment to safety for students and community members means maintaining consistency in how it defines violence and the consequences it imposes.

Frenk has an opportunity to learn from his predecessor. Hopefully, he takes it.

After all, it’s oddly hypocritical that the very institution that claims to want to put a stop to violence was the very one enabling it.

If administrators want to ban groups for their violent actions, maybe they should reconsider their own.