Students rallied outside of SF State’s Business Building around noon on Tuesday to protest Marriott employers coming onto campus to recruit business students to their company and explore its opportunities.

Students and student volunteers gathered signatures outside of the Business Building to show their support for the employees currently protesting outside of the Marriott Hotel in downtown San Francisco and other Marriott locations across the U.S.  

The rally, originally posted on the College of Business calendar, was cancelled with no stated reason from Javier Garcia, commercial real estate program coordinator from the Career Services Department who was not present at the time.

“We are here to show our support in solidarity for the hotel workers who are currently on strike at the Marriott,” said Hope Williams, a senior and political science major. “We caught wind of an event here on campus being hosted by the Business Department and we wanted to show that the Marriott being invited to campus is not OK with us and we just want to spread the word and collect signatures from the student body to show that we here at SF State are not in support of the Marriott but are in support of the hotel workers.”

Student protestors went into the offices of Garcia and the dean of the department, Yim-Yu Wong, to voice their concerns in hopes to come in accordance with the department and have them be part of the pledge.

“We are a campus that supports everyone and for them [the College of Business] to have them here is, I would say, disrespectful for the workers,” said Sherry Velazquez, junior and student volunteer. “I think they [College of Business] are aware of what’s going on so I don’t know if they planned this event [in advance], but if they did, know that’s really upsetting because we are a school that does support minorities and low-income people and workers, we support everybody.”  

Wong and Garcia provided no comments regarding their absence on campus at the time of the protest.