Dozens of student groups on college campuses across California have thrown their support behind the joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran — despite Gov. Gavin Newsom blasting the operation as “illegal” and “without justification.”

“We express our profound gratitude and support for the U.S. and Israeli service members operating under extraordinary conditions,” the letter, signed by 120 student groups, reads. “We stand in solidarity with these courageous men and women, and their families, as they work to degrade the structures of terrorism and safeguard the security of their nations.”

At least 26 of the student organizations are based in California, including many schools within the University of California public system, as well as the California State University system — the largest four-year public university system in the United States — and private schools.

“For 47 years, the ruling Iranian regime has prioritized regional destabilization and proxy warfare over the well-being and aspirations of its own citizens,” the organizations wrote.

Signatories include a diverse range of groups, from chapters of national organizations like Students Supporting Israel at UC Berkeley and San Diego State, to campus-specific advocacy clubs such as Bruins for Israel at UCLA, Tritons for Israel at UC San Diego, and Trojans for Israel at USC.

Participation also extends to cultural and heritage-focused groups, including the Persian Community Hillel at UCLA and UC San Diego, Mishelanu at UC Santa Barbara, and the Jewish Student Union at UC Santa Cruz. Prominent institutions across the state are well-represented, with additional support coming from groups at Stanford University, UC Davis, and several California State University campuses, including Northridge and Long Beach.

“President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s air campaign against the regime is necessary and long overdue. A democratic Iran is essential for the freedom and security of the free world,” Delilah Hirshland, a student at UCLA, told The Post. “I wholeheartedly support a free Iran,” she added.

The war began when a joint U.S.-Israeli operation killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28 in a targeted strike intended to topple the regime, according to U.S. and Israeli officials. The U.S. and Israel launched the war’s heaviest airstrikes on Iran Tuesday, moving the conflict into its third week. Earlier this month, President Trump said the U.S. has already inflicted serious damage and expects the fighting to end sooner than the four-week timeline he initially set.

The casualties of the war include a girls’ elementary school in Minab, Iran, allegedly hit by American missiles, killing dozens of children, along with U.S. service members who have also died in the conflict.

“We honor and remember the lives of the six brave U.S. service members who lost their lives in this war,” the student collective said in their statement. “We also acknowledge the significant impact of this war on the Gulf states and their citizens.”

Signatories outside of California include chapters at Ivy League and top-tier schools, such as Princeton’s B’Artzeinu, MIT Israel Alliance, Duke’s Israeli Public Affairs Committee, and Johns Hopkins’ Christians United for Israel, among others.

Many of these campuses, including NYU, University of Michigan, University of Texas, and UC Berkeley, were previously sites of major anti-Israel protests during the peak of Israel’s war in Gaza in 2024.

“A free Iran would make the world safer by ending a regime that supports terrorism and instability. It would allow the Iranian people to finally live with freedom and basic rights,” Maya Gerassi, a senior at San Diego State University, told The Post. “It would also reduce threats to Israel and the United States by weakening Iran’s network of terror proxies.”

The American public has largely opposed the U.S. war in Iran, according to several political analysts.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that only 27% of Americans support the conflict.

The New York Times reported Sunday that nearly 41% of Americans approve of U.S. intervention in Iran, a historic low compared with past conflicts — 97% during World War II, 92% during the war in Afghanistan, and 76% during the Iraq War.

Some Saskatchewan Polytechnic students say they are taken aback after being told their program will be moved to another city next school year.

On Jan. 29, students enrolled in the electronic systems engineering technology (ESET) program received an email stating that their two-year program would relocate from Saskatoon to Regina this fall.

“It feels disrespectful in a way. I feel like I’m not being viewed as a person, but I’m being viewed as a number,” said Krei Carlson, a first-year student in the ESET program.

Transferring the two-year program to a location over 250 km away would affect around 15 current first-year students.

For Alex Leowen, a first-year ESET student who has two children aged 6 and 8, relocating is not an option and would require him to withdraw from the school.

“I can choose to abandon my education or abandon my family for a year. So for me, it’s a deal breaker,” said Leowen.

The situation is similar for Carlson, who currently lives in Saskatoon with her parents and did not anticipate having to move when she first applied to the program.

“I’m not going to have a support system over there. I don’t know anybody in Regina,” said Carlson.

First-year ESET student Timothy Carlow is also having trouble digesting the news that he would have to move across the province to finish the program, especially after he just moved to Saskatoon from British Columbia.

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Carlow says he settled down in the Bridge City after a workplace injury to undergo retraining and support his fiancée.

“The idea of me having to leave her again and move to Regina is going to have a huge impact on our personal relationship,” he said.

“What we were told is that all options were looked at here in Saskatoon, and there was no place to put us anywhere in the city, so the only option would be for us to go to Regina at that point. Which we find kind of hard to believe,” said Carlow.

“We obviously felt kind of blindsided by this.”

In the emailed letter sent to students, Brenda Suru, dean of the school’s faculty of technology and skilled trades, said relocating the ESET program is to allow the school to operate “more efficiently,” adding that it will “create space for new innovation-focused centers that will enhance learning opportunities for future students.”

The school is also not accepting any first-year students for that program for the next school year, according to the letter.

Carlow says students requested to speak with faculty immediately after receiving the email informing them of the move, but that they faced difficulty in doing so.

“It wasn’t until we reached out to the student association that we were able to get a meeting set within 24 hours of that talk with them,” he said.

Saskatchewan Polytechnic declined Global News’s interview request and did not provide an exact reason for the relocation, out of “respect for employees.”

Instead, the school provided a statement from last week on employee layoffs due to funding gaps, adding that “comprehensive supports are available to ensure students receive the guidance and resources they need during this transition.”

Global News has obtained a communication sent to the school’s students’ association by the program’s vice dean, stating the move is due to a deficit caused by cuts to international student enrolment.

“This decline, combined with other issues involving provincial government funding, translated into a significant impact on the institution’s finances, with a deficit occurring this academic year, and projected for another two years,” the communication reads.

The communication also states that students who began their program under the previous curriculum will complete the same curriculum, and there is no minimum number of students required to run the ESET program.

“If some choose to pursue other options and not move to Regina, the program will still be delivered to a smaller cohort,” said the communication.

Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Advanced Education told Global News in a statement that post-secondary institutions operate autonomously and make their own staffing and programming decisions.

“These operational matters are not directed by the Government of Saskatchewan or the Ministry of Advanced Education,” the ministry said.

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