When campus reopened on January 6, more than three thousand people joined a massive picket line that surrounded the campus. Fewer than one in five classes were held. Reagan and Hayakawa denounced the protestors and obtained an injunction against the American Federation of Teachers to prohibit picketing. But the faculty defied the injunction, and the statewide California Federation of Teachers declared that all California State College campuses would be shut down if even one striking faculty member was punished. With labor solidarity, the strike became comprehensive, as Teamsters refused to make deliveries to campus and custodial workers refused to pick up trash. The Third World Liberation Front even signed a mutual-aid pact with striking oil refinery workers in nearby Richmond and Martinez. The students continued to use occasional disruptive tactics such as “book-ins” at the library, during which a group of students would check out as many books as they could, then return them all, backing up the system and shutting down library circulation. But the combined student-faculty picket with broad support from both the black community and organized labor was extremely effective at shutting down campus, so the TWLF mostly supported the picketing at the perimeter of the university.

The standoff lasted for several weeks, with largely peaceful pickets effectively closing the campus. Then, on January 23, the TWLF called a massive on-campus rally, the first since early December. More than 1,000 students, faculty, and community members participated. The police responded with military precision. As the protestors chanted “All Power to the People!” the police drove a wedge through the crowd, splitting it in two; they surrounded one large group and proceeded to arrest every person in it, one by one. In all, 435 people were arrested, the largest mass arrest to date in San Francisco’s history. The administration canceled final exams (which had been scheduled for later that month) and offered students a credit/no credit option for the fall semester.