On September 19th, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Loyola University Chicago was put under “temporary suspension” by the University’s administration pending an “investigation” into alleged misconduct. The suspension was lifted on September 26, after SJP leaders met with administrators. Several students affiliated with SJP remain under investigation for participating in an attempt to register at a table hosted on campus for Taglit-Birthright Israel, a program that provides trips to Israel exclusively for Jewish students.
SJP applauds the University’s move to lift its suspension. The administration changed its justification for the suspension, initially indicating it was related to the investigation, and then claiming it was in response to complaints about another alleged violation of university policies that SJP rebutted with documentation of its compliance with school rules. The lifting of the suspension shows that the administration recognizes that SJP has done nothing to justify a suspension, which is an extreme measure, used only when there is a threat to safety.
SJP, however, remains deeply concerned about the ongoing investigation of some of its members for exercising their right to express their political views by lining up and asking questions at the Taglit-Birthright table to highlight the program’s discriminatory policies. The investigation of students was opened in response to “allegations of misconduct” made by students hosting the Taglit-Birthright table, which included claims that SJP harassed and created a “threat” to the safety of students. The accusations are both exaggerated and inflammatory, attempting to label SJP as an aggressive group motivated by animus against Jewish students, and intent on causing them harm.
The complaints were filed immediately after about fifteen students decided on an ad-hoc basis to peacefully line up at the Taglit-Birthright table and ask if they, as Palestinians whose families were expelled from villages inside present-day Israel, could also register for a Birthright trip. Taglit-Birthright Israel is an Israeli government-funded program that sponsors free trips to Israel exclusively for Jewish students on the basis of a claimed "Birthright" to the land, despite the fact that Israel is built upon the dispossession of indigenous Palestinians. Any Jewish student worldwide can register for the program, while indigenous non-Jewish Palestinians are not only ineligible for the program, but often are denied the right to live in or even visit their homeland freely.
The decision to attempt to register for the program was made the night before the tabling, by individual Palestinian and Arab students, after SJP decided not to take action as a student organization. About fifteen students independently decided to line up at the Birthright Israel registration table on September 9th to attempt to register for the trips.
After calm conversations between students at the front of the line and students tabling, and after being turned away from the registration table because they were not of the “right” religious or ethnic identity, the Palestinian and Arab students lined up for a photo some distance away with signs identifying their village of origin and exposing their exclusion from the program. Immediately after the group photo was taken, students dispersed. The entire interaction lasted no more than fifteen minutes.
As photos, video, and other security footage will show, no activities during this action can be characterized as threatening or as harassment. There was no obstruction of the Birthright table or anyone’s movement in or around the tabling location. SJP members, some of whom did not participate in the action, have also been subject to questioning and intimidation by the administration, and asked to name the students who were part of the tabling activities.
Although no charges have yet been filed and no findings of wrongdoing made, the administration has already created an intimidating environment for students engaged in peaceful campus speech, interrogating students and taking an extreme measure against SJP by temporarily suspending the organization.
At the moment, the investigation of the action raises two potential concerns: sanctions against individual students and sanctions against SJP. Student group regulations imply that student groups are responsible for any actions taken by individual members that reflect on the group. Although we believe that the students participating in the registration attempt did so with the best intentions to engage in open dialogue about an injustice they feel strongly about, SJP Loyola is being associated with all Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and pro-Palestinian speech on campus. It is false to assume that any and all students who advocate for Palestinian rights are doing so in SJP’s name, and it is inappropriate to punish SJP for the independent actions of some of its individual members.
Moreover, students have also been accused of various forms of harassment and intimidation, allegations which are inaccurate and rely on racist and Islamophobic portrayals of Palestinian and Muslim students as threatening and aggressive, and which do not have any documentary evidence.
SJP Loyola’s temporary suspension and the ongoing investigation of students fits in with a wider trend of attempts to silence and repress any type of speech on US college campuses that criticizes Israel’s racist policies against the Palestinian people. Over the past few years, students and faculty across the nation have been targeted and intimidated
for speaking out in support of Palestinian human rights, civil rights, and equality. Students at Loyola have also felt the weight of these restrictions, particularly since divestment debates began in the spring of 2014. The pressure placed on Loyola to investigate, punish and even ban SJP comes from students who actively promote Israel on campus, and from off-campus organizations that intervened in democratic student processes in favor of divestment last year. Actively pro-Israel students themselves have made clear their intention to ban SJP from campus by continuing to complain about its activities. These same types of complaints are being made on campuses across the country, attempting to misrepresent political speech that criticizes a country’s well-documented violations of international law as anti-Semitic and threatening to Jewish students.
SJP Loyola is committed to resisting this intimidation. We believe that our university should protect students’ rights and allow us to engage in important and critical discussions freely, without fear of being falsely accused and punished for our views, and without draconian restrictions that prohibit reasonable and peaceful forms of public engagement and political speech.
SJP applauds the University’s move to lift its suspension. The administration changed its justification for the suspension, initially indicating it was related to the investigation, and then claiming it was in response to complaints about another alleged violation of university policies that SJP rebutted with documentation of its compliance with school rules. The lifting of the suspension shows that the administration recognizes that SJP has done nothing to justify a suspension, which is an extreme measure, used only when there is a threat to safety.
SJP, however, remains deeply concerned about the ongoing investigation of some of its members for exercising their right to express their political views by lining up and asking questions at the Taglit-Birthright table to highlight the program’s discriminatory policies. The investigation of students was opened in response to “allegations of misconduct” made by students hosting the Taglit-Birthright table, which included claims that SJP harassed and created a “threat” to the safety of students. The accusations are both exaggerated and inflammatory, attempting to label SJP as an aggressive group motivated by animus against Jewish students, and intent on causing them harm.
The complaints were filed immediately after about fifteen students decided on an ad-hoc basis to peacefully line up at the Taglit-Birthright table and ask if they, as Palestinians whose families were expelled from villages inside present-day Israel, could also register for a Birthright trip. Taglit-Birthright Israel is an Israeli government-funded program that sponsors free trips to Israel exclusively for Jewish students on the basis of a claimed "Birthright" to the land, despite the fact that Israel is built upon the dispossession of indigenous Palestinians. Any Jewish student worldwide can register for the program, while indigenous non-Jewish Palestinians are not only ineligible for the program, but often are denied the right to live in or even visit their homeland freely.
The decision to attempt to register for the program was made the night before the tabling, by individual Palestinian and Arab students, after SJP decided not to take action as a student organization. About fifteen students independently decided to line up at the Birthright Israel registration table on September 9th to attempt to register for the trips.
After calm conversations between students at the front of the line and students tabling, and after being turned away from the registration table because they were not of the “right” religious or ethnic identity, the Palestinian and Arab students lined up for a photo some distance away with signs identifying their village of origin and exposing their exclusion from the program. Immediately after the group photo was taken, students dispersed. The entire interaction lasted no more than fifteen minutes.
As photos, video, and other security footage will show, no activities during this action can be characterized as threatening or as harassment. There was no obstruction of the Birthright table or anyone’s movement in or around the tabling location. SJP members, some of whom did not participate in the action, have also been subject to questioning and intimidation by the administration, and asked to name the students who were part of the tabling activities.
Although no charges have yet been filed and no findings of wrongdoing made, the administration has already created an intimidating environment for students engaged in peaceful campus speech, interrogating students and taking an extreme measure against SJP by temporarily suspending the organization.
At the moment, the investigation of the action raises two potential concerns: sanctions against individual students and sanctions against SJP. Student group regulations imply that student groups are responsible for any actions taken by individual members that reflect on the group. Although we believe that the students participating in the registration attempt did so with the best intentions to engage in open dialogue about an injustice they feel strongly about, SJP Loyola is being associated with all Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and pro-Palestinian speech on campus. It is false to assume that any and all students who advocate for Palestinian rights are doing so in SJP’s name, and it is inappropriate to punish SJP for the independent actions of some of its individual members.
Moreover, students have also been accused of various forms of harassment and intimidation, allegations which are inaccurate and rely on racist and Islamophobic portrayals of Palestinian and Muslim students as threatening and aggressive, and which do not have any documentary evidence.
SJP Loyola’s temporary suspension and the ongoing investigation of students fits in with a wider trend of attempts to silence and repress any type of speech on US college campuses that criticizes Israel’s racist policies against the Palestinian people. Over the past few years, students and faculty across the nation have been targeted and intimidated
for speaking out in support of Palestinian human rights, civil rights, and equality. Students at Loyola have also felt the weight of these restrictions, particularly since divestment debates began in the spring of 2014. The pressure placed on Loyola to investigate, punish and even ban SJP comes from students who actively promote Israel on campus, and from off-campus organizations that intervened in democratic student processes in favor of divestment last year. Actively pro-Israel students themselves have made clear their intention to ban SJP from campus by continuing to complain about its activities. These same types of complaints are being made on campuses across the country, attempting to misrepresent political speech that criticizes a country’s well-documented violations of international law as anti-Semitic and threatening to Jewish students.
SJP Loyola is committed to resisting this intimidation. We believe that our university should protect students’ rights and allow us to engage in important and critical discussions freely, without fear of being falsely accused and punished for our views, and without draconian restrictions that prohibit reasonable and peaceful forms of public engagement and political speech.
RSS Feed