Repost:
Palestinian students at Brown, Haverford (edited),
and TrinityâŠ
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The article says Haverford.
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"As director of the Center for International Studies and of the MISTI program, I am writing to share my perspectives on the events of last week, which took place in the context of enormous community concern for the tragedies that have been unfolding in the Middle East over the past month.
What happened
On October 31, I received a letter from the Coalition Against Apartheid (CAA) demanding that the Center for International Studies (CIS) cancel a MISTI program that provides grants for MIT faculty to collaborate with academic colleagues in Israel.
Two days later, without any advance notice, 10-15 students from the CAA entered the CIS offices to reiterate their demands. In itself, protest is a healthy form of democratic expression, and the CIS welcomes respectful dialogue and supports studentsâ desires to speak out for what they believe in. Protests in highly public spaces, where bystanders are free to listen or to exit, are important strategies for raising awareness. However, in this particular case, the studentsâ methods and approach were concerning and upsetting.
The students used a megaphone to amplify their chants within the CIS offices; they insistently rattled the door handles of offices that were closed with staff inside; and they congregated outside of and entered the office that facilitates MISTIâs programming in the Middle East, and at least one other office. Their chants included the refrain, âFrom the river to the seaâŠâ, âMISTI, MISTI, you canât hide,â and cries associating MISTI with genocide. After the incident ended, many staff reported having felt alarmed, intimidated and even afraid during the protest. Some staff members said they felt trapped in their offices, anxious about the prospect of verbal and/or physical assault. The students later protested outside the office of the faculty director of MIT-Israel, linking his name with genocide."
https://cis.mit.edu/news-media/newse40/2023/cis-director-letter-november-9-2023
I have personally seen a video of that protest when it occurred, but canât readily find it now.
âŠAnd at another MIT protest, they were chanting âone solution, intifada revolutionâ.
Videos of that protest are available online, for example:
And hereâs an op-ed from sonâs friend in MIT student newspaper:
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Thatâs terrible. No one should be shot at because of their race or religion.
Whether one of the students was from Harvard or Haverford shouldnât really matter.
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I canât imagine how traumatized the Palestinian students are at Brown, Trinity and Haverford right now. I hope their classmates live; it seems uncertain still. Actually, probably all Arab students on college campuses have a justified fear of being shot now.
The students had attended a Quaker school in Gaza before college. The FBI is investigating as a potential hate crime.
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It is not acceptable for anybody to fear being shot. Let me stop right there before I get myself into trouble.
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Other news said that they attended Ramallah Friends School, which is in Ramallah in the West Bank.
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Friends schools are Quaker schools that welcome people of all faiths. Typically students attend Quaker meeting once a week and have several multi faith classes offered but not obligatory. Canât speak to which school they attended Gaza vs West Bank.
This is a tragedy.
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The Haverford studentâs assessment of the climate at Haverford, from October 13thâŠ
â â(President Wendy Raymond) did not mourn the Palestinian citizens who were killed, or the children who were killed by this ruthless bombing,â said junior Kinnan Abdalhamid, a 20-year-old Illinois-born Palestinian, who lived under Israeli military occupation from when he was three until he began at Haverford.
âI donât expect much from Western media or the college to mention much about Israelâs oppression and apartheid,â said Abdalhamid, âBut I at least expect the thousands who were killed to be mentioned and mourned.â
Abdalhamid said he found President Raymondâs references to anti-Semitism as a cause of Palestinian rage to be repugnant, saying Palestinians and Jews had shared Palestine for centuries. â
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As a parent of MIT alumna I am concerned with MIT soft response to those violent protesters. They violated rules and should be expelled. I am so glad I donât have kids in college at this time.
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https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/26/us/palestinian-students-shot-vermont-investigation-monday?cid=ios_app
"Those who care deeply about free speech are asking themselves many questions at this urgent moment: What should we make of the calls to punish Hamas apologists on campus? After all, this is America, where you have the right to say even the vilest things. Yes, many of the same students who on October 6 called for harsh punishment for âmicroaggressionsâ are now chanting for the elimination of the worldâs only Jewish state. But Americans are entitled to be hypocrites.
Donât these students have the same right to chant Hamas slogans as the neo-Nazis did to march in 1977 in Skokie, Illinoisâa town then inhabited by many Holocaust survivors?
I would put my free speech bona fides up against anyone. Iâm also a lawyer and sometime law professor who recognizes that not all speech-related questions can be resolved by invoking the words First Amendment.
Much of what weâve witnessed on campuses over the past few weeks is not, in fact, speech, but conduct designed specifically to harass, intimidate, and terrorize Jews. Other examples involve disruptive speech that can properly be regulated by school rules. Opposing or taking action against such behavior in no way violates the core constitutional principle that the government canât punish you for expressing your beliefs.
The question, as always, is where to draw the line, and whoâs doing the line-drawing.
Here are some of the most pressing questions those who care about civil liberties and protecting the rights of Jewish students are asking."
A good analysis.
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âŠin particular:
âAlthough foreigners canât be punished for speech any more than citizens, there can be repercussions for affiliating with certain groups or calling for violence. The Immigration and Nationality Act allows the denial or revocation of a visa of âany alien who. . . endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization.ââ
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It sems highly unlikely that a substantial percentage of college protestors are international students on a visa to the US.
Per the below, there does not seem to be much correlation between schools with lots of international students and the amount of protests thus far:
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/most-international
https://orgchart.mit.edu/letters/todays-protest-and-counterprotest
âAfter exhausting all other avenues for de-escalating the situation, we informed all protesters that they must leave the lobby area within a set time, or they would be subject to suspension. Many chose to leave, and I appreciate their cooperation. Some did not. Members of my team have been in dialogue with students all day. Because we later heard serious concerns about collateral consequences for the students, such as visa issues, we have decided, as an interim action, that the students who remained after the deadline will be suspended from non-academic campus activities. The students will remain enrolled at MIT and will be able to attend academic classes and labs.â
âŠthere are many other good points in the analysis above, and I canât quote them all here.
But I will quote the conclusion.
"âI am a 70-year-old Jewish man, but never in my life have I seen or felt the antisemitism of the last few weeks.â Thatâs how Erwin Chemersinky, the dean of UC Berkeley School of Law, described recent events on campus. Some of us were less surprised given the anti-Israel, anti-American, and generally anti-Western ideology that has taken root in higher education. Still, the extent and breadth of it has alarmed even the most pessimistic among us.
We shouldnât weaken speech protections, which have made America not only the freest country in the world, but the most tolerant. But sometimes âspeechâ isnât speech. Sometimes it rises to the level of conduct that prevents others from being able to live their lives. Right now we need people to discern the difference."
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