(C) Verite News New Orleans This story was originally published by Verite News New Orleans and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . After protest crackdown, some students and faculty criticize Tulane’s approach to pro-Palestinian speech [1] ['Michelle Liu', 'More Michelle Liu', 'Verite News', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width'] Date: 2024-05-06 Last week, Tulane University administrators mobilized police to intercept and eventually dismantle a pro-Palestinian encampment on school property. For members of the Tulane community critical of the institution’s approach to freedom of expression in recent months, the crackdown laid bare the school’s stance. In interviews with Verite News, some students, faculty and staff said they believe administrators have fostered a culture that has limited on-campus efforts to openly discuss issues related to Israel’s war in Gaza, especially events or demonstrations foregrounding Palestinian people and perspectives. Before they established the encampment encircling an old oak tree in front of Tulane’s Gibson Hall on Monday (April 29), pro-Palestinian student organizers at Tulane and Loyola had indicated over social media that their final action of the school year was a call to stop suppressing student voices after organizers with Tulane’s Students for a Democratic Society chapter reportedly had trouble meeting university requirements to host a university-approved vigil. But they were inspired by the similar campus demonstrations calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and scrutinizing universities’ ties to Israel that have cropped up across the country and by a swell of support at a Loyola and Tulane student-led march last week. They were also frustrated with what they deemed efforts by Tulane administrators to quell pro-Palestinian events on campus, student organizers said in interviews with Verite News. Concerns about Tulane’s approach to free expression on Israel’s assault in Gaza were echoed in an open letter to school administrators from current students that began circulating last week, claiming Tulane “has perpetuated anti-Palestinian racism and obstructed free academic thought.” The letter, signed by more than 900 people by Sunday (May 5) afternoon, called on the university to “stop censorship of pro-Palestinian perspectives on and off campus” and to “protect students that freely express their pro-Palestinian beliefs through equal treatment in student organizations, university publications, and other Tulane-affiliated programming,” among other demands. Last week, Tulane’s administration, which said the encampment was illegal and disruptive, quickly began taking disciplinary action against participants. By Tuesday — the only full day of the encampment — Tulane had suspended several students, stripped the Students for a Democratic Society chapter of its university standing and threatened to discipline or fire employees who participated in the protest. By Wednesday morning, after the encampment was cleared, the university had suspended a total of seven students, referred students who participated in the “unlawful occupation” to the student conduct office for disciplinary action and was looking into reports of participating employees, according to an email sent by Tulane University President Michael A. Fitts. And by Friday, the university had placed at least one employee on administrative leave for actions tied to this week’s protest — over an email she wrote demanding the school revoke student suspensions. (A university spokesperson declined to comment on personnel matters.) “Free speech and the freedom to protest are sacred to us,” Fitts wrote Wednesday. “Spirited debate is fundamental to a thriving academic community. We have supported numerous lawful demonstrations throughout this year. However, we remain opposed to trespassing, hate speech, antisemitism and bias against religious or ethnic groups. Harassment, intimidation, violence, and other criminal acts on any of our campuses are not acceptable. Organizers of protests need to know we will not tolerate these things.” Another open letter issued Thursday and signed by more than 250 Tulane faculty members who “hold a broad range of views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” condemned the administration’s punitive approach to last week’s protest and the subsequent arrests and suspensions of students. “We share a commitment to listening to our students’ concerns no matter their political views. This encompasses the right to freely express their perspectives on government and university policies,” the letter reads. “We oppose the recent arrests and suspensions of Tulane students, and we call on the university to abide by its stated principles of restorative justice and drop the suspensions. We oppose efforts to intimidate students and employees by threatening retaliatory action for participation in peaceful protests.” Protestors sit around the encampment they built during a pro-Palestine demonstration at Tulane University on Tuesday, April 30, 2024. Credit: Drew Costley/Verite News Tulane is currently reviewing the open letter, university spokesperson Michael Strecker said Friday. In a Wednesday statement to Verite News, Strecker wrote, “Tulane is committed to creating an environment where students from all backgrounds are supported in their cultural and religious identities. Bias, prejudice and discrimination against any religious, ethnic or racial group is completely counter to our values. This is one reason we host events such as the recently concluded Islamophobia Awareness Week, a series of panels, interactives sessions and film screenings designed to foster learning and conversation about Islamophobia and its impacts on Muslim communities.” Frustration over the school’s approach to free speech on campus began well before the encampment. The university has emphasized the importance of free speech and the freedom to protest on campus since October. But there have been few university-approved events that provide space for dialogue on the issue in recent months, said Andrew Leber, an assistant professor of political science who is teaching a course called “Politics of Arab Israeli Conflict” this year. Most of those spaces, Leber observed, have been in small settings with faculty and students. “I think that the students can tell the difference between a genuine effort to build space and incorporate perspectives that the university knows there is some opposition to on campus, like Palestinian voices on campus…and an effort to just do the bare minimum,” Leber said. One faculty attempt to put on a panel on Middle Eastern perspectives earlier this spring was delayed by administrators, Leber said, before it was canceled and then criticized by an affinity group made up of faculty and staff of Middle Eastern and North African descent for a lack of diversity among its panelists in both scholarship and background. “It reflects the fact that the university wants to tightly control campus discussion around this issue because they’re worried about it primarily as a public relations problem,” Leber said of administrators’ handling of the panel. “They can be sort of unaware of how certain events or presentations come off because they lack the relevant sensitivity.” Organizers with Tulane Students for a Democratic Society said this week’s protest, which drew hundreds of demonstrators over the course of a day and a half, was originally planned as a vigil commemorating the tens of thousands of lives lost in the conflict — an event for which student organizers had been seeking administrative approval, they said. The process of getting on-campus, student group events approved by university administrators had also frustrated the Students for a Democratic Society chapter. One student, who gave their name as Silas, described the process as a series of “bureaucratic checks” that could stall events. Administrators have also barred the group from bringing outside speakers to events, including inviting a rabbi who was not affiliated with Tulane to speak at a planned vigil, claimed another student organizer who gave their name only as Maya. Since October of last year, when Hamas launched a surprise attack against Israeli civilians — killing 1,200 Israelis and taking more than 200 others hostage — triggering Israel’s retaliatory war that has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, Tulane has been marked by strife between students on opposing sides. In public and campus-wide statements, the university has raised concerns about growing antisemitism on college campuses, along with Islamophobia and racism, and said it is working to support students with ties to Israel and Gaza. In December, the school also outlined a series of initiatives to work toward “efforts to combat the current rise in antisemitism, racism, Islamophobia and other iterations of hate,” including a “President’s Commission on Equity and Tulane Values” and a plan to coordinate with students and faculty to “foster constructive dialogue on issues such as the current conflict in the Middle East.” A group of counterprotestors stand across the street from an encampment pro-Palestine protestors set up on Tulane University’s campus on Monday, April 29, 2024. Credit: Drew Costley/Verite News Following an October protest on Freret Street that turned violent, the school is now under federal investigation over potential civil rights violations as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to address an “alarming nationwide rise in reports of antisemitism, anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and other forms of discrimination and harassment.” In February, a Tulane student testified before a congressional committee discussing “the rampant antisemitism pervading Tulane University.” In March, another student published an op-ed in the student newspaper, the Hullabaloo, calling for Students for a Democratic Society to be abolished and criticizing the group for its anti-Israel stance. The university also faced criticism over its failure to immediately contain last week’s encampment. One letter, published in the student paper and signed by nearly 300 people, claimed that protesters not affiliated with the school “may have chosen Tulane as their target simply because it has the largest Jewish community in Louisiana.” About a third of the school’s students identify as Jewish, compared to less than one percent of all Louisianians. Bali Lavine, a Tulane junior and a leader of the school’s Students Supporting Israel chapter, said the group had worked with the school administration to host its own event on Monday, where members put 1,200 Israeli flags on one of the campus’ quads in tribute to those killed in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. Lavine said in an interview that Students Supporting Israel has followed university rules for on-campus events, and that school administrators have worked with the group to ensure events are approved, including on last minute requests. The group, Lavine said, has also worked with the campus Chabad and Hillel organizations. (The latter organization faced a protest last month for hosting a dinner with an Israeli soldier.) “Tulane flies under the radar. We’re ‘Jewlane.’ People don’t think of us as a problematic school, but at the end of the day, there is a lot of antisemitism here,” Lavine said. At last week’s protest, demonstrators said they were making a distinction between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. “The real threat to my Jewish identity is the upholding of Zionism on campus,” said an organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace, a progressive and anti-Zionist organization, at the protest Monday. “To me, there is nothing that makes me feel more like my Jewish values than standing up for what I believe in, against the powers that wish to make me feel small and unheard and alone.” After administrators learned of the unapproved rally, Dean of Students Erica Woodley warned the Students for a Democratic Society chapter that students would be held to the university’s code of conduct. Woodley told the group that it would be accountable for the behavior of attendees, and should be mindful of noise levels, and would not be not allowed to block the street or set up tents, according an email reviewed by Verite News. Woodley also warned the group that “messages that encourage violence against Jewish people” would result in conduct action. She cited as examples of such messages the sayings “from the river to the sea” and “intifada.” At last week’s protest, demonstrators invoked both those phrases, which have had varied interpretations and become markers of controversy at protests about Israel and Palestine nationwide. A letter sent to Fitts, penned in March by Tulane’s Middle East and North Africa faculty and staff affinity group, has also critiqued “an ignorance of and thinly-veiled contempt towards non-Israeli MENA people and scholarship at Tulane University,” which they said “reflected in a lack of recruitment of faculty representing Palestinian and other relevant Arab voices from the region.” One of the letter’s signatories, Zayd Sifri, a staff therapist at the school’s counseling center, said Fitts, Tulane’s president, ignored the letter, “and in doing so has demonstrated he does not have respect for MENA staff and faculty on campus,” Sifri said in an email. “The university has threatened employees with termination if they participate in these protests. This is part of a list of issues that have made me lose virtually all respect for this university administration,” said Sifri, who is Palestinian. The aftermath of the Tulane protest encampment on Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Credit: Katie Jane Fernelius / Verite News The MENA affinity group letter also stated that “recent efforts by students and staff to promote Palestine/Arab cultural and academic events have been obstructed or prevented by university administration using dubious justifications,” the group wrote. Alex Jaouiche, a staffer at Tulane’s Violence Prevention Institute, also signed that letter. Jaouiche said she encountered bureaucratic hurdles when the institute tried to organize an event themed around listening to Palestinians, which consisted of a moderated panel of Palestinians living in New Orleans and a screening of the short film Ayny, whose director is Palestinian. The event, initially slated for December 2023, was canceled after administrators told institute staff that they would need to have campus police present, remove Tulane’s and the institute’s name from the event and stop promoting it altogether, Jaouiche said. (A version of the event was ultimately hosted by two student groups in February.) “It feels like the mask is coming off,” Jaouiche said of Tulane’s response to this week’s protest. “It’s so clear now that Tulane doesn’t really care about anyone who isn’t going to be lining their pockets.” At other institutions of higher learning, major donors have recently threatened to pull donations or stop donating in the future in light of university responses to protests on Israel and Palestine. It’s unclear if Tulane has faced pressure from donors on how it handles demonstrations tied to Israel’s war in Gaza. Last week, Jaouiche emailed university administrators, demanding the school revoke the suspensions of seven student protesters: “I am an employee and alumni of Tulane University (and ashamed to be so),” she wrote. Shortly afterward, she was placed on administrative leave over that email, she said. 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