Palestine Legal & Fordham SJP In The News
/
Palestine Legal, our clients and partners were featured in two comprehensive articles on Fordham Students for Justice in Palestine’s (SJP) legal struggle against censorship by Fordham University.
The Fordham Observer and North Jersey Record each covered last week’s court hearing in the seminal case. Palestine Legal, the Center for Constitutional Rights and co-counsel Adam Levine represent Fordham University students, and urged the appellate court to reject Fordham’s effort to overturn the lower court’s ruling that the school’s ban on an SJP club was arbitrary and capricious.
The Fordham Observer quoted members of Fordham SJP and senior staff attorney Radhika Sainath, who responded to Fordham’s new and strange argument that safety and security concerns led the university to ban SJP:
“This is something that never came up in the decision-making process when Eldredge vetoed the formation of SJP,” Radhika Sainath, a senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal, said. “It’s insane that they’re bringing this up at the eleventh hour and completely without basis.”
After the court hearing, the CCR and Palestine Legal hosted a debrief webinar in collaboration with SJP. The panel included Veer Shetty, FCLC ’21 and vice president of SJP, and Ahmad Awad, FCLC ’17, one of the students who filed the original lawsuit.
“As a student of Fordham, it’s mind-boggling in this time of austerity and budget cuts, Fordham still has the resources to pay a team of lawyers for five years, to not allow us to have a club, which in and of itself is just ridiculous,” Shetty said.
Katherine Kuemerle, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’21 and treasurer of SJP, said that throughout the prolonged periods between court dates, SJP has maintained frequent contact with both Palestine Legal and the CCR.
“Both have been an incredibly valuable support team since day one. They’ve assisted us in understanding the legal frameworks of the case as well as providing us with social media and marketing assistance,” Kuemerle said.
After months of inactivity on their Instagram account, SJP announced the court date in a video on Nov. 19, calling students to support them by joining a YouTube live video of the oral argument.
“The university rejected SJP because we are advocating for Palestinians,” Kuemerle said in the video. “Despite their attempts to stop us, we will continue speaking out.”
The video has over 5,000 views, and Kuemerle said that SJP received 22 photos of students standing in solidarity with the club.
“It’s been really interesting to see all these people from different backgrounds joining forces for Palestinian rights,” Kuemerle said. “Dean (Keith) Eldredge claimed that SJP would cause polarization, but it seems that since our club has been in existence, it’s really just brought a lot of people together, and allowed for some meaningful discussions to be had with regards to human rights.”
The North Jersey Record focused on Ahmad Awad, one of the original founders of Fordham SJP, who has since graduated from Fordham and from law school as the legal case dragged on:
Ahmad Awad of Wayne led the lawsuit against the university after it barred him and fellow students from starting a Students for Justice in Palestine club in 2016, saying it would lead to polarization on campus.
Years later, he is still hoping that Fordham will drop its opposition to the club.
"This is a university I was in love with," he said Tuesday after the hearing. "But to hear that from the top level, that there was such resentment or resistance to me advocating for human rights, was really discouraging."
It is a "seminal case" because it marks the first time pro-Palestinian advocates had sued a university over censorship, said Radhika Sainath, senior staff attorney with Palestine Legal, which is representing students with the Center for Constitutional Rights and co-counsel Alan Levine.
The Record offered additional context on the actions of the Trump administration against Palestine advocacy, including the Department of Education re-opening a complaint into Palestine advocacy at Rutgers University and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent declaration that the State Department will designate groups supporting boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns for Palestinian freedom as 'antisemitic.’
Read more about the hearing here, and watch the post-hearing debrief below: