Success! Bard College Clears Students Investigated for Protesting Anti-Palestinian Racism
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Members of Bard Students for Justice in Palestine, including clients Ben and Akiva. (Credit: Ben - Bard SJP)
Last week, Bard College President Leon Botstein ruled that two students charged following an October 10, 2019 protest of an anti-Palestinian speaker were fully in compliance with Bard’s policies and had done nothing wrong. The decision clears the students, after a prolonged investigation, of false charges of antisemitism.
Palestine Legal represented Ben and Akiva, who, together with over a dozen other Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) members, protested a panel featuring retired Harvard professor Ruth Wisse for her history of making bigoted remarks.
Ben and Akiva received notices of investigation in early November after Forward editor Batya Ungar-Sargon, who moderated the panel, published the widely disputed piece “I Was Protested At Bard College For Being A Jew,” in her own publication. The two students testified before a panel of professors acting as a jury during finals week in December.
Late last week, President Botstein announced that he was accepting the panel’s recommendation of finding no policy violations, and thus would not be issuing any sanctions.
In January, Palestine Legal warned Bard College that it may not punish students under its Free Speech policy which explicitly upholds the rights of free speech and expression, dissent, and protest. The letter also stated that “the evidence overwhelmingly shows that Ben and Akiva protested the October 10 event because they disagreed with the speakers’ viewpoint that Palestinians are undeserving of equal human rights – and not because of any protected status of the panelists.”
Bard SJP President Ben Mulick said: "I'm grateful for the finding of no wrongdoing by both the faculty panel and the president. It also has to be said that Palestine Legal's help was instrumental to these decisions and that we couldn't have done it without them. This is a step in the right direction for Bard, but the investigation should have never happened. The only reason Bard chose to investigate was due to the fact that the protest was inherently anti-Zionist. We will continue to protest until Bard divests and takes a clear stance on normalization."
Bard Junior Akiva Hirsch said: “I am glad that the college made the right decision and I can finally return to my studies without this hanging overhead. However, I still find it absurd that this took as long as it did. Thank you to everyone who has shown me and Ben support over the last four months, and especially thank you to Radhika, Amira, and everyone at Palestine Legal.”
Palestine Legal Senior Staff Attorney Radhika Sainath said: “We appreciate that the panel, after carefully examining the evidence, agreed that Ben and Akiva did nothing wrong. But students shouldn’t have to be put through the wringer just because some off-campus individual disagrees with the view that Palestinians deserve to live in freedom and with dignity.”
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