Success! George Washington SJP Completely Exonerated After Controversial Hearing

Selection of posters students posted around campus in early october. IMAGE CREDIT: GW SJP / @MCMICHELANGELO_

In written decisions issued last Friday, George Washington University cleared Students for Justice in Palestine and its president, Lance Lokas, who were wrongly charged with misconduct relating to property after SJP organized a postering campaign critical of the Israeli army’s treatment of Palestinians. 

The decisions noted that Lokas “instructed all participants in the beginning of the event about the guidelines and laws around wheat pasting and that it should occur on public property and not on private property,” and that witnesses that accompanied Lokas for the duration of the event testified that he only posted posters on public property, in compliance with the law and school rules.

“I am relieved GW rightly recognized that Students for Justice in Palestine followed all the rules, which is what we’ve been saying from Day 1,” said GW SJP president Lance Lokas. “But we should never have been forced to go through this ordeal when Jewish Voice for Peace publicly took credit for postering outside Hillel weeks ago, a fact which I pointed out to GW multiple times. There was zero evidence of us doing anything wrong. Yet it was the group made up primarily of Palestinians and Arabs that was falsely accused and charged.”

Jewish Voice for Peace Takes Credit for Postering on Hillel Property

In the decisions and conversations following the hearing, GW noted that while it was in possession of the October 21 Forward article where JVP took credit for putting the posters outside Hillel, it chose to charge SJP because the article did not specifically mention the concrete benches which were “scratched” by the wheatpaste.

SJP and Lokas later learned that JVP, which had previously accepted a warning from GW for placing the posters on Hillel property, told GW that “a white, Jewish student who is a member of JVP is responsible for the wheatpasting that occurred on the benches outside of Hillel.”  

Evidence Reveals GW Administrators Called Cops on SJP

Though Lokas and SJP were under the impression that Hillel filed the complaint against them, it became clear late in the process that it was GW’s own Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement leadership that filed the complaint and called campus police on SJP, which resulted in an Arab member of SJP being questioned by police about the action. 

“Students for Justice in Palestine had a pasting event last night and posted signs around campus. [Hillel Director Adena Kirstein] got to Hillel and there are signs on surrounding poles and on the actual building . . . Chief Tate has detectives headed over now,” wrote Associate Provost for Diversity, Equity, and Community Engagement Jordan West, in an October 7 email to other administrators. 

SJP held the postering campaign after Hillel announced an event featuring Doron Tenne, a former senior intelligence official of the Israeli military. Approximately 15-20 students participated in the postering, including members of Jewish Voice for Peace. The students also held a protest outside the event, while it was occuring. Afterwards, Hillel and other pro-Israel advocacy groups disingenuously accused student protestors, many of whom were Jewish, of antisemitism.

At the hearing, one witness, a member of the Sunrise Movement, testified that when their club used wheatpaste to affix political posters on university property, the group was not charged, nor did it receive any punishment. The witness expressed concern about the university treating campus Palestine organizers unfairly. 

Lokas also pointed out that in the previous semester, when five posters critical of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics were posted in campus buildings, university president Mark Wrighton initially called them offensive before writing in a statement that they were protected free speech.

“When it comes to Palestine, things are different,” said Palestine Legal staff attorney Dylan Saba. “GW knew SJP and Lokas were within their rights because the group who put the posters on Hillel took responsibility, but they doubled down and charged them anyways, under pressure from their own DEI office.”

Hillel Director Gives False Testimony

GW Hillel Director Adena Kirstein gave a statement at the hearing falsely accusing Lokas of personally committing thousands of dollars worth of damage to Hillel property. When asked to provide evidence of the damage, Kirstein left the room, refusing to answer a single question. No written documentation was provided, despite multiple requests from Lokas to both GW and Kirstein. 

On Friday, December 2, shortly after the hearing adjourned, Kirstein doubled down, sending an email blast accusing SJP and Lokas of “acts of bias,” being discourteous to Jewish students, and tens of thousands of dollars of property damage.

“A white, Jewish student put posters on Hillel critical of Israeli policy, and she blamed Palestinian students. Of course, the media ran with it. This is what Hillel does—smear student activists who criticize them,” said Saba. “Will she apologize and take responsibility for the harm she’s caused?”