Statement by Two Palestinian Students Who Have Faced Severe University Retaliation for Protesting Israel’s Genocide in Gaza

Palestine Legal is sharing two powerful statements from student clients who have faced severe university retaliation for speaking out in support of Palestinian freedom in the past year. 

Their cases are part of a larger trend in escalating campus repression impacting students, faculty, and staff across the country who have participated in demonstrations calling on their universities to divest from war profiteers invested in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. 

IMAGE COURTESY OF DAHLIA SABA

Dahlia Saba is a Palestinian student at UW-Madison who is currently facing illegal and discriminatory charges relating to last spring’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment. The university’s sole evidence is an op-ed Dahlia and a classmate wrote for a local paper critiquing the administration's refusal to engage with protestors’ demands for divestment from war profiteers. Palestine Legal sent a letter to the university demanding they terminate the ongoing student disciplinary proceedings against Dahlia Saba with prejudice.

IMAGE COURTESY OF YOUSSEF HASWEH

Youssef Hasweh is a Palestinian student at the University of Chicago who has faced severe disciplinary action from his administration over the past year. Palestine Legal recently filed a federal civil rights complaint against UChicago on behalf of Palestinian and associated students; Youssef was arrested along with 25 other students in November 2023 and his degree was withheld less than two weeks before graduation in May 2024 for participating in peaceful protests calling on the university to divest from financial ties to Israel. 

Dahlia and Youssef’s statements respond to the question: "How has the last year changed higher education, if at all, and how does higher education move forward?"

These statements were previously commissioned by a news outlet, but the editors chose not to include them, following a decades-long pattern of mainstream outlets favoring pro-Israel viewpoints over Palestinian voices. 

Read their unreported statements below (edited for clarity and length):

Youssef Hasweh: 

“The student-led branch of the larger Palestinian movement has undoubtedly changed the entire higher education landscape. For the first time in a long time, students are asking where their tuition dollars are going and investigating their institutions’ investment portfolios. All in the name of Palestinian lives. A common question I heard on campus is, how can you call yourself a school of student inquiry and curiosity while simultaneously investing in Israeli entities that kill all student inquiry and curiosity in Palestine?

You can’t begin to critique how higher ed failed students nationally this year without examining university responses. In the past year alone, the University of Chicago has violated its student body by arresting, raiding, abusing, and withholding degrees from myself and others who stood up for Palestine and against the university’s poor investment decisions. You can’t pepper spray graduates at their own graduation and expect higher ed to move forward. UChicago and many other ‘elite’ institutions will never be the same and should never be the same. Who cares about professor-to-student ratios when the money you give UChicago is invested in weapon manufacturing that kills both the professors and students in Gaza?” 

Dahlia Saba: 

“Over the past year, we have seen students fight to make their universities more democratic and more ethical, demanding universities be transparent in where they invest their endowments and divest from companies that profit off of human rights violations, in particular off of the Israeli occupation and genocide against Palestinians. While some universities have responded to these demands by trying to work with their students to create a more just vision of higher education, we have seen many universities respond to these demands by punishing students who have spoken out in solidarity with Palestine and restricting the rights that students have on their own campuses. 

For example, the University of Wisconsin–Madison has cracked down on dissent from student protestors through multiple avenues. They have used physical violence against their own students and faculty, sending four different police departments with riot gear to violently clear a peaceful encampment. They have opened disciplinary cases against students who spoke up in solidarity with the encampment, often with little evidence: in my case, the university is pursuing charges of student misconduct against me on the sole basis that I co-wrote an op-ed that criticized the university’s response to the encampment and called on them to meet the encampment’s demand for divestment. Furthermore, the university has stripped away the rights students have on campus by introducing a new ‘expressive activity’ policy that implements new restrictions on student speech — including a prohibition on all expressive activity within 25 feet of any campus building entrance — which have been called potentially unconstitutional by multiple legal experts.

However, while this increased repression may seem like a setback for the Palestine solidarity movement on campus, the fight has only just begun. For many students, staff, and faculty, the fact that our universities would rather violate our rights than take the demands of students seriously has shown how morally bankrupt these institutions are, adding further urgency to the fight to make universities more accountable to their students. The divestment movement is therefore a fight for a more just vision of higher education — one where universities prioritize having a positive impact on the world over their own profits and prioritize being responsive to the demands of their students over silencing dissent. Until universities divest, that vision of higher education does not yet exist.”

Contact us if you are interested in interviewing Youssef, Dahlia, and their Palestine Legal attorneys.