Brooklyn College SJP has issued a statement in response to the false allegations and baseless legal threats following their BDS event. The statement rejects
false allegations that student disruptors were removed from the BDS event because they were Jewish or had opposing views. Read the Brooklyn College SJP statement and coverage from the advocacy media.
CCR and NLG sent a letter to eight New York City Council Members that signed a letter threatening to withhold funding from Brooklyn College if it did not cancel or withdraw its co-sponsorship from a student-organized event on the movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel that took place on February 7, 2013. The letter advises the Council Members that the First Amendment prohibits public officials from withholding benefits in an effort to suppress speech that they find "offensive" and asks them to withdraw their signatures. Two of the ten original signatories had already withdrawn their signatures. See the letter here.
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) wrote to Brooklyn College President Karen Gould commending her for her principled stand for academic freedom and free speech in the face of nation-wide repression and a local campaign to shut down a student-organized event on BDS. Read the full letter here. CCR and the National Lawyers Guild also issued this statement, read aloud at the press conference organized by Brooklyn College Students for Justice in Palestine on February 5: CCR and NLG Stand With Student Organizers of Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Event.
This Palestine Solidarity Legal Support initiative was formed as a response to the escalating efforts around the country to silence speech critical of Israel. The attempt to shut down the Brooklyn College BDS event is one example among many incidents we are responding to. National Students for Justice in Palestine issued this solidarity statement to put Brooklyn College in a national context.
Columbia Professors issued a statement criticizing former Columbia Dean Nicholas Dirks for his failure to defend speech rights during a recent public relations interview timed with his appointment as the new UC Berkeley Chancellor. Read the statement here.
The ACLU of Northern California wrote to the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, urging it to close the Title VI investigation against UC Berkeley alleging that pro-palestinian speech creates a hostile climate for Jewish students. The letter warns that such protected speech should not be under government scrutiny, and emphasizes that the notion that criticism of the Israeli state is inherently antisemitic is legally unsupportable. See the full letter here: ACLU 2012.12.10 Letter to DOE McCasland re Case No. 09-12-2259
Watch the video from the event "Don't Talk About Palestine," put on by Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA. The presentation highlighted the ongoing censorship of students and faculty whose activism and or scholarship touches on the question of Palestine. The event was held on October 18, 2012 at the UCLA Law School, and featured Rahim Kurwa of UCLA SJP, Yaman Salahi of the NLG, Estee Chandler of Jewish Voice for Peace, and Professor David Shorter of UCLA.
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