Photo Credit: Sofia Dadap
To the administrations at colleges and universities in Southern California,
We are representatives of major Muslim organizations across Southern California representing half a million Muslims in our region. We are writing in support of the students at your universities who have engaged in peaceful protests and encampments to raise awareness about the current genocide and assault by the Israeli government on Gaza. Many of these students are calling on your colleges and universities to divest from companies profiting from these atrocities.
Regardless of your viewpoints on these issues, it is incumbent on you to engage and listen to these students and to allow ample room for these students to express their views. Your schools must not single out these viewpoints, censor them, or use disproportionate punishment against these students – any such actions would be unconstitutional and unlawful. Unfortunately, across the country, we have seen colleges and universities implementing the ‘Palestine exception’ to free speech and violently cracking down on students engaging in speech advocating for Palestinian human rights.
Additionally, your schools must not engage in heavy-handed use of law enforcement to intimidate, harass, and crack down on these students. The use of armed law enforcement endangers student lives, escalates tensions, and sends a clear chilling message to these students that they will not be protected or respected by their administration because of their viewpoints.
Finally, your schools must fulfill their legal obligation to protect these students against the harassment they have been subjected to because of their race, religion, national origin, and ethnicity. Much of this has been marked by extreme Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian/anti-Arab hate, and hate against other marginalized students such as African-American and Jewish students engaging in their free speech rights. We have received reports of these students being subject to discriminatory intimidation and disruptive conduct such as doxxing, assaults, being spat on, being threatened with violence, and being subjected to racist, anti-Black, Islamophobic, and anti-Palestinian statements.
We are closely monitoring these situations and call on your schools to protect and respect these students and not engage in behavior that would further endanger these students. We call on you to be clear-eyed in their response to student protests, protests that are simply calling for the humane treatment of the Palestinian people, the divestment from war profiteering, and accountability for the perpetrators of genocide.
American colleges and universities have long been bastions of free speech, protest, and assembly. Student protests have historically made our country a more just and equitable place – from the Civil Rights movement and anti-war activism during the Vietnam War to more recent Black Lives Matter protests and activism addressing climate change.
Students are leading the country once again. They have a right to protest. They have a right to be heard, and they deserve to be protected
If you are a current leader or activist involved with organizations that serve the Southern California Muslim community and seek to protect students’ free speech rights in support of Palestine and would like to sign this letter, please fill out this form. You must be affiliated with a Muslim organization based in Southern California.