**FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**
October 18, 2024
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO FACULTY DENOUNCE POLICE VIOLENCE AGAINST UNIVERSITY STUDENTS, FACULTY, STAFF AND COMMUNITY MEMBERS ON OCTOBER 11
FSJP denounces police violence against university students, faculty, staff, and community members. We are particularly appalled by the violent use of force by the University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD) against students who were protesting against the University of Chicago’s support for the joint US-Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, Israel’s escalation in violence and repression in its illegal occupation of the West Bank, and the US-backed Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
On Friday, October 11th, UCPD and the Chicago Police Department responded to a non-violent student protest by escalating with brutal violence. They used extreme force. They repeatedly and indiscriminately deployed pepper spray. UCPD and CPD officers shoved students to the ground with batons, drove a police vehicle into the standing crowd, and as one student has reported, repeatedly “grabbed, shoved, and kneed protestors in the groin”. Many FSJP members – of all ranks and roles – were present in solidarity with UChicago United for Palestine, from the beginning of the rally all the way through the subsequent march and UCPD’s unprovoked violent confrontation with protestors.
We heard UCPD Officers repeatedly taunting students, “You want to go to jail”? One FSJP member was crushed against a car by Sergeant Eric Grays Sr. and when they tried to free themselves, they were threatened with arrest. Several FSJP members were brutally shoved by UCPD officers as they tried to protect student protestors and were attacked with pepper spray alongside students. UCPD and CPD officers injured many of our students, alongside many of our members. Many don’t feel safe reporting this police misconduct, as in this repressive environment it can invite severe retaliation.
From the moment they descended upon the student protestors, UCPD made no effort to de-escalate. Indeed, they escalated with repressive violence. Students engaged in the protest have told us that they realistically see the possibility of UCPD killing a student if the University continues to deploy the police in this way. This is the level of fear that violence from campus police has instilled in students who are at the University to learn and exercise their right to free speech and dissent.
UCPD’s treatment of students on October 11th reflects a larger pattern of police violence against students at the University of Chicago. This pattern includes the arrest of 26 students and 2 faculty for engaging in a peaceful sit-in in November 2023, the surprise and brutal destruction of the Popular University for Gaza encampment on the Quad in May 2024, and the use of pepper spray and physical violence against a non-violent rally for Palestine outside the University of Chicago commencement in June 2024. UCPD has a history of violence on this campus, including the police shooting undergraduate student Charles Soji Thomas in 2018. If university policy doesn’t change, we worry that this is exactly what will happen this year: police shooting a student for protesting our university’s support for the US-Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
The police brutality witnessed on October 11th is a clear sign of UCPD’s persecution of Black and Palestinian lives – both on campus and off. We demand that the UChicago Administration and UCPD honor the University’s commitment to freedom of expression and refuse to deploy the police when students are speaking out against the University of Chicago’s backing of the US-Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, and its escalating repression of Palestinians in the West Bank and the Palestinian land that Israel colonized in the 1948 Nakba. Above all, we commend our students’ moral courage and echo their demand for divestment from all Israeli institutions.
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University of Chicago Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine is a collective of over 180 University of Chicago faculty, staff, lecturers and post-docs who support the cause of Palestinian liberation. FSJP supports and amplifies the work of Students for Justice in Palestine and other student groups struggling for Palestinian liberation at the University of Chicago. FSJP supports the call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions and for an end to Israel’s occupation and colonization of Palestine. We insist on the fundamental rights of Palestinians to self-determination and equality, and we pledge to respect, protect and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands. FSJP rejects the conflation of support for Palestinian liberation and antisemitism; we stand against racism in all its manifestations.