Today, at 3:15 pm outside Stuart Hall, University of Chicago faculty gathered to demand that the University fulfill its written promises to its students and institute the Gaza Scholars at Risk Program now! During the encampment, student negotiations with the administration resulted in a written commitment from the University of Chicago to announce and establish a Gaza Scholars at Risk Initiative. More than six months later, the University has done nothing to honor this commitment and has repeatedly attempted to gaslight students, faculty, and staff into believing it was never really made. WBEZ has reported on these failed promises. The joint US-Israeli genocide and scholasticide of Palestinians has only intensified in the last six months, it is imperative that institutions of higher education do all we can to support Palestinian life and scholarship. FSJP demands that UChicago stop lying about its promise to students and publicly announce and implement the Gaza Scholars at Risk Initiative.
The University’s refusal to announce and implement this agreement fits into a larger pattern of anti-Palestinian racism and repression of student activism. In the most recent assault on students’ freedom of speech, the university evicted its own undergraduate student this fall. We demand that the university reinstate the student immediately and that the university devote its resources to supporting faculty and student demands to create a safe and just environment for all of its community members.
UChicago continues to hide behind the lie of institutional neutrality. In recent years, UChicago has proudly employed Israeli military personnel as professors, hosted Israeli state officials for visits and photo-ops, announced partnerships with military-linked Israeli universities, and subjected pro-Palestinian student groups to discriminatory disciplinary crackdown. Despite this, University administrators refused during encampment negotiations to issue any public statements or implement any policies that use the word “Palestine,” to support initiatives affiliated with Palestinian universities, and even to acknowledge basic facts about Israel’s assault on Gaza (e.g., the fact that universities have been bombed). It refuses to implement this agreement, because it continues to insist on erasing Palestine.
The University’s refusal to announce and implement the Gaza Scholars at Risk Initiative should be contrasted with its response to the invasion of Ukraine. The University promptly issued a public statement expressing “anguish” over the humanitarian crisis caused by Russia’s invasion. Due to tireless faculty organising and advocacy, the University announced a series of initiatives designed to support “students from Ukraine” and scholars affected by the war. In addition to the fact that the University has announced no similar policies with respect to Palestine — even after committing to doing so under pressure 6+ months ago — University administrators stated explicitly during encampment negotiations they would not use the words “anguish” or “invasion” (much less “genocide” or “apartheid” or “scholasticide”) in reference to Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza.
The University’s refusal to announce and implement the Gaza Scholars at Risk initiative exposes, yet again, what its policy of “institutional neutrality” really means. It means speaking publicly and taking public action about political issues that align with trustee and ruling class interests (e.g. Ukraine, Trump’s immigration policy, the Obama Center) while refusing to do so about issues that jeopardize those interests.
The University’s refusal to announce and implement the Gaza Scholars at Risk Initiative — like its refusal to acknowledge that a single university in Gaza has been bombed — betrays its own professed commitment to defending free expression “throughout the world” and to “supporting the global academic community in times of great need.”
The University’s refusal to announce and implement this agreement must be seen against the backdrop of the escalating US-Israeli genocide and scholasticide in Gaza — in which this University administration is materially and ideologically complicit.
The US-Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza has claimed the lives of over 200,000 Palestinians over the last 13 months. With US backing, Israel continues to target schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, and refugee camps in Gaza, and is using starvation as a weapon against the Palestinian people. In the past months, Israel has expanded its genocidal bombing campaign to Lebanon, escalated land grabs in the West Bank, and heightened its repression of Palestinians in the 1948 territories colonized in Israel’s founding. It is beyond time for the University to stop supporting the US-Israeli genocide of Palestinians by remaining invested in weapons manufacturers profiting from these horrendous crimes against humanity. More immediately, it is beyond time for the University to fulfil its promises to its students and announce and implement the Gaza Scholars at Risk Initiative now!
Sign our petition in solidarity here.