[News] US university suspends Muslim student group for Palestine protest

[Anti-Imperialist News]

US university suspends Muslim student group for Palestine protest

Brian Napoletano, The Electronic Intifada, 14 July 2010
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11374.shtml


In response to intense political pressure by multiple pro-Zionist 
organizations, the administration at the University of California, 
Irvine (UCI) recently decided to suspend Muslim students' right to 
assemble and practice their faith together on campus. Alleging that 
emails anonymously "leaked" to the university prove that the Muslim 
Student Union was responsible for a protest of Israeli Ambassador 
Michael Oren's campus appearance by eight UCI students, the 
administration plans to suspend the more than 250-member Muslim 
Student Union for a year beginning in September, and place it under 
intense scrutiny and disciplinary probation if the student group is 
allowed to re-apply for recognition in the fall of 2011.

The student group is appealing this ban, contending that the MSU did 
not sponsor the protest, and that the students arrested for 
interrupting Oren's speech were acting as individuals. Members have 
also challenged UCI's decision to impose what their attorney Reem 
Salahi has described as "nothing but collective punishment" by 
suspending the entire group over a political protest.

Pointing to sustained efforts by powerful organizations like the 
Anti-Defamation League and the Zionist Organization of America, many 
are contending that UCI is allowing outside organizations to decide 
how it treats its students. Many of these organizations have publicly 
described their role in pushing the administration to suspend the 
student group, and have announced their intentions to undertake 
similar efforts on other campuses where students are organizing in 
defense of Palestinian rights.

While delivering a presentation on US-Israeli relations in February, 
Oren was interrupted several times by students who were outraged by 
his disregard for human rights and his attacks on the UN-commissioned 
Goldstone report. As a previous military spokesman for Israel, Oren 
defended Israel's 2006 invasions of Lebanon and Gaza, its winter 
2008-09 attack on Gaza, and touted his own role as a paratrooper 
during Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon in the mainstream media. 
Although Oren eventually finished his presentation, the university 
had the 11 students who interrupted him arrested (eight were from 
UCI, three were from UC Riverside), and the eight UCI students were 
subsequently brought before the University Office of Judicial 
Affairs, which informed them that they may face criminal charges in 
addition to any other punishments the university decides to impose. 
Although they are all members of the MSU, the students maintained 
that the protest was not a MSU activity, and that they were acting as 
individuals 
("<http://collegelife.freedomblogging.com/2010/02/08/israeli-ambassador-xxxx-at-uci/15647/>11 
Arrested for Disrupting Israeli Ambassador," The Orange County 
Register, 8 February 2010).

The university publicly condemned the students who protested and, in 
response to demands from the Jewish Federation Orange County (JFOC) 
and other organizations initiated a Student Judiciary Review of the 
MSU. While this review was underway, someone anonymously delivered a 
collection of emails and other documents to the JFOC, the 
Investigative Project on Terrorism and the UCI that they claimed to 
have hacked from the MSU's email account.

Despite its highly-suspect nature and unknown source, Lisa Cornish, 
head of the Judiciary Review and Senior Executive Director of Student 
Housing, based her findings almost exclusively on this "evidence" 
when she concluded that the MSU had violated parts of the Code of 
Conduct by "plan[ning] every detail of the disruptions" and then 
"covering up" its involvement by claiming that the protests were not 
an MSU activity. In her 27 May letter to the students, Cornish said 
that she planned to have the group's recognition revoked on 1 
September, require the members to complete fifty hours of community 
service, and have the group placed on disciplinary probation for an 
additional year if it was permitted to re-register in the fall of 
2011 
("<http://files.onset.freedom.com/ocregister/Oren_Decision_Document.pdf>Letter 
to Muslim Student Union Officers" [PDF]). She did not, however, 
comment on whether the university planned to file criminal charges 
against the eight students who were actually responsible for the protests.

In light of these possible criminal charges, MSU's attorney Salahi 
was unable to discuss the alleged evidence in detail. However, she 
maintained that the protesters were not acting on behalf of the MSU. 
She also said that much of the evidence presented was deeply flawed, 
and that the university's punishment was entirely inappropriate, 
arguing that "all Muslim students on campus have been punished for 
the actions of a few."

Salahi also pointed out the central role the MSU plays in the Muslim 
student community. While advocacy for Palestinian rights is one of 
their more frequently noticed activities, the MSU has also worked 
with different student and cultural groups on several social justice 
movements and community service projects. Last spring, UCI's Cross 
Cultural Center recognized the MSU's contribution to the university 
by awarding it the Social Justice Award.

The student group also facilitates daily and weekly prayers on 
campus, offers religious classes and organizes social events. Given 
its centrality to the Muslim student community, many students feel 
that their right to participate in the campus community as Muslims is 
being undermined. As newly-elected MSU President Asaad Triana 
observed, "depriving Muslim students a venue to associate jeopardizes 
their rights under the First Amendment and is an act of 
marginalization at a time when Muslim students and Muslim youth 
already feel besieged."

The university's decision to suspend the entire MSU has raised 
several questions about the role that outside pressure from several 
well-known anti-Palestinian organizations played in its decision. 
Husam Ayloush, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic 
Relations, observed that the disruption of Oren's speech "was nothing 
but a peaceful and symbolic protest of the Israeli ambassador at 
UCI," suggesting that the university's response "appears to be 
politically motivated to silence any future peaceful and legitimate 
criticism of Israel's brutal practices."

Much of this political motivation came from well-known Zionist 
organizations like the Jewish Federation Orange County (JFOC), the 
Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and the Zionist Organization of America 
(ZOA) -- all of which openly demanded that the university suspend the 
entire student group after February's protest.

The JFOC began attacking the MSU for its alleged "anti-Semitism" when 
the student group first began publicly criticizing Israeli policy 
nearly a decade ago. The JFOC immediately allied with campus groups 
like Hillel to pressure the administration to silence criticism of 
Israel, claiming that it intimidated Jewish students. The JFOC soon 
partnered with the ADL, which began to put even more media and 
political pressure on the administration to take action against the MSU.

The ZOA also joined in the effort, and began pressuring various 
contacts within the University of California administration to 
suspend the MSU. In a personal letter to UC President Mark Yudof, for 
instance, ZOA President Morton Klein condemned the UCI's MSU along 
with the UC Santa Cruz's Committee for Justice in Palestine, and 
accused the chancellors of both universities of being "grossly 
deficient" in their efforts to silence criticism of Israel 
("<http://www.zoa.org//media/user/documents/Publ/letterUCPresidentYudof8Aug08.pdf>Letter 
to Mark Yudof, Re: UC Irvine and UC Santa Cruz," 8 August 2008 [PDF]).

Outraged by the protests against Oren, virtually every Zionist 
organization involved began calling for the MSU's suspension in 
February. Although the ZOA placed itself at odds with several other 
organizations when it initiated a Jewish boycott of UCI, the 
different factions still managed to coordinate a fairly organized 
campaign to have the student group suspended.

The campaign against the MSU became so intense that its vice 
president, Hadeer Soliman, described it as an outright attack on the 
students' "most basic rights of Freedom of Association," and said 
that the MSU's antagonists are "not seeking justice but rather censorship."

As opposition to Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people 
continues to grow, its apologists in the United States are focusing 
more of their energy and resources on silencing dissent on college 
campuses. While personal attacks on faculty are fairly common, the 
only other time an entire student group has faced punishment for a 
political protest was when UC Berkeley temporarily suspended its 
Students for Justice in Palestine group during an investigation in 
2002. As MSU spokesperson Mahdis Keshavarz pointed out, the extent to 
which the university has allowed outside organizations to dictate its 
treatment of its students is both unprecedented and alarming. "By 
allowing an outside institution to come onto campus and influence its 
students standing," she explained, "UCI is failing to protect them 
and setting a dangerous precedent."

Such a precedent appears to be exactly what supporters of Israel are 
hoping for, as many of the organizations involved expressed their 
conviction that the MSU's suspension will have a significant impact 
on other campuses. In its press release, the ZOA said the ruling 
"sends a powerful message to other colleges and universities ... 
making it clear that this bigotry against Jews and the Jewish State 
will not be tolerated" 
("<http://www.jewishorangecounty.org/page.aspx?id=222251> Muslim 
Student Union Suspended at UC Irvine"). The subtext to this message, 
it seems, is that all pretenses of academic freedom on the nation's 
campuses have finally been discarded, and further objections to 
Israeli apartheid will be met with swift retaliation.

Describing the UCI's vilification of its Muslim students as yet 
another "criminalization of Arab and Muslim political speech which 
has permeated the American university system in defiance of 
principles of racial and religious equality," the US Campaign for the 
Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel recently released a statement 
of solidarity that condemned the administration's attack on students' 
"rights of free speech" and calling on them to "restore the integrity 
of the academy" by repealing its ban 
("<http://usacbi.wordpress.com/2010/07/13/statement-condemning-disciplinary-action-against-the-irvine-11-and-the-recommendation-to-suspend-the-uc-irvine-muslim-student-union/>Statement 
Condemning Disciplinary Action against the Irvine 11 ...," 13 July 2010).

UCI's decision to punish one of its student groups for a political 
protest is a direct threat to academic freedom and the right of 
students to organize and speak freely. As more right-wing 
organizations begin to target the academy, students in other social 
justice movements may soon find themselves under attack by outside 
organizations. While the precedent set by the UCI's decision could 
intimidate some students into submission, others may respond by 
building stronger solidarity with students engaged in different and 
related struggles for social justice at home and abroad.

Brian Napoletano is a member of the International Socialist 
Organization and the former Public Relations officer for Purdue 
University Students for Justice in Palestine. He has previously 
written for The Palestine Chronicle, MRZine, and Socialist Worker. He 
can be reached via email at b.napoletano A T gmail D O T com.





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