[News] US college bars trauma services for Palestinians

[Anti-Imperialist News]

electronicintifada.net
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/us-college-bars-trauma-services-palestinians/34436>
US
college bars trauma services for Palestinians

Nora Barrows-Friedman
<https://electronicintifada.net/people/nora-barrows-friedman> - 9 December
2021
------------------------------
[image: Students hold signs during a protest]

George Washington University students are demanding that the administration
protect Palestinians. (Still from YouTube video by GW Hatchet
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhiDK4dZVe8>)

A civil rights group has filed a legal complaint against George Washington
University
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/george-washington-university> in
Washington, DC, after college officials banned campus mental health
services from serving Palestinian students following Israel’s attack on
Gaza.

The university could shut down the entire office dedicated to supporting
students’ emotional well-being over complaints from Israel advocates.

In a June Instagram post
<https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/jewish-currents/image0-5.jpeg>
expressing solidarity and support for Palestinian rights, George Washington
University’s Office of Advocacy and Support (OAS) offered trauma support
services
<https://jewishcurrents.org/george-washington-university-employees-offered-support-to-palestinian-students-now-they-say-theyre-paying-the-price>
to Palestinian students affected by Israel’s attacks on Gaza the month
prior.

During its 11-day bombardment of Gaza in May, Israel attacked residential
buildings killing entire Palestinian families
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/al-wihda-street-massacre/33366>,
sometimes wiping out several generations.

But those services were quickly canceled by the university administration
after the campus chapter of Hillel
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/hillel>, which is affiliated with
Hillel International, a Zionist
<https://www.hillel.org/jewish/hillel-israel/hillel-israel-guidelines>
institution, claimed that the OAS offer was harmful to Jewish students.

A top administrator contacted the director of OAS and “implied an
ultimatum” to the office, civil rights group Palestine Legal asserts in the
complaint
<https://static1.squarespace.com/static/548748b1e4b083fc03ebf70e/t/6193d24c5c4192502fcebab7/1637077580521/Palestine+Legal+Letter+to+GW+Nov+8+Final.pdf>
.

OAS could either take down the Instagram posts offering support to
Palestinian students at the university, or the director would be fired,
according to the complaint. OAS leadership “considered this threat
credible,” Palestine Legal states.

OAS was pushed
<https://palestinelegal.org/news/2021/11/16/george-washington-university-selectively-denies-trauma-services-to-palestinians-new-civil-rights-complaint>
by the administration to publish a statement saying that the post “did not
create a safe space for all members of our community” and to revoke the
services for Palestinian students.

A student-run group, Students Against Sexual Assault, had also posted to
Instagram offering peer trauma support for Palestinian students. The
administration ordered the group to remove their post as well, under the
same pretext that it was “harmful and exclusionary.”

George Washington University then launched an “audit” of OAS. Members of
the office are no longer allowed to publish on social media or communicate
with professors on behalf of students experiencing trauma, Palestine Legal
says.

Depending on the outcome of the investigation, the entire office and its
support services could be closed to all students.

Radhika Sainath, senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal, told The
Electronic Intifada that the situation at GW reminded her of segregated
swimming pools in the 1960s: When civil rights laws were passed mandating
that public spaces be accessible for everyone, some municipalities
opted to shut
down the pools
<https://theconversation.com/the-forgotten-history-of-segregated-swimming-pools-and-amusement-parks-119586>
altogether rather than comply.
Censored

OAS advocacy specialist Nada Elbasha told The Electronic Intifada that her
office has historically offered support services to students affected by
state violence, racism and discrimination.

She and her colleagues had been involved in conversations “about
incorporating more advocacy and more support for populations and experience
of trauma that fit into the racial or ethnic discrimination category, in
order to [expand] the office as more of a safe space for those
communities,” she said.

When Israel began attacking Palestinians in Jerusalem and Gaza in May,
Elbasha said that her colleagues initiated discussions about how to support
Palestinian students affected by what they were seeing.

But Elbasha’s office was prevented from doing so by the administration.

“I was not given any opportunity to ask questions or give my thoughts,”
Elbasha told The Electronic Intifada.

The administration’s move codified Hillel’s false allegations that any
mention of Palestine or Palestinians is offensive and somehow injures
Jewish people.

“In the way that it was translated to me, in the conversation between
Hillel and my supervisor, which happened before the instructions by the
administration, Hillel asserted that OAS is ignorant of the issue and we
are just following a social media trajectory without understanding what’s
really going on [in Palestine],” Elbasha explained.

“There was no invitation for dialogue. That’s how I perceived it.”

>From the administrative end, she added, “the argument was that our language
[in the Instagram post] was too extreme or not representative of GW,
meaning that the phrase ‘Free Palestine,’ and the words ‘oppression’ and
‘imperialism’ and ‘apartheid’ were too vague for this prestigious academic
institution.”

The Electronic Intifada reached out to the university’s Hillel chapter to
ask how the OAS’ statement of support for Palestinians could be seen as
bigotry against Jewish people, but did not receive a response.

Pro-Israel organizations often claim
<https://palestinelegal.org/the-palestine-exception> that support for
Palestinian rights is equal to anti-Jewish bigotry in order to shield
Israel from criticism and accountability – especially on campuses.

It goes back to a fundamental Zionist framework “that Palestinians
attempting to just assert their humanity and ask for equal treatment is
somehow anti-Jewish, and it’s wrong. Palestinians are pushing back against
that,” Sainath said.

On Elbasha’s behalf, Palestine Legal filed a complaint
<https://static1.squarespace.com/static/548748b1e4b083fc03ebf70e/t/6193d24c5c4192502fcebab7/1637077580521/Palestine+Legal+Letter+to+GW+Nov+8+Final.pdf>
against the university in November, asserting that this denial of services
constitutes national origin discrimination under the District of Columbia
Human Rights Act.

“Our demands are minimal: ensuring that Palestinian students are treated
equally and that GW is complying with the law, that they apologize for the
denial of services,” Sainath said.

The DC’s Office for Human Rights can impose sanctions on the university if
it is found to have violated the law, including financial penalties.

“We’re not asking for that here. Nada Elbasha is asking for something that
shouldn’t be very hard to do,” Sainath added.

“We’re just asking the university to do the right thing.”
Students fight back

Meanwhile, thousands of people around the US have
<https://act.uscpr.org/a/tell-gw-palestinians-deserve-care> emailed
<https://act.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/a/gwu-discrimination> the university
to demand that the OAS be allowed to offer trauma services to all students.

And students marched on campus
<https://www.gwhatchet.com/2021/11/22/students-rally-in-kogan-plaza-in-solidarity-with-palestinian-students/>
to demand that the university protect Palestinians and end discriminatory
treatment.

On 22 November, GW president Thomas LeBlanc issued a public statement
<https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/message-president-leblanc-supporting-palestinian-community>
recognizing “the concerns and frustrations some in the Palestinian
community are feeling.”

He acknowledged the investigation sparked by Palestine Legal’s complaint,
but failed to disclose any plans to reverse discriminatory actions. He
asserted however that the university is committed to providing students
with support services “without regard to their national origin.”

Law Students for Justice in Palestine at GW called
<https://www.facebook.com/GW-Law-Students-for-Justice-in-Palestine-114954270204745/>
the president’s response “vague, inadequate and ineffective.”

The statement “bizarrely and merely redirects Palestinian students seeking
support to go to the very same office which was prohibited from doing so by
the university,” the group added.
History of discrimination

The university has a history of discrimination against Palestinians.

In 2015, administrators forced a student to remove
<https://theintercept.com/2015/12/09/gw-palestinian-flag/> a Palestinian
flag from a dorm room window while other flags were allowed to be displayed.

After Palestine Legal intervened, the university president apologized
<https://palestinelegal.org/news/2015/12/10/victory-gwu-apologizes-to-student-for-palestinian-flag-censorship>
to the student.

And in 2018, GW students were cyberbullied and targeted
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-israel-promotes-cyberbullying-us-students/24221>
by the Israeli government and Israel lobby groups over a divestment
campaign.

Campus security officers refused to remove Israel advocates who intimidated
and harassed students during a student government hearing on divestment.

Sainath told The Electronic Intifada that these highly visible instances
are “just the tip of the iceberg” in terms of the actual number of GW
students her legal team has talked to about anti-Palestinian racism there.

While Palestine Legal, students, alumni and human rights activists continue
to press the administration to reverse course and apologize in this
instance, Elbasha said that she is hoping to rebuild trust with her
students.

For her, the administration’s draconian censorship of her work indicates
that its priority “is not necessarily with the students, or with learning,
or with well-being, or actual diversity” as the university claims.

What’s most troubling, Elbasha said, the university’s actions have only
“validated students’ thoughts that they are not safe or welcome on the
campus. How does that impact their academic success?”

*Nora Barrows-Friedman is an associate editor of The Electronic Intifada.*
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