Don’t believe what you are being told about “Campus Antisemitism”

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Several articles published by the WAMM Newsletter about the college demonstrations in the Twin Cities’ and elsewhere.

Women Against Military Madness Newsletter / Vol. 42, No. 2

Six demands became seven when an exchange program with a Palestinian university was added. (Institutions of learning were targeted, academics, and students killed in the Gaza genocide.)

Solidarity Against Scholasticide in Gaza

Nick Estes, a member of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe and a professor of American Indian Studies, spoke in front of the student union at the University of Minnesota on April 25, a day after Congress voted to send $26 billion more to Israel.

First, he addressed the University of Minnesota administration (rhetorically, as they were not present):

“They [the Palestinian people of Gaza] are experiencing a scholasticide. Every single university in Gaza has been destroyed in all or in part, so how can you tell me as a university administration that you do not stand in solidarity with the presidents, the deans, the faculty, the staff, the students, the workers of the university that have been killed systematically by bombs, by weapons, and by policies that are backed and funded by the United States government and this university?”

He, then, addressed the university students and supporters encamped in solidarity with the Palestinian people, who are facing the possibility of death every day and forced to live in tents (a precarious shelter, at best, and that’s if they are able to get one).

“When they come for us, to arrest us, to defame us, we have history on our side and we will remember which side they stood on. Only cowards fight with guns, weapons, and money. Only cowards have the gall to tell students and faculty and staff that they’re trespassing on a campus at a university. [The University of Minnesota is a public, as opposed to a private, university. As such, it belongs to the state and its people.]

“Only cowards who hide behind their titles and so-called academic freedom do not say anything when their colleagues are being genocided in their name. You cannot be neutral in a genocide. There is only one side to the story of the United States, and that is indigenous people –that is the story that has to be told. There’s only one story when there’s an active genocide – the side of the perpetrators of that genocide is to be complicit in that genocide, so everything that the students have been doing has moved us as faculty, has moved us as staff, to stand in solidarity because you aren’t asking for anything radical. There’s this law. There’s this convention called the Human Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. ‘Prevention’ is the key operative word. What is the University of Minnesota doing to prevent genocide?

“It is not a radical position. We’re here to ask this university to adhere to normative human rights standards and to stand against genocide.

“So I want to thank all our courageous students. It’s beautiful. The struggle, the resistance is beautiful. It’s beautiful to see all the encampments going on across the United States.

Don’t let the media get it twisted. It’s not about encampments. It’s about stopping a genocide.

So stay strong. Be safe. And God bless us all.

Transcribed by Mary Beaudoin

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Stopping a Genocide While in College     

Reporting from Hamline University, St. Paul. What she was told by students is reflective of what is happening at colleges throughout the U.S. (Hamline students, to our knowledge, have thus far been spared the brutal eviction tactics by law enforcement that students at other universities have had to endure.)                           

by Kim DeFranco

Reporting from Hamline University, St. Paul. What she was told by students is reflective of what is happening at colleges throughout the U.S. (Hamline students, to our knowledge, have thus far been spared the brutal eviction tactics by law enforcement that students at other universities have had to endure.)           

On Friday April 26, Hamline students began an occupation of the Old Main Administration building housing administrative service offices including interim President Kathleen Murray’s office. The students wanted to send a strong and clear message that they needed to respond to the student government resolution passed on March 4: to acknowledge the ongoing genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza, disclose ties to companies and investments in Israel, and divest from them.

After negotiations, the students were allowed to remain in the building. Five students stayed and the rest went outside to continue to rally and begin the occupation both inside and outside. The students sent out a call for all others to come throughout the day on Saturday. Up to 100 people – students, neighbors, and community members – brought tents, blankets, and food to support the occupation. Later that night, the administration responded that they would meet with the students on Monday and said they would allow them to stay in the building. The building was covered by banners and signs supporting Palestine, along with many Palestinian flags, with one flag even hanging outside a second-story window.

Hamline University Student Occupation / April 27, 2024 /
Photo by Kim Franco

On Sunday, the administration stated that if they still wanted to meet, the students would have to leave the building. Hamline’s administration, presumably, did not want this occupation to be in the news.

Students decided to leave the building but remained on the lawn.

At Monday’s meeting, the president started by saying the same things that other college administrators across the country had said, “There are just different perspectives, it’s a contentious issue, it’s not something the university should address, we feel like you’re endangering the students’ safety and you’re making people uncomfortable, you didn’t have to do this.” She did acknowledge that their social justice values go against ethnic cleansing, genocide, and war. She made no commitments to do anything, but stated that they would investigate investments, talk to advisors, and maybe make a statement.

The next day, Tuesday morning, the president’s team called the Hamline Students for Justice (HSJ) into a meeting stating on her behalf that in order to send a message university-wide, they would have to end the encampment. June Gromis, member of HSJ, responded, “We said no because the university has not met our demands until they do. This encampment will continue.” The students stated that they are being “gaslighted,” not because they are in danger, but because the encampment is an eyesore for the university.

Kim DeFranco is a member of the Women Against Military Madness Newsletter Committee

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The resistance to genocide movement that is sweeping the country began at Columbia University in New York this past April. This student is addressing what is a nationwide effort to prevent students, for reasons of safety, from protesting.

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Don’t Believe What You’re Being Told About ‘Campus Antisemitism

by Jonathan Ben-Menachem / Zeteo / April 23, 2024 / tinyurl.com/9aupmjcw

As a Jewish student at Columbia, it depresses me that I have to correct the record and explain what the real risk to our safety looks like. I still can’t quite believe how the events on campus over the past few days have been so cynically and hysterically misrepresented by the media and by our elected representatives. Here’s what you’re not being told: The most pressing threats to our safety as Jewish students do not come from tents on campus. Instead, they come from the Columbia administration inviting police onto campus, certain faculty members, and third-party organizations that dox undergraduates. Frankly, I regret the fact that writing to confirm the safety of Jewish Ivy League students feels justified in the first place. I have not seen many pundits hand-wringing over the safety of my Palestinian colleagues  mourning the deaths of family members or the destruction of Gaza’s cherished universities. –Jonathan Ben-Menachem,

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