#EDUCATION #UNIVERSITYOFMICHIGAN #BLACKLIST #REPRESSION #MANUFACTUREDANTISEMITISM #FREESPEECH #SAFE #SJP #BRANDEISUNIVERSITY #COLUMBIAUNIVERSITY
Galvin, Luke ‘University of Michigan Moves to Ban Local Chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine’ WSWS, 9 Nov 2024<< On Thursday evening, Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE UMich), the University of Michigan chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), posted a statement on its Instagram account and the national SJP X account announcing that the university had filed a complaint and was threatening to suspend SAFE as a student club. >>

"SAFE noted that the complaint marked the first-ever attempt by the University of Michigan administration to suspend a legacy organization at its Ann Arbor campus." ...

"This attack is bound up with a series of anti-democratic changes made by the UMich administration to its code of conduct. Earlier this year, the university administration unveiled changes to its policies that allow the university to file a complaint against a student or organization with practically no restrictions. This, in turn, followed the adoption of policies allowing the administration to ban any protest or gathering it deemed 'disruptive.' Additionally, the new conduct policies no longer guarantee an accused student or organization the right to request an appeals panel of students, faculty and staff, erasing due process."

"The threat to suspend SAFE at UMich is only the latest anti-democratic attempt to muzzle the opposition to US/Israeli genocide among workers and youth. In October 2023, Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts became the first private university to ban an SJP chapter from campus, based on fraudulent charges of antisemitism. The university libeled students opposing the Gaza genocide as celebrating 'the barbaric killing of Jews just because they are Jews.'"

"Just days later, Columbia University in New York followed Brandeis, banning its local SJP chapter alongside the Columbia chapter of the anti-Zionist Jewish student group, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). Far-right Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has also banned the SJP throughout the state university system." ...