Statement for Palestinian Liberation and for the Freedom of Expression at the University of Rochester
On April 27th, the University of Rochester banned a fellow graduate worker and member of our Organizing Committee from all university properties just for expressing herself. We, the GSC Organizing Committee, unequivocally stand with her. This ban is one of many bans targeting peaceful students, workers, and community members. In order to target students and intimidate organizers, the university has employed private investigators and security contractors, unnecessarily escalating tensions on campus. Now, the university has suspended students for violating their strikingly inconsistent and ever-changing rules and policies – and blocking these same students’ degree progress.
These bans and suspensions are just one example of the University of Rochester’s seven months of blatant intimidation and suppression of students, workers, and community members. In official communications the university has painted nonviolent chants at peaceful protests as calls for violence. The university has also arbitrarily changed protest and vigil policies multiple times to make it easier to repress these actions. Student organizers, many of whom are people of color, have been bombarded with threats. A student was violently arrested at a peaceful gathering that was not a protest and is still facing charges.
We stand with SJP, especially in their assertion of their right to peaceful protest and assembly: a right which all students and organizations on campus possess, embodying the freedom of expression that underpins any healthy intellectual community. As students invested in labor organizing– a movement whose foundation is built upon a long history of principled resistance – we are deeply concerned about the chilling effect these and future moves by the university may have on our own work.
Signed,
Graduate Student Collective Organizing Committee
Statement From Our Parent Union SEIU on Campus Protest Crackdowns
SEIU represents nearly 100,000 educators, graduate student employees, professional and support and contract staff who work at colleges and universities across the nation. We are the workers who help make colleges and universities run. We are the faculty, administrative staff, graduate workers, resident assistants, librarians, cafeteria workers, janitorial staff, maintenance crew and others who play critical roles educating and supporting campus communities and providing safe and clean campuses.
The suppression of free speech sets a dangerous precedent for all who seek justice, whether it’s students calling for institutional accountability or workers organizing for better conditions on the job.
As campuses around the United States are erupting in protest over the horrors and injustice Palestinians are facing, SEIU proudly stands in solidarity with the students, faculty and staff exercising their right to speak up. We condemn the silencing of democratic protest on college campuses, just as we condemn antisemitism, Islamophobia and hatred in all its forms.