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Brown University suspends pro-Palestinian student group after ‘concerning behavior’ at protest
While some activities at the protest were appropriate, the university said, some participants banged on a vehicle, physically blocked a vehicle, and screamed profanities and a racial epithet at people.
Brown University suspended the university’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, the campus’s leading pro-Palestinian advocacy group, after an allegedly rowdy protest earlier this month, a spokesperson said Monday.
Students held a planned demonstration to protest the Corporation of Brown University’s decision to not divest from 10 companies that the Brown Divest Coalition, a student group, claimed facilitate “the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territory.”
The Ivy League university chose not to divest because Brown’s exposure “in these companies is so small that it could not be directly responsible for social harm,” leaders wrote.
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BDC and Brown SJP held a rally on Oct. 18, an event that was registered and planned with the university. In videos posted to Instagram by BDC, some students sang a gospel song calmly or chanted to “remember South Africa and remember Vietnam.” In another, the students are loudly surrounding a bus near university police officers.
While most of the protest followed community guidelines, the university said, there was also some “deeply concerning behavior.”
“These reports include banging on a vehicle carrying members of the community, physically blocking passage of a vehicle, screaming profanity at individuals at close and personal range, profanity and a racial epithet directed toward a person of color, and following and screaming at individuals while filming them,” wrote Russell Carey, the interim vice president for campus life.
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A spokesperson for the university said they launched a review into the protest and ordered Brown SJP to cease all activities pending the review.
“While Brown’s policies make clear that protest is a necessary and acceptable means of expression on campus, protest cannot interfere with the normal functions of the University, include intimidation or harassment of community members, or infringe on the rights of others,” spokesperson Brian Clark wrote.
BDC and Brown SJP wrote on Instagram that the university hired an external investigator “to surveil its students protesting against investments in genocide.”
“By debilitating the main organization committed to organizing for Palestinian liberation on this campus, the administration has made clear their commitment to the dehumanization and erasure of Palestinian life,” their statement said, in part. “However, we know that the administration’s campaign of bureaucratic violence will not silence or stifle our efforts to hold the institution accountable.”
Previously, Harvard University suspended the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee, a pro-Palestinian student group, for the remainder of the semester in April.
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