Brandeis University Bans ‘Students for Justice in Palestine’ Over ‘Open Support’ for Hamas

People walk by US and Israeli flags at Statler Park in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 18, 2023. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images)

Brandeis University, one of the nation’s most prominent Jewish-founded institutions, has banned the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) over the national group’s “open support” for Hamas.

Brandeis informed the student group on Monday that its recognition status has been revoked, meaning that it will no longer receive university funding, be allowed to conduct activities on campus, or use the university’s name in promoting itself.

“This decision was not made lightly, as Brandeis is dedicated to upholding free speech principles,” the Waltham, Massachusetts-based school said in a letter to the pro-Palestinian group. “However, those principles note that the freedom to debate and discuss ideas does not mean that individuals may say whatever they wish ... or that is otherwise directly incompatible with the functioning of the university.”

In the days following the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas, the national leadership of SJP issued statements glorifying Hamas terrorists as “liberation fighters” and placing the blame solely upon Israel for the lives lost in the reignited Middle Eastern conflict.

On Oct. 9, in a declaration of a “Day of Resistance,” the national SJP called on all “Palestinian students in exile” across the United States to demonstrate by “not just slogans and rallies, but armed confrontation with oppressors.” The call prompted many of SJP’s campus chapters to issue pro-Hamas statements dotted with incendiary anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Their armed attacks on Israeli civilians and voiced an increasingly radical call for confronting and “dismantling” Zionism on U.S. college campuses. Some SJP chapters issued pro-Hamas messaging and/or promoted violent anti-Israel messaging channels.

“The national SJP has called on its chapters to engage in conduct that supports Hamas in its call for the violent elimination of Israel and the Jewish people,” the letter continued. “These tactics are not protected by the University’s principles.”

Brandeis further warned that any student who chooses to “engage in conduct in support of Hamas,” whether individually or through organized activity, will be deemed a violator of the university’s student code of conduct.

“Students who wish to express their support for the rights of Palestinian civilians may form another student organization, through established procedures that complies with University policies,” it added.

As the most immediate result of the decision, the Brandeis SJP cancelled a “Vigil for Palestine” event that had been scheduled for Monday night.

The Brandeis SJP condemned the ban as “racist.”

“We recognized that such as decision is purely racist and goes against the values of Brandeis University, an organization that was built to fight racism in higher education,” it said.

SJP Ban Sparks Free Speech Debate

As a private institution, Brandeis is not directly bound by the First Amendment. However, it pledges to honor the spirit of the First Amendment, stating in its free speech policies that school has “a responsibility to encourage the airing of the widest range of political and scholarly opinions and to prevent attempts to shut down conversations, no matter what their topic.”

By stripping the SJP of its recognized student group status, Brandeis has broken that pledge, argued the non-profit First Amendment advocacy group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).

In a letter to Brandeis president Ronald Liebowitz, FIRE argued that the Brandeis SJP should not be punished for merely being under the national SJP umbrella.

“Brandeis appeared to have based its decision on the advocacy of the national SJP organization, punishing students for words they didn’t even say,” it wrote in Tuesday’s letter.

“While criminal conduct such as issuing true threats, incitement, or providing material support to terrorist groups is unprotected, there is no evidence these students have done anything other than engage in fully protected speech—even if it is speech many members of the Brandeis community find deeply offensive,” the group argued.

“De-recognition is the harshest form of punishment Brandeis can mete out on a student group, and imposing it here gravely contravenes Brandeis’ clear and legally binding promises to honor students’ expressive freedoms on campus.”

The debate comes as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tries to “deactivate” SJP across his state’s public university system.

Mr. DeSantis, who styles himself as the “most pro-Israel governor in America” and describes Florida as “the most pro-Israel state,” already has a record of outlawing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that supposedly seeks to impose economic pressure on Israel to change its Palestinian policies.

In defense of his advocacy of a university system-wide SJP ban, Mr. DeSantis said this is “not cancel culture.”

“This group, they themselves said in the aftermath of the Hamas attack that they don’t just stand in solidarity, that they are part of this Hamas movement,” the Republican governor said in an interview on NBC. “You have a right to go out and demonstrate, but you can’t provide material support to terrorism.”

“They’ve linked themselves to Hamas, and so we absolutely decertified them,” he continued. “They should not get one red cent of taxpayer dollars.”