GWU Bans Pro-Palestinian Group

[Anonymous]

First reported in GWU's campus paper: https://gwhatchet.com/2023/11/14/gw-suspends-sjp-for-three-months-after-anti-israel-library-demonstration/

And apparently today there was a protest of the students against the banning, with support from a lot of the different minority groups on campus (Muslim Student Association, Asian-American Student Association, some group known as Black Defiance, etc.): https://twitter.com/cade_mcallister/status/1724898718460358928

Say what you want about the war and your position on it, but it doesn't seem to me to be acceptable to attack people's free speech rights over the issue, with the implied threat of a possible expulsion of some of these students were they not to comply with the ban. Especially if this quote from the article is accurate, it seems that the university has a duty to allow for the speech especially if they are trying to comply with the proper guidelines.

The representative said at the time that SJP worked to ensure their display was compliant with GW policy but felt officials had suppressed SJP’s message, regardless of whether or not their demonstrations followed policy.

[Anonymous]

Good for GWU.

[Anonymous]

GWU has not done much right lately, such as bowing to the woke crowd and getting rid of the Colonials moniker, but this they are getting right.

A broken clock moment perhaps but hopefully the first step in the right direction.

[Anonymous]

It would be fine so long as they were consistent about their policies. Alas…

https://president.gwu.edu/message-regarding-posters-displayed-campus

[Anonymous]

Columbia banned pro-Palestinian student groups, too. It’s pretty shocking to see this type of censorship on college campuses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Columbia banned pro-Palestinian student groups, too. It’s pretty shocking to see this type of censorship on college campuses.

It seems that different schools have historically different codes when it comes to free speech. Columbia and GWU for example have historically been very censorship oriented at even the hint of anti-semitism but quite tolerant of everything else.

Many of the classic “liberal” campuses that have made the news over the past few years have been the opposite, in terms of definition and general intolerance of perceived “hate speech” that also typically allows for some anti-semitism.

[Anonymous]

OP you really think projecting "“Glory to our martyrs" about the Hamas terrorists is okay for all the other students to have to see? This is hate speech and it's fine for a college to disallow it. What if it was targeting a different minority group? A private college is not the government subject to the First Amendment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good for GWU.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP you really think projecting "“Glory to our martyrs" about the Hamas terrorists is okay for all the other students to have to see? This is hate speech and it's fine for a college to disallow it. What if it was targeting a different minority group? A private college is not the government subject to the First Amendment.

GWU has a history of being quite trigger happy about anti-semitism. For example, they once suspended but then later canceled the suspension of a Jewish student for display of a souvenir Hindu swastika.
https://www.thefire.org/cases/george-washington-university-jewish-student-suspended-displaying-souvenir-indian-swastika

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Columbia banned pro-Palestinian student groups, too. It’s pretty shocking to see this type of censorship on college campuses.

LOL. If you think squishy ivory tower administrators restricting open parades in favor of terrorists and suggesting Jewish students shouldn’t be beaten is “shocking”, you’re in for a hell of a ride.

Regular people are done with the CRT, anti-colonialist, fake lefty revolutionary crap. For a while it was sort of cute, in a vaguely pathetic way… like your precocious younger sibling getting into music for the first time. But it’s over now. The leaders of this crap are legitimately sick and should be deported; but the country is collectively waking up to the absolute rot among the young, casual left that those people have wrought.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP you really think projecting "“Glory to our martyrs" about the Hamas terrorists is okay for all the other students to have to see? This is hate speech and it's fine for a college to disallow it. What if it was targeting a different minority group? A private college is not the government subject to the First Amendment.

From GW SJP: https://www.instagram.com/p/CzDPuoRsfVm/?img_index=5

In Arabic, we refer to each of those killed at the hands of the oppressor as a "shaheed" or "martyr", its literal translation meaning "witness." Martyrs are witnesses to the crimes through which they were killed....
We honor our murdered families and loved ones as martyrs because we refuse to allow their deaths to simply be tragedies. We call them martyrs to honor them with dignity, to make clear to the world that every Palestinian civilian slaughtered by the Zionist regime dies a hero, a witness, a martyr in the struggle towards the future liberation of our people

We can say that maybe they could have chosen better language, but again they eventually took down the projections and complied with the GWPD when it became clear that it was considered against school policy (although seemingly arbitrarily, given the link shared by the other poster above with regards to anti-China posters). And it's true that technically the first amendment doesn't apply at private universities, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't value the principle of free speech and freedom of expression anyways. And again, even if we want to say that GW should disallow projections of that sort, that doesn't mean that they should ban the entire group and threaten its members with expulsion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP you really think projecting "“Glory to our martyrs" about the Hamas terrorists is okay for all the other students to have to see? This is hate speech and it's fine for a college to disallow it. What if it was targeting a different minority group? A private college is not the government subject to the First Amendment.

From GW SJP: https://www.instagram.com/p/CzDPuoRsfVm/?img_index=5

In Arabic, we refer to each of those killed at the hands of the oppressor as a "shaheed" or "martyr", its literal translation meaning "witness." Martyrs are witnesses to the crimes through which they were killed....
We honor our murdered families and loved ones as martyrs because we refuse to allow their deaths to simply be tragedies. We call them martyrs to honor them with dignity, to make clear to the world that every Palestinian civilian slaughtered by the Zionist regime dies a hero, a witness, a martyr in the struggle towards the future liberation of our people

We can say that maybe they could have chosen better language, but again they eventually took down the projections and complied with the GWPD when it became clear that it was considered against school policy (although seemingly arbitrarily, given the link shared by the other poster above with regards to anti-China posters). And it's true that technically the first amendment doesn't apply at private universities, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't value the principle of free speech and freedom of expression anyways. And again, even if we want to say that GW should disallow projections of that sort, that doesn't mean that they should ban the entire group and threaten its members with expulsion.

When you couple this with reports of hate crimes against Muslim students on campus that have not resulted in any official reaction, it is quite clear where GW stands.

I personally don’t have any issue with this, however it would be nice if schools would do more to provide full disclosure so that students can have better information about what to expect before applying.

However, in the case of GW I don’t have a lot of sympathy. It’s an egregiously expensive, mediocre school and I’m not sure why anyone would make the decision to attend as an undergraduate.

If someone decides to attend an REIT that has a strategic tax arbritrage by running a mediocre university that’s all on them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good for GWU.

+1

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Columbia banned pro-Palestinian student groups, too. It’s pretty shocking to see this type of censorship on college campuses.

LOL. If you think squishy ivory tower administrators restricting open parades in favor of terrorists and suggesting Jewish students shouldn’t be beaten is “shocking”, you’re in for a hell of a ride.

Regular people are done with the CRT, anti-colonialist, fake lefty revolutionary crap. For a while it was sort of cute, in a vaguely pathetic way… like your precocious younger sibling getting into music for the first time. But it’s over now. The leaders of this crap are legitimately sick and should be deported; but the country is collectively waking up to the absolute rot among the young, casual left that those people have wrought.

+2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good for GWU.[/quo

+1