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Take Action: Defend Freedom of Speech
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Defend Freedom of Speech, Academic Freedom and Campus Organizing
Join IJAN in defending the rights of students and professors to learn about, teach about and organize for justice in Palestine.
Congratulations
to Northeastern University – Students for Justice in Palestine for
their reinstatement after having being wrongfully suspended.
The Palestine solidarity movement has and will continue to successfully defend ourselves against attempts to censor our freedom of speech and anti-racist organizing. Take Action
Despite ongoing attempts to quash the
speech of faculty and students alike, the campus movement for justice
in Palestine has gone from strength to strength. It has passed
divestment resolutions in student assemblies at the University of
Michigan-Dearborn and Loyola, successfully organized to reinstate Students for Justice in Palestine at Northeastern University, gathered professors to defend the American Studies Association landmark endorsement of the academic boycott, won endorsement of the Asian American Studies Association and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. Campus organizers have incrementally built the level of struggle while facing attacks, as with the Students
Allied for Freedom and Equality’s inspiring sit-ins at University of
Michigan-Ann Arbor which forced their student government to vote on
their boycott resolution.
Israel’s defenders, aware that
their longstanding attempt to control public opinion is faltering, are
investing over $300 million in propaganda, surveillance, and repressive
litigation in attempts to silence solidarity with Palestine by making
false accusations of antisemitism.
By now, the pattern of
institutional muzzling of voices advocating for an open hearing for the
Palestinian cause is unmistakable: Northeastern University with its
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) suspended until the movement
forced its reinstatement, NYU falsely accused of anti-Semitism
for distributing home demolition orders to highlight the destruction of
Palestinian homes by the State of Israel, Florida Atlantic University
students forced into re-education programs, a call for the removal of Palestinian professor Rabab Abdulhadi at San Francisco State University,
and University of California-Irvine students facing state charges for
voicing opposition to the presence of state apologists following the
brutal 2008-2009 assault on the Gaza Strip.
Coordinating the charge against the
growing support for justice in Palestine is the Israel Action Network
(IAN), a strategic initiative of the Jewish Federations of North America
and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, launched in October 2010
with an initial three-year, $6 million investment.
A sister project, the national
Israeli Campus Coalition, is a national network of students, faculty and
professionals dedicated to combating Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions
(BDS), tracking “anti-Israel” organizing on campus and coordinating an
"early warning system" to alert campus constituents and national
partners about anti-Israel activity. They recruit, train and resource
campus activists – students and faculty – and organizations to carry out
the goal of silencing any criticism of Israel or support for the
Palestinian struggle by every available means.
This agenda threatens many things
people of conscience hold dear: free speech, academic freedom, the
sanctity of universities as places of anti-racist organizing,
self-determination of oppressed peoples, and ethnic studies.
Join us in encouraging campus
administrators to protect these strongholds of freedom and justice and
protect students, professors and faculty from this bullying.
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| International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network Argentina :: Canada :: England :: Europe :: India :: Israel :: United States ijan@ijsn.net :: www.ijsn.net © International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network | ||
May 01, 2014
IJAN: Defend Freedom of Speech, Academic Freedom and Campus Organizing
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