Disruptive UNC anti-Israel activists offered plea deals
Thirty eight protesters who were involved in the school’s anti-Israel demonstration were offered plea deals, though some suggested they would push for all charges to be dropped.
‘We will keep fighting for UNC-Chapel Hill and other universities to end study-abroad programs in the apartheid state of so-called Israel,’ a statement on behalf of some of the protesters said.
Anti-Israel activists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill facing charges over disruptive conduct at a protest have been offered plea deals.
The 38 protesters involved in the case are facing misdemeanor charges, including trespassing and physically attacking a government official. All 38 now have the option to accept plea deals.
The protesters claim they are using a “collective defense strategy” to help those of the demonstrators who are facing more severe charges: “Collective defense entails that we reject the state’s ideas of fairness and justice, because we know what is right. We know what is just, and there is no justice here,” one of the anti-Israel activists said.
[RELATED: Israeli Prime Minister blasts Harvard, Penn, and MIT administrations over anti-Semitism in address to Congress]
Some of the demonstrators claim they want all charges against them dropped.
One protestor told WRAL News: “As we fight for our charges to be dropped, we remain focused on the goal of Palestinian liberation, and we hope to leverage our current situation to galvanize further support for our movement, showing the administration that their oppression will backfire.”
“We demand nothing less, but rather much, much more than for all our charges to be dropped unconditionally,” another protestor said Tuesday.
A statement on behalf of six of the activists who are charged with the most serious offenses seemed to question the legitimacy of Israel: “We will keep fighting for UNC-Chapel Hill and other universities to end study-abroad programs in the apartheid state of so-called Israel. We will keep fighting for them to stop buying and selling products manufactured by companies complicit in genocide. We will keep fighting for them to disclose, and we will keep fighting for them to divest!”
UNC-Chapel Hill students were not the only ones at the university who supported pro-Palestinian demonstrations during the spring 2024 semester.
[RELATED: UNC SJP blasts school for temporary suspension, alleging it is trying to ‘crush’ their ‘movement’]
This May, at least one professor at the university reportedly threatened to hold back the submission of students’ final grades in order to express their opposition to disciplinary measures handed out to disruptive anti-Israel protesters.
“In solidarity with these students, and to pressure the University Administration to reinstate the suspended students, I (along with many other faculty, teaching assistants, fellows, and graders across campus) have decided to withhold my reporting of final grades to the Registrar’s Office,” the professor wrote.
Campus Reform has contacted the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
