Duke student group to hold event accusing Israel of 'Scholasticide,' ignoring Hamas use of human shields

A Duke University pro-Palestinian group will host an event this week condemning what they allege is Israel’s targeting of Palestinian teachers.

Duke Academics and Staff for Justice in Palestine (DASJP) is hosting a “STOP SCHOLASTICIDE” event on Friday, March 1, asking community members to “[j]oin us to grieve the killing of Palestinian educators and all victims of Israel’s war on Gaza” at Duke University’s campus at Durham, North Carolina, according to an Instagram post advertising the event. 

Asking faculty to dress “professor-y” or in their academic robes, the group plans to gather in front of the university’s West Duke Building, then proceed to the West campus chapel to hold a vigil outside the chapel building, the Instagram post related. 

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Other anti-Israel critics have used the term “scholasticide” before, which The Guardian defined in a 2009 article as “the systematic destruction by Israeli forces of centres of education dear to Palestinian society.”

Some have blamed Hamas for using “human shields,” intentionally placing weapons and military installations in or near high-density civilian areas, including schools. Hamas “can then hold the death toll against Israel while generating sympathy for itself,” according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. 

DASJP also promoted the event on their website, which also features a list of the group’s principles that identifies the group as “a democratic and plural collective of Duke academics and staff who support Palestinian liberation as Palestinians determine its contours.”

The principles list also states: “DASJP understands the struggle for Palestinian freedom to be aligned with anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements and struggles in many parts of the world, many of which were successful. These include indigenous land rights, workers’ rights, disability justice, Black liberation, gender and sexual freedom, youth liberation, and environmental struggles.”

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The list also affirms DASJP’s support and commitment for the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, a group that, while listing out guidelines of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement, has written: “As a general overriding rule, Israeli cultural institutions, unless proven otherwise, are complicit in maintaining the Israeli occupation and denial of basic Palestinian rights, whether through their silence or actual involvement in justifying, whitewashing or otherwise deliberately diverting attention from Israel’s violations of international law and human rights,” as seen on BDS’s website. 

DASJP’s principles page also claims the group “amplifies the work of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and other student groups at Duke and in the broader Triangle area.” Duke’s SJP chapter staged a “die-in” on campus this past November to condemn Israel, as noted on an Instagram post from the group. 

Campus Reform has reached out to DASJP, Duke University, and Duke’s SJP for comment. The article will be updated accordingly.