Rutgers New Brunswick SJP gets one year suspension for pro-Hamas encampment
Rutgers University’s New Brunswick campus recently suspended its chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which hosted an anti-Israel encampment protest during the spring semester.
The suspension will reportedly last throughout the 2024–2025 school year, and is tentatively scheduled to go until July 4, 2025.
Rutgers University’s New Brunswick campus recently suspended its chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which hosted an anti-Israel encampment protest during the spring semester.
The encampment at the New Brunswick campus lasted four days and postponed more than two dozen final exams.
The suspension will reportedly last throughout the 2024–2025 school year, and is tentatively scheduled to go until July 4, 2025.
SJP violated university policies by “disrupting final exams and university operations and failing to comply with university directives,” a Rutgers spokesperson said.
Earlier this month, Rutgers-New Brunswick’s SJP chapter posted to Instagram in honor of a “Palestinian-Gazan Martyr,” after whom the group wants to name its Arab Cultural Center.
“Rutgers University policy does not allow us to honor our Palestinian-Gazan Martyr, Refaat AlAreer, as we open our Arab cultural center soon in the Fall,” the group stated on Aug. 12. “We call on Rutgers University to allow the naming of the Arab cultural center after Refaat AlAreer.”
“We, the Students for Justice in Palestine and the future students of the Arab Cultural Center, reject this corrupt practice,” the post concluded. “From now until forever our Arab Cultural Center will be named after him: the AlAreer Center for Arab Life (ACAL).”
Pro-Palestinian protesters at Rutgers’ Newark campus had set up an encampment that lasted for more than a month.
“From the encampment’s beginning over a month ago, Rutgers-Newark leaders engaged with the protestors about their concerns in good faith through a series of meetings over the first couple of weeks,” a Rutgers spokesperson said at the time the encampment was closed.
“We met every one of their requests regarding the conditions and terms of negotiations, provided them every reasonable opportunity to be heard, and provided earnest, substantive, and productive responses to a large majority of their concerns,” the spokesperson continued.
In an agreement with pro-Palestinian demonstrators, the Rutgers administration promised to “implement support for 10 displaced Palestinian students to finish their education,” establish an Arab Cultural Center, and “revisit and follow up” on a partnership with Birzeit University in Ramallah.
Birziet University has been the center of multiple controversies. Following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack against Israel, Birzeit accused Israel of “genocide,” and encouraged other schools to “take concrete action to stop the genocidal war against the Palestinian people and to end Israeli settler colonialism in Palestine.”
Campus Reform has contacted Rutgers University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
