UNC SJP blasts school for temporary suspension, alleging it is trying to 'crush' their 'movement'
Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of North Carolina claim the school is trying to resist 'Palestinian liberation' by suspending their chapter.
'The movement for Palestinian liberation on campus is not going anywhere,' the group wrote on Instagram.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine is lashing out online, claiming the school banned the group as part of a “crusade” meant to “crush the movement for Palestinian liberation on campus.”
The SJP chapter made an Instagram post on July 11 claiming that UNC administrators are attempting to “suppress our movement by waging a multi-front disciplinary crusade against us.”
The group affirmed that it is “steadfast” in its “commitment to resistance.” “The movement for Palestinian liberation on campus is not going anywhere,” the activist group added.
Claiming that UNC has used “[b]rutal police force to crush the movement for Palestinian liberation on campus,” the group made additional claims that the school is “trying to litigate SJP out of existence with arbitrary charges and frivolous disciplinary procedures, aiming to silence students and stifle pro-Palestinian activism.”
One day after the SJP chapter claimed that it had been banned from campus, it uploaded an additional post to its Instagram profile that acknowledged that the university police department had obtained a search warrant to investigate an incident in which the campus was defaced with red paint—symbolizing blood—after a protest organized by the student group.
Kevin Best, a senior director of media relations at UNC, told Campus Reform that the SJP chapter was suspended “on an interim basis while the student conduct process considers allegations of violations of University policies,” and that “[a]s of July 17, the SJP campus chapter remains suspended.”
Taking aim at an emergency committee that suspended the SJP on May 1, the group called the committee’s description of the SJP as a “danger” to students on campus as “ridiculous.”
“The only danger to the student body that week were cops in riot gear assaulting students in the quad and admin throwing baseless charges at groups protesting genocide,” said the SJP in its July 11 post.
The group also claimed that UNC administration is “abusing its disciplinary procedures,” and that “[t]hese show trials adjudicated by the same people suppressing our organizing, are a sham meant to legitimize the university’s blatant persecution of the movement.”
The SJP chapter also claimed that UNC’s ban on the pro-Hamas group is a “crackdown on our rights to protest,” and that “they [the university] pursue only one thing: a relentless commitment to genocide.”
Campus Reform has contacted the UNC Police for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
