Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

After BDS Event Controversy, Brooklyn College Issues Guidelines

The president of Brooklyn College distributed public events guidelines formulated in the wake of the ejection of four pro-Israel students from a boycott Israel event last year.

Among the guidelines distributed to staff on Friday by Karen Gould was a requirement that event organizers must be affiliated with Brooklyn College.

“The students were removed from the event based upon allegations by Carlos Guzman, an event organizer not affiliated with Brooklyn College, that the students were being disruptive and passing out flyers,” Gould said in a memo to staff describing the events at the Students for Justice in Palestine forum on Feb. 7, 2013 advocating the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.

“As I stated last spring in a campus-wide communication, based upon the findings of a two-month CUNY investigation of what occurred and interviews with more than 40 witnesses, Mr. Guzman’s allegations proved to be false,” she said, referring to the probe by the City University of New York system.

The guidelines also make clear that diverse political viewpoints should be welcome at events, as long as there is no disruptive behavior.

“It seems to me likely that Mr. Guzman sought the removal of these four students from the event because they held viewpoints contrary to those being promoted by the SJP,” Gould said.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.