George Washington University suspends Jewish Voice for Peace chapter as colleges prepare for resurgence of Israel protests
Messages reading “Glory To Our Martyrs” and “Divestment From Zionist Genocide Now,” along with others, are projected onto the side of a building on George Washington University’s campus in Washington, D.C., Oct. 24, 2023. Photo by StopAntisemitism via X
(JTA) — George Washington University has suspended its chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace just days before the start of the new semester.
The private university in Washington, D.C. also suspended Students for Justice in Palestine and put six other pro-Palestinian student groups on probation, in a preemptive move that signals the school expects campus protests against the Israel-Hamas war to resume as students return to campus in the coming days.
The groups were temporarily suspended last fall after pro-Palestinian students projected inflammatory messages on campus buildings, including “Glory to our martyrs” and “Free Palestine From The River To The Sea,” weeks after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The school’s chapter of JVP, the anti-Zionist Jewish group, supported that protest and said on social media that it stood behind every message.
The new suspension means that the groups will not receive official university recognition, funding or any other forms of institutional support this semester. In the spring, they will go on probation and will have to seek permission to hold any on-campus events.
Multiple other universities have changed their policies around campus protests over the summer, anticipating future standoffs with pro-Palestinian groups as classes reopen with fighting ongoing in Gaza.
The suspended GWU groups, which frequently work together, shared news of the suspensions in an Instagram post on Monday and said they would not be deterred.
“GW administration may suspend our organizations and strip us of our funding, but they will never quell the student movement,” the student groups wrote on Instagram. They vowed to “return a hundred times stronger in the face of their repression.”
Neither GWU nor JVP’s national organization immediately returned a Jewish Telegraphic Agency request for comment.
But a university spokesperson told Jewish Insider that the school has “an obligation to address violations of university policy, and does so without regard to the content of the message those demonstrating seek to advance. It does so through a Code of Student Conduct that provides a fair review process that includes student peers.” The spokesperson would not specify what campus policy the groups had violated.
GWU is at least the second major university to suspend its JVP chapter since the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. Columbia University took a similar action last fall and renewed the suspension in the winter, months before it became the epicenter of the pro-Palestinian encampment movement. JVP has been a prominent force in the movement, often providing Jewish representation for a student movement whose calls to divest from Israel have been accused of veering into antisemitism.
GWU’s own encampment was cleared by D.C. police in May under pressure from Congress and some Jewish faculty.
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