Anti-Israel activists at the University of Chicago recently gathered to protest university administrators for not implementing a “Gaza Scholars at Risk” program.
The Chicago Maroon reports that on Dec. 3, 100 demonstrators led by Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) protested President President Paul Alivisatos and Provost Provost Katherine Baicker; the two university officials were said to have been meeting with the school’s Council of the University Senate.
Demonstrators reportedly chanted, sang songs, and listened to speeches outside while the university officials met inside Stuart Hall.
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”The University of Chicago is invested materially, symbolically and otherwise in the US-Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza,” the faculty group posted to Instagram ahead of the demonstration. “The University must divest from the Israeli state and all international weapons manufacturers, withdraw all disciplinary cases against students, and institute the Gaza Scholars at Risk Initiative now!”
In a separate post, FSJP wrote that, “During the encampment this spring, the University of Chicago made a written commitment to announce and implement the Gaza Scholars at Risk Initiative to suppory [sic] scholars devastated by the US-Israeli genocide and scholasticide of Palestinians in Gaza.”
Following the protest, FSJP doubled down on its calls for the university to implement the initiative, claiming that the school was failing to honor its commitment.
”During the encampment, student negotiations with the administration resulted in a written commitment from the University of Chicago to announce and establish a Gaza Scholars at Risk Initiative,” FJP’s website states. “More than six months later, the University has done nothing to honor this commitment and has repeatedly attempted to gaslight students, faculty, and staff into believing it was never really made.”
”The University’s refusal to announce and implement the Gaza Scholars at Risk Initiative — like its refusal to acknowledge that a single university in Gaza has been bombed — betrays its own professed commitment to defending free expression ‘throughout the world’ and to ‘supporting the global academic community in times of great need,’” the group adds. “The University’s refusal to announce and implement this agreement must be seen against the backdrop of the escalating US-Israeli genocide and scholasticide in Gaza — in which this University administration is materially and ideologically complicit.”
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In statements made to The Chicago Maroon, a university official specified that “the Scholars at Risk program at the University of Chicago has been mischaracterized” and that the initiative “remains focused on supporting scholars at risk and upholding the University’s commitment to academic freedom.”
The Maroon also reports that a university spokesman stated that a “scholar” “impacted by the conflict in Gaza” is set to teach soon on campus. However, FSJP rejects the validity of the program because the individual is from the West Bank and not Gaza.
This article was originally published at campusreform.org
