Dive Brief:
- A Northeastern University student group that advocates for Palestinian human rights has been suspended after distributing mock eviction notices to student dorm rooms.
- Northeastern says the group was suspended for disregarding school rules, in addition to not getting permission to distribute the fliers. Students for Justice in Palestine, backed by the ACLU, says the university is infringing on its free speech rights.
- Two students from the group are also facing university disciplinary hearings, though they probably won’t be suspended or expelled, according to the Boston Globe.
Dive Insight:
If this is framed as a free speech case, Northeastern can’t come out looking good. Students in the group slid 600 mock eviction notices under dorm room doors to illustrate the plight of Palestinians facing forced evictions by the Israeli government. The list of other transgressions by Students for Justice in Palestine included disrupting other student group events, failing to attend student organization leadership council meetings and vandalizing a university statue of a trustee. Also, the group was on probation because it didn’t get a demonstration permit from the university before staging a walkout at a presentation by Israeli soldiers. Besides the ACLU, aligned with the student group are the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Lawyers Guild, and Jewish Voice for PeaceBoston, which opposes Israel’s West Bank occupation. Plus, the group has more than 4,400 signatures on a petition calling for its reinstatement. The campus Jewish group Hillel criticized the leaflet distribution as “a campaign of intimidation and fear.” The earliest that the group could be reinstated would be the start of 2015, according to the university.
