The University of Pittsburgh violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments when it suspended the school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine last month, according to a federal lawsuit filed on Tuesday against the school
The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. The complaint alleges that Pitt violated the Constitution’s prohibitions on restricting free speech when it placed the SJP chapter on an indefinite suspension last month after the group organized a letter condemning what it said was the university’s harassment of SJP.
“Recent actions taken by Pitt administrators to unconstitutionally muzzle pro-Palestinian speech have been pervasive and relentless.”
“Recent actions taken by Pitt administrators to unconstitutionally muzzle pro-Palestinian speech have been pervasive and relentless, and they have left us with no choice but to seek legal action,” Pitt’s SJP chapter said in a statement to The Intercept. “We hope that by lifting our suspension and ending ongoing disciplinary proceedings, this lawsuit will ensure that students’ constitutional rights to free speech and association are fully respected on campus.”
The suspension is an attack by the university on First Amendment rights, the SJP spokesperson said.
“The University of Pittsburgh’s decision to suspend our group for engaging in constitutionally-protected speech is a clear attack on student activism,” they continued. In suing the school, they said, student activists hope to set a precedent: “that universities cannot silence students because of their political views—especially those that challenge the role that our institutions play in advancing genocide abroad.”
“The First Amendment requires that public universities respect students’ right to engage in vigorous debate about important issues of the day. Pitt’s suspension of the club’s status and other interference with peaceful advocacy is unconstitutional retaliation,” ACLU of Pennsylvania legal director Witold Walczak said in a press release. “Pitt cannot constitutionally put its thumb on one side of the debate by harassing and chilling the pro-Palestinian students’ side of that important discussion.”
Pitt did not respond to a request for comment.
“Discourse and Dialogue”
The 2023-24 academic year was designated by Pitt as its first dedicated to the theme of “Discourse and Dialogue.” The school said it was more important than ever to foster an environment for the free exchange of ideas on campus and to celebrate diverse points of view.
“Our support for discourse and dialogue on our campus and our commitments to free speech are now even more in focus as we aim to engage across students, staff, and faculty on each of Pitt campuses,” the school wrote in a post announcing the theme.
Those claims are at odds with the school’s attacks on SJP, the group told The Intercept. The SJP spokesperson said university administrators had demonstrated a “striking double standard” in taking steps to punish the group for its speech while allowing pro-Israel groups on campus to harass and target pro-Palestine students.
“While other student groups enjoy full institutional support — even when their conduct escalates into real threats to the safety of our members — we have been met with surveillance, censorship, and punishment,” the SJP spokesperson told The Intercept. “In a clear violation of the First Amendment’s requirement of content neutrality, Pitt has unabashedly taken a side — exhausting all avenues available to them to suppress pro-Palestinian voices whilst simultaneously encouraging zionist, pro-Israeli speech.”
The spokesperson said that SJP members had been subjected to harassment by pro-Israel groups on campus, including one of which has worked with the far-right Zionist group Betar.
Betar has said it sent hundreds of names of students it wants deported to the White House and other federal agencies. The group has targeted Palestinian students, including Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi, in the lead-ups to their abductions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — and celebrated after the fact.
Last year, Betar posted a petition to ban SJP from Pitt’s campus to Instagram. The Pitt group Students Supporting Israel collaborated with Betar on the post and shared it to its own page, according to the lawsuit. The petition claims that SJP aligned itself with terrorist groups and promoted violence. Students Supporting Israel maintains a link to the petition on the LinkTree on its Instagram page.
#Pitt #Suspension #SJP #Chapter #Violates #Amendment #Lawsuit
