Open Letter to the CU Administration Regarding CU Boulder Students for Justice Palestine

On October 3rd, members of CU Boulder Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) held a nonviolent protest at a Lockheed Martin campus recruiting event, to call out the company’s complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. CU responded by calling Homeland Security on the protesters, suspending two of the involved students, and de-registering SJP as a campus organization.

The following open letter has been sent to the CU Administration:

Dear CU Boulder Administration,

The Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center is writing to express our deep concern regarding the suppression of students exercising their first amendment right to free speech. We are also concerned about the very apparent double-standards being applied to students, regarding which types of speech and expression are considered acceptable and unacceptable. 

Over the last year, our staff and members have attended events on the CU Boulder campus promoting freedom for Palestine, and we have witnessed nothing but kindness and compassion from these student organizers and demonstrators. Conversely, we have also witnessed and personally experienced harassment and hate speech from student counter-protesters. We have heard deeply concerning reports from CU's Arab, Muslim and pro-Palestine students (many of whom are Jewish), who have faced bullying and harassment from their peers, which has gone unaddressed and unacknowledged time and again by campus security and administration. We condemn all forms of bigotry and hate speech, and we believe the CU administration needs to do a much more proactive job of making their Arab, Muslim, and pro-Palestine students feel safe and protected from hate speech.

We have had the honor and privilege of working with the Students for Justice in Palestine, and can sincerely say that the students have displayed immense courage, strength, compassion, and resolve in their unending advocacy for the victims of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. 

Academic institutions are meant to be spaces where independent thought and free speech are upheld. Historically, student movements for justice have faced silencing and oppression by their academic institutions, only to be found time and again to be on the correct side of history. We have no doubt the student movement for justice in Palestine will be remembered for their moral integrity, in spite of the harsh treatment they continue to receive by the University of Colorado and many of their peers. 

Since 1983, the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center has worked in the Boulder community to oppose war, oppression, and international human rights violations. We recognize that all struggles for justice are interconnected and interdependent. 

Lockheed Martin, as a significant player in the military industrial complex, has contributed to some of the most horrific war crimes and crimes against humanity that the world has witnessed. In the face of such a horrific legacy, it is entirely understandable that students would feel compelled to call out these abuses, and to discourage fellow students from seeking a career in such an institution. The students exercised their free speech in a nonviolent manner, as is their first amendment right. These students should be applauded for their courage, not punished. 

We hope you, the CU Administration, will stand on the moral side of history, uphold the students' rights to free speech, revoke the suspension for the students in question, reinstate the campus organization status for Students for Justice in Palestine, and allow CU students the freedom and opportunity to resist one of the most horrific human rights abuses of our time. 

Sincerely, 

The Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center Staff and Spokes Council 

Giselle Herzfeld, Chris Allred, Betty Ball, Sergio Atallah, and Jim Nelson