BREAKING: We initiated a discrimination complaint against George Washington U. (@GWtweets) for canceling university trauma services for Palestinians this past spring after a pro-Israel group falsely alleged that doing so was anti-Jewish. palestinelegal.org/news/2021/11/1…
The story just broke at @JewishCurrents, which details how GW's Office of Advocacy & Support provided services to Asian, Black, and Jewish students (among other groups), but canceled advertised services for Palestinian students after pressure from admin.
jewishcurrents.org/george-washing…
jewishcurrents.org/george-washing…
“Palestinians at GW deserve to access the same services as any other student here," said GW employee Nada Elbasha. "To have high-level administrators cancel our support programming was a shocking declaration that GW does not care about its Palestinian students.”
"To deny Palestinians support because their pain is politically inconvenient is not just wrong, it’s illegal, said Palestine Legal senior staff attorney @radhikasainath.
@GWtweets acknowledged the complaint on Nov. 15, which was filed and shared with the university on Nov. 8.
@GWtweets acknowledged the complaint on Nov. 15, which was filed and shared with the university on Nov. 8.
The complaint was brought by Nada Elbasha, who works in GW’s Office of Advocacy & Support. Elbasha and her colleagues noticed that students appeared to be impacted by Israel’s forced expulsion of Palestinians in Jerusalem and its killing of hundreds in the Gaza Strip.
The Office of Advocacy & Support thought that offering a processing space for Palestinians would help, as it had when other communities were impacted by trauma or violence.
Within 24 hours of advertising a virtual processing space on Instagram, high-level GW officials, including a representative from the Board of Trustees and the President’s Office, held an emergency meeting with OAS and directed the office to cancel the event and remove the post.
The GW student group Students Against Sexual Assault had similarly offered trauma support for Palestinian students on Instagram and was also directed to remove their post. GW's message: providing support to Palestinians is harmful to Jewish students.
GW has since initiated an “audit” of OAS, which is no longer allowed to post to social media or communicate with professors on behalf of students.
GW came under fire for anti-Palestinian discrimination in 2015, when campus police ordered a Palestinian student to remove a Palestinian flag from his window, while other flags were undisturbed. We intervened and the university backed down. palestinelegal.org/news/2015/12/1…
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