VICTORY: The First Circuit just ruled that pro-Palestinian slogans, encampments and criticism of Zionism is protected by the First Amendment -- tossing out a Zionist complaint targeting pro-Palestinian organizing at @MIT!
What the court found: Slogans such as From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, intifada revolution, and calling Israel's actions a genocide -- and more -- do not target Jewish or Israeli students on the basis of their identity...
.. but target Israel over its treatment of Palestinians.
The court also explicitly recognized what we've been saying all along: that criticizing Zionism is protected by the First Amendment and is not harassment, but political speech.
The court also explicitly declined to use the disputed IHRA definition of antisemitism:
What it means for campus protests: Courts can't punish universities for failing to censor or punish campus speech supporting Palestinian liberation, even if other students complain. Private universities should be emboldened to protect, not punish, their students' speech.
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VICTORY: Yesterday, a federal judge concluded the Trump admin "used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities, and did so in a way that runs afoul of the APA, the First Amendment and Title VI."
This echoes what we and others have said for years, that anti-Palestinian groups falsely and disingenuously leverage antisemitism as a smear to suppress political expression supporting Palestinian rights and liberation.
In June, Palestine Legal filed a "friend of the court" brief on behalf of Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee.
Our brief contested both the Trump admin's unlawful demands of Harvard as well as Harvard’s discrimination against Palestinian students: palestinelegal.org/news/2025/6/10…
In Harvard's lawsuit trying to restore $3 billion in federal funding cut by the Trump administration, Palestine Legal is contesting both Trump's unlawful demands of Harvard, as well as Harvard’s discrimination against Palestinian students and their allies.
We filed a "friend of the court" brief representing our client, the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC), which Harvard has suspended and sanctioned.
The Trump administration cut Harvard's federal funding based on the false pretense that the university fostered a "hostile environment of antisemitism" by allowing students to speak out against Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
THREAD: Today, the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing to call for investigations into the First Amendment protected activities of university students who courageously organized for over 15 months to bring an end to Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Today's Senate hearing relies on the false conflation of support for Palestinian rights with antisemitism. This conflation allows for anti-Palestinian and anti-democratic actors to pretend to care about Jewish safety, while they really silence advocates for Palestinian freedom.
After Trump's executive order targeting college student advocates for Palestinian rights, this hearing is another step towards implementing the Heritage Foundation’s Project Esther, a blueprint for destroying progressive movements beginning with the Palestinian rights movement.
THREAD: In a dangerous escalation of repression, New York University (@nyuniversity) announced new student conduct policies last week that appear to prohibit criticism of Zionism. Here’s what you need to know.
If implemented, these policies risk creating a hostile environment for Palestinian and anti-Zionist Jewish students and severely curtail the free expression of all students.
The policy directly conflates Zionism and Judaism by stating that the former is a “code word” for the latter. It goes on to treat Zionism as a protected class on its own—a status afforded to no other political ideology. nyu.edu/students/stude…
Today, the heads of UCLA, Rutgers and Northwestern testified in yet another McCarthyite congressional hearing over the Gaza Solidarity encampments and the speech activity of students and faculty advocating for Palestinian rights on campus (🧵)
These McCarthyist witch-hunts in the form of congressional hearings have justified state and institutional repression targeting students and faculty for protesting an ongoing genocide that has killed over 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
Together with a tsunami of other attacks on Palestine advocacy groups, these hearings are one piece of large-scale witch-hunts and fishing expeditions by right-wing electeds and Zionist groups to crack down on a justice movement.
🚨 BREAKING: Today @EDcivilrights announced @Columbia is under federal investigation for anti-Palestinian racism, including by inviting NYPD officers in riot gear to arrest Palestinian and associated students protesting Israel’s genocide in Gaza. 🧵
Palestine Legal is representing four students and the student group @ColumbiaSJP, who have all been the target of anti-Palestinian discrimination and harassment by fellow students, professors, and/or Columbia administrators.
This comes less than 48 hours after Columbia President Shafik called in the NYPD, which violently arrested and brutalized dozens of student protestors, some with guns drawn, using sledgehammers, batons, and flash-bang explosives. theintercept.com/2024/05/01/nyc…