US professors face discipline and investigations over Palestine support: Universities such as Columbia and Princeton punish educators for posts and comments criticizing war in Gaza

Signs calling for the MIT to cut ties with Israel are seen at a protest encampment in support of Palestine in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on 28 April. Photograph: Amanda Sabga/Reuters

“Reports of professors being investigated and disciplined for speech about the war are disturbing. The purpose of universities is to stimulate debate, including on controversial topics,” said Ramya Krishnan, senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

“It severely undermines that purpose when universities act as roving censors that can punish faculty’s private political speech. Professors should be able to speak as citizens without retaliation except in the rarest of circumstances – that is, unless their speech compromises their ability to do their jobs.”   ... READ MORE    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/24/university-professors-discipline-palestine-support 

 [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

Razia Iqbal: I teach democracy at Princeton. Student protesters are getting an education like no other- Students across the US are forging bonds in the face of brutal power structures. You might say they’ve already won

 "What’s clear in this international, student-led movement that continues to defy college and state authorities in the face of arrest and expulsion is that it has also energized many academics in support of their students. The American Iraqi novelist and scholar Sinan Antoon, an associate professor at NYU, arrested on 23 April, told me: “Make no mistake, this is a wake-up call for all citizens: the erosion of citizens’ rights, the surveillance state and the violation of academic freedom. The exceptionality of this country is being challenged. The protests are the best thing to have happened in years. I have never been prouder of my students, their morality, their decency, protesting against the killing of children.”"

‘You don’t have to agree with everything or anything they are standing for, but if you believe in democracy, surely you believe in their right to stand for it.’ Photograph: Craig Ruttle/AP

I teach democracy at Princeton. Student protesters are getting an education like no other

Razia Iqbal

 

Students across the US are forging bonds in the face of brutal power structures. You might say they’ve already won

Teaching an undergraduate class on democracy at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs this semester has felt urgent and clarifying. In the classroom, we’ve been looking at backsliding and the slow corrosion of democratic norms in so-called democratic countries. Meanwhile, what’s been happening outside the classroom in more than 120 universities around the US and the world tells us a more ominous story about democracy.

For two weeks, we focused on the United States... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/article/2024/may/04/university-protests-democracy-faculty-princeton

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

Hanan Ashrawi: "We deserve our freedom, we deserve our state"

"We need a solution before it's too late."
http://www.nj.com/news/times/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-22/1301204712319710.xml&coll=5

'We deserve our freedom, we deserve our state

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Lauren Zumbach

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

PLO spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi warned recently that failure to reach a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could "destroy the chance for peace everywhere."

Speaking Tuesday to students and faculty at Princeton University's McCosh Hall, Ashrawi argued that Arab regimes have used Palestine's occupation as an excuse to focus on militarization at the expense of development, suppressing democratic forces throughout the region.

"In the absence of any solution it is not just the Palestinians who will suffer, Israel will suffer as well," Ashrawi said. "If the official Israeli policy of biding time continues, they are sacrificing the strategic objective of peace for narrow short-term gains and doing the Israeli people great injustice," she said....READ MORE