On Sept. 17, The University of Maryland (UMD) chapter of the Student Justice for Palestine (SJP) sued UMD, university president Darryll Pines and the University System of Maryland Board of Regents. SJP accused UMD of violating their First Amendment rights by canceling a vigil SJP had planned honoring everyone that has died in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7. The vigil was scheduled for the one year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack, the attack that killed over 1,200 Israelis and took 250 innocent Israeli’s hostage.
According to the Washington Post, The Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a lawsuit in the US District Court in Maryland on behalf of the UMD chapter of SJP, claiming that the university canceled the event after complaints from Jewish groups that a demonstration would be painful for mourning students. The plaintiff is arguing that this decision amounts to censorship.
UMD, our state university and the school that 17 CESJDS students from last year are attending, feels very close to home, for such a polarizing issue to be taking place.
This entire lawsuit is disturbing to me, not only because it is at my state university, so close to my home and a place that 17 of last year’s seniors are attending this year, but because I find the reasoning unsound.
That SJP is using the fact that they, along with the Jewish groups on campus, are not able to host an event on the anniversary date of the attack that killed more Jews in one day since the Holocaust, feels like an incredibly inappropriate grounds to take such a stand. While SJP should be allowed to honor the death toll that the war has taken on the Gazan people, something that I am deeply saddened by as well, it is frankly disrespectful for them to choose this day to attempt to host this event.
Further, for them to sue with the claim that UMD is infringing on their First Amendment rights seems questionable to me. According to The Diamondback, UMD’s independent student newspaper, Pines sent a campus-wide email on Sept. 1 announcing the university system’s decision to limit demonstrations on Oct. 7 to university-sponsored events only.
In this, I see no denial of the students ability to host an event honoring all of the deaths in Gaza since Oct. 7, rather that it only not be held on a specific date. While the lawsuit did point out that the First Amendment “does not allow campus officials to establish free expression-black-out days, even on occasions [like Oct. 7] that may be emotional or politically polarizing,” I beleive it was a justified matter of moral decency for the university to stop the vigil from taking place on this day.
Ella Elimelech (‘23) is a sophomore at UMD and is the president of Terps for Israel, one of the pro-Israel organization on campus. Being the head of Terps for Israel, Elimelech knew of the lawsuit before it was publicized. According to Elimelech, the decision to cancel the SJP vigil and all non-universtiy sponsored events on Oct. 7 was the university’s alone, as opposed to what the lawsuit claims: that it is because pro-Israel groups and individuals opposed to UMD-SJP’s message called on the event to be censored.
“I think it was the best decision the university could have made because of the situation they were put in,” Elimelech said. “SJP reserved the main area of campus on Oct. 7 a few months ago, which meant that we [the Jewish community on campus] could do something on a different part of campus, but then it could be perceived as like a counterprotest, or do something off campus, and then it’s couldn’t be as big as we would have done it. The University came to this decision without consulting us, they kind of just let us know. But I think that that was the best outcome that could have happened.”
In their file for the lawsuit, SJP claimed that the university and government censors “based on viewpoint, on content, and the identity of the speaker.” If this had truly been the case, the Jewish organizations’ events would not have been canceled as well.
I am saddened to see that the Jewish organization on campus would have to be so concerned about their safety and how they would be viewed on a day that holds so much grief and devastation for many. It is distasteful to me that the spectacle SJP has made about this important day because of their insensitive event has taken away some of the meaningfulness this day could have brought to the UMD campus and Jewish community.
While the situation seems very intense from the outside perspective, Elimelech says that the environment on campus surrounding the safety of Jewish students has not been heavily affected, and the Jewish community remains strong. Still, this situation is incredibly frightening and upsetting to me. As a Jew born and raised in Maryland, this lawsuit and the entire situation on the campus of a university that is so close to my home where I have friends and family members attending, makes the circumstances all the more personal.
