UChicago Students File Civil Rights Complaint After Disciplinary Charges, Arrests, and UCPD Surveillance

Palestinian and associated students who filed a civil rights complaint against UChicago are represented by Palestine Legal

CONTACT: Palestine Legal Media | media@palestinelegal.org

UPDATE: On Nov. 19, Palestine Legal filed an emergency addendum to the civil rights complaint against UChicago following UChicago's eviction of an Arab, pro-Palestine student and the police brutality against protestors on Oct. 11. Read the addendum here.

Chicago, IL, September 25, 2024 – Palestine Legal today announced the filing of a federal civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) demanding an immediate investigation into the nearly year-long, hostile environment of anti-Palestinian racism at the University of Chicago, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The complaint comes one day after UChicago released newly “revised” protest policies, including banning encampments and overnight protests, and imposing severe restrictions on when or how demonstrations with amplified sound may take place. These policies follow a reported trend of universities across the US implementing tougher rules to restrict protests, and avoid a repeat of last spring’s historic student encampments that led to thousands of arrests on campuses across the country.

Palestine Legal is filing on behalf of the University of Chicago United for Palestine, a coalition comprised of Students for Justice in Palestine, the National Lawyers Guild, and other Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and BIPOC student organizations. 

The complaint filed on August 19, 2024, alleges how, since early October 2023, UChicago United and its members have been targets of extreme anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and Islamophobic harassment including slurs and other verbal aggressions from students, faculty, and a campus rabbi; physical assaults by students and a US marshal; threats of doxing and violence from students and outside agitators; a chemical stink attack by a student; and police brutality and surveillance based on racial profiling. 

The pervasive racism and discrimination against Palestinian and associated students on campus described in the complaint has continued as students return to school this fall, following a reported trend of escalating anti-Palestinian repression and discrimination across campuses.

“From daily harassment on the quad, to the raid on the encampment, to pepper spray at graduation, to surveillance and profiling, to the endless disciplinary proceedings — UChicago has perpetrated anti-Palestinian violence and fostered a discriminatory environment, in violation of the obligations the university has to its students and community,” said K, an organizer with UChicago United. “UChicago has done this to protect its investments in genocide, to continue in its refusal to recognize Palestine and Palestinians because the university is committed to an imperialist, genocidal status quo — and we demand accountability, we demand transparency, we demand divestment.”

“UChicago must be held accountable for not only failing to take action against the blatant anti-Palestinian racism of Zionist students but for their own violations of the Title VI act. The University has unlawfully discriminated against and targeted Palestinians and their supporters through the student disciplinary system, surveillance, and racial profiling through UChicago campus police and administration,” said Rifqa Falaneh, Michael Ratner Fellow at Palestine Legal.

BACKGROUNDER:

The complaint details egregious instances of anti-Palestinian racism that occurred during and after the students’ Gaza solidarity encampment, which they called the “UChicago Popular University for Gaza,” last spring. During a week-long period of peaceful protests, a graduate student dumped a chemical agent with foul odor on students in the encampment, and right-wing student counter-protesters had social media discussions about their plans to dox and attack protesters, threatening to make the encampment “the next Kent State.”

The administration repeatedly declined to address either the chemical attack or the credible threats of violence. Instead, they vilified the student protesters, and sent in UCPD to brutally raid the encampment without notice as students slept in their tents. Though the officers’ use of physical force led to documented student hospitalizations, the administration and a campus alert euphemistically referred to as a “cleanup” conducted with “restraint.” UCPD maintained a presence on campus until after graduation, surveilling and harassing Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, Black, and Brown students for simply giving a thesis presentation, walking on campus, or trying to enter their own graduation. 

Despite students repeatedly notifying the university administration of their complaints since October 2023, UChicago has refused to take meaningful steps to stop anti-Palestinian attacks, remedy their effects, or prevent them from occurring in the first place. In fact, the administration has not only excused and enabled hostile anti-Palestinian actors and given preferential treatment to Zionist students and organizations, but also further punished Palestinian students and their allies by taking unfounded and unevenly-enforced disciplinary actions, selectively restricting their freedom of speech, and ordering arrests that led to police violence. Instead of supporting students grieving and working to end the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the administration has ignored and erased Palestinian students and their struggle, targeted them for their advocacy, and denied them equal access to campus life.

Palestine Legal’s complaint asks OCR to bring the University of Chicago in compliance with Title VI by taking several remedial measures, including ensuring that Palestinian students can access services on an equal basis as other students and creating mechanisms that seriously address Palestinian and associated students’ reports and concerns.

The discrimination, harassment, stereotyping, disparate treatment, and racial profiling described in the complaint are not isolated instances but are the product of both deep-rooted, dehumanizing bigotry against Palestinians and decades-long systematic efforts by anti-Palestinian groups and their allies to suppress advocacy for Palestinian rights on college campuses.  

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