The Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union today released a letter it sent to Brown University, criticizing school leaders over the suspension of a campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. Steven Brown, the executive director of RI ACLU, said the school’s decision is a blow to free speech on campuses and the university should re-instate the chapter immediately.
“By continuing to suspend what is a clearly political, if controversial student group on campus, we’re concerned that the university is sending the wrong message,” Brown said.
The university suspended its SJP chapter following a pro-divestment protest during a Brown Corporation Board meeting on Oct. 18, 2024. According to Brown University Vice President for Campus Life Russell Carey, Brown administrators, board members and staff reported witnessing protestors “banging on a vehicle carrying members of the community, physically blocking passage of a vehicle, screaming profanity at individuals at close and personal range, profanity and a racial epithet directed toward a person of color, and following and screaming at individuals while filming them.”
Following the protest, members of SJP’s leadership team were informed their group would be suspended and that the school was launching an external investigation into the group.
Brown said he is only now sending this letter to the university because he recently received a copy of a letter Dean of Student Life Koren Bakkegard sent to SJP leadership notifying them of the suspension, which the ACLU believes serves to “severely undermine” academic freedom. In its letter, the ACLU added that actions like these amount to arbitrary crackdowns on political organizations.
“Through this action against SJP, the University has given to itself the exceptional
power to undercut any political organization on campus on an interim basis,” the letter said.
The RI ACLU also said the university unfairly cracked down on the entire SJP group rather than the individual protestors who are alleged to have violated campus policies. The RI ACLU said the effect was having a “chilling effect on free speech on the campus.”
The news of the RI ACLU’s letter comes as President Trump has promised to revoke the student visas of students who broke the law while demonstrating against Israel’s actions in Gaza last year.
A spokesperson for Brown University did not respond to requests for comment.
