JVP Academic Council Condemns Rutgers University’s Anti-Palestinian Censorship of Speech and Protest

Dear Gov. Murray, Pres. Tate, Dean Ciutiño, and members of the Governing Boards:

The Academic Council of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) condemns Rutgers University’s decision to rescind an invitation to Rami Elghandour to serve as the School of Engineering’s (SoE) Spring 2026 convocation speaker.  The decision, implemented by Dean Alberto Cuitiño, purportedly under pressure from Rutgers President William F. Tate IV, is both hypocritical and violates the university’s commitment to academic inquiry and free speech.

The decision to disinvite Rami Elghandour is a clear instance of the “Palestine Exception” to free speech. As the SoE’s own leadership notes, Mr. Elghandour is eminently qualified to serve as a graduation speaker.  According to a May 8 statement issued jointly by the Rutgers AAUP-AFT and Adjunct Faculty Unions, Dean Cuitiño announced on April 14, 2026 that Mr. Elghandour’s “personal and professional actions embody the values and vision of the School of Engineering, making our world a better place through his achievements in healthcare innovation and his commitment to advancing our community.”  In October 2025, President Tate wrote that “the role of the university is not to prevent discomfort or protect ideology,” and that cancelling a voice is a “sign of weakness, not strength.”  

Despite this praise and show of openness, Rutgers administration was capitulated, apparently daunted by complaints from a few SoE students who claimed that Mr. Elghandour’s public stances make them uncomfortable and would prevent them from attending the convocation, leading Rutgers administration to consider eliminating convocation speakers indefinitely.  Rami Elghandour, a successful entrepreneur and alumnus of the Rutgers SoE, has indeed publicly demonstrated his commitment to the values attributed to him by the Rutgers administration. He is a longtime advocate for humanitarian justice, frequently speaking out on social media and elsewhere in support of Palestinian victims of Israeli genocide, and has won awards for promoting women and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in the workplace.  Most recently he helped executive-produce both the 2025 Academy Award-nominated feature, The Voice of Hind Rajab, directed by Kaouther Ben Hania, and American Doctor, directed by Poh Si Teng.  Both of these films focus unabashedly and with artistic effectivenessaesthetic profundity on the Israeli genocide of Gaza.  

At a May 11 meeting held for faculty to “provide context and rationale” for his decision, Dean Cuitiño explained the decision as necessary in order to limit the focus of any prospective convocation address onto a celebration of students and their families.  This explanation was repeated in an email circulated subsequently to all SoE departments requesting votes of support for the decision. This statement is spurious at best, as convocation speakers nearly always represent a vision of the world they encourage students to consider as they make their way in that world.  It represents a sham standard that neither Rutgers nor other academic institutions apply to commencement speakers – except those who invoke the struggle for Palestinian liberation.

 The Rutgers-New Brunswick Dean of Students, in anticipation of a student protest against the disinvitation in front of the building where the faculty meeting was to take place, apparently warned Rutgers students in an email that there exists a “free speech zone” they must not leave or “there will be consequences.”  (One student has since received three conduct charges for attempting to deliver letters of protest to the dean during the meeting.) This statement is an unadulterated indication of encroaching authoritarian governance at the university. It follows closely the current U.S. President’s authoritarian playbook — with its mean-spirited, destructive dismantling of academic disciplines, too – and must not be tolerated. Either the campus as a whole and in all its actions is a place of free speech and unfettered academic inquiry around Palestine, Zionism, and Israeli policy, a place where people debate such issues and concerns based on factual research and scholarly production of knowledge.  Or it is an undemocratic, draconian institution where the administration decides that where Palestine is concerned, only Zionist speech is acceptable and permissible, and in turn punishes those members of the university community who exercise their right to speak and teach critically regarding Zionism and the genocide in Gaza.related intersecting issues. 

The JVP Academic Council joins the Rutgers University Senate, which on May 12 officially censured Dean Cuitiño for his “one-sided, opaque” decision and called for a formal review of his leadership, in demanding that he and the Rutgers administration consider the many other engineering students who are harmed and ashamed by this act of censorship and who now may decide well not to attend the convocation in much larger numbers than would surely have been the case had Mr. Elghandour been permitted to speak.  The dean’s and the administration’s failure to do so stands as a travesty of the higher educational values supposedly embraced by Rutgers, where a shameless incident like this calls into question the institution’s commitment to its historic motto:  “Sol iustitiae et occidentem illustra” / “Sun of righteousness, shine upon the West also.”  The JVP Academic Council therefore calls upon the Rutgers administration to reverse its ill-advised decision and immediately reinstate Rami Elghandour as the School of Engineering’s 2026 convocation speaker.  

Sincerely, 

Dr. Jonah Rubin, Sr. Manager of Campus Organizing, on behalf of the JVP Academic Council

The Jewish Voice for Peace Academic Council is a network of scholars dedicated to furthering JVP’s vision and values. Drawing upon our shared commitment to both progressive Jewish values and Palestinian liberation, we organize in solidarity with the Palestinian freedom struggle in educational and academic settings. We draw upon our skills as scholars, educators, and writers to develop critical analysis of contemporary censorship on Palestine. We oppose the deployment of the charge of antisemitism to censor or criminalize speech critical of the State of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.  We defend employment rights, academic freedom, and rights of association within higher education and confirm the core values of Jewish Voice for Peace.