8 Organizations condemn Carnegie Mellon University’s censorship of and retaliation against pro-Palestine students

We the undersigned organizations condemn Carnegie Mellon’s censorship and unjust punishment of students for painting pro-Palestine messages on a fence that has been a space for free expression on campus for over 100 years.

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) has banned ten campus community members for painting pro-Palestine messages on the campus free-speech fence. One student is facing expulsion. All fence painters are now the subjects of discrimination investigations for painting phrases including: “Free Palestine by any means necessary” and “Death to Zionism.” Additional censored messages, including some written in Yiddish, expressed anti-Zionist beliefs from a Jewish perspective and emphasized CMU’s censorship of anti-Zionist Jewish voices — even as the university uses creation of a “hostile environment…..for Jews and/or Israelis” as a pretense to punish students’ pro-Palestine speech.

Subsequent messages painted on the fence have called attention to CMU’s unprecedented censorship of students’ political messages on the fence. In one example, students used a “multiple choice” format to creatively test the university’s selective censorship of criticism of Zionism. The university only erased the criticism of Zionism, while leaving the criticism of other violent ideologies (sexism, fascism, colonialism, and racism) visible on the fence.

Anti-discrimination laws and policies do not and cannot require universities to punish protected political speech merely because some members of a group feel offended by it. In fact, censoring pro-Palestinian speech risks violating the civil rights of Palestinian and associated students, faculty, and staff. 

Carnegie Mellon’s actions contravene the core mission of the university and diminish the rights of students, faculty, and staff on its campus. In censoring and retaliating against pro-Palestine students, the university has violated fundamental protections for free expression, academic freedom, and protest for all of its community members.

We demand that Carnegie Mellon immediately drop all investigations against the fence painters for their political expression and issue a public apology to them. We further demand that the university restore the fence’s legacy as a space of free expression on campus.

Signed,

American Association of University Professors (AAUP)

Coalition for Action in Higher Education (CAHE)

Concerned Jewish Faculty & Staff

Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism

Jewish Voice for Peace

National Faculty & Staff for Justice in Palestine

• City University of New York (CUNY) Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine
• UC- Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine

Palestine Legal 

Sunrise Movement