JVP Academic Council Condemns Western Washington University’s Compliance with the Department of Justice’s Demand for Employee and Student Information

To Whom It May Concern:

The Academic Council of Jewish Voice for Peace* strongly objects to any compliance on the part of Western Washington University (WWU) with the Department of Justice (DOJ)’s demand for information about allegations of “antisemitic or anti-Israeli discrimination” among employees at WWU. Their specific demand poses a broad infringement of academic freedom, due process, and a heightening of censorship and political persecution, especially as the WWU administration seems unwilling to reveal which employee and student information has been or will be sent. The DOJ is attempting to impose a new form of surveillance and oversight that evades all accountability both to the campus community and the broader public, undermining the independent and rightful powers of the Academic Senate over curricula, and producing chilling effects on teaching, speech, student groups, and rights of assembly on campus. We urge you not to capitulate. 

Whereas several sound legal arguments have been documented by the AAUP for resisting this demand by the federal government for information on your faculty, students and staff, capitulating to this demand puts the WWU administration in violation of the university’s principles and protocols. Most concerning to us is the misuse at WWU and elsewhere of Title VI to persecute as antisemitic legitimate viewpoints critical of Zionism and the Israeli state or supportive of Palestinian rights and freedoms. Also concerning is the DOJ’s general use of the overbroad and flawed IHRA definition of antisemitism, whose main effect is to suppress speech in support of Palestine on campus. A singular focus on antisemitism, moreover, hijacks anti-discrimination regulations to entrench this definition at the expense of the broad range of anti-discrimination concerns. 

Jewish faculty under investigation across the United States align with younger Jews in the U.S., who increasingly recognize that the Israeli state has committed genocide or war crimes and who are less willing to apply the political label of “Zionist” to themselves. They know that the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and Former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity and that the International Court of Justice is currently deliberating on whether Israel has committed genocide in the Gaza Strip. 

The DOJ demand enacts the very behavior it criticizes, by assuming that the entire Jewish population identifies as Zionist. Jews have always disagreed about serious matters of political and moral concern. The DOJ demand, by contrast, conflates antisemitism with criticisms of Israel and reduces Jewish identity to Zionism. These conflations not only deny the long tradition of Jewish anti-Zionism, as well as non-Zionism, but fail to protect Jews. In fact, it invites collective blame against Jews for the actions of a state that claims disingenuously to represent their existential needs.

Your capitulation to the DOJ demand destroys not only academic freedom and shared governance, but the basic rights of students, staff, and faculty to espouse critical viewpoints in the face of an ongoing genocide and relentless repression of the Palestinian people, including the new death penalty law that applies only to Palestinians. We abhor the further concentration of autocratic control in the university administration without accountability to the campus community and the collusion with new forms of political persecution against those who speak their conscience and avow their solidarity with Palestinians as the genocide against them continues.

Western Washington University has an opportunity to contribute to world peace by encouraging free and open debate. But instead it appears intent on quashing serious and pressing discussions of the moral and political questions raised by Israeli state policy, Zionism, and its support. We beseech Western Washington to stand up with courage in the face of current Federal threats and to ensure a non-discriminatory environment for all faculty, students and staff. 

Sincerely,

The Jewish Voice for Peace Academic Council

Contact: Dr. Jonah Rubin, Sr. Manager of Campus Organizing

*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.