On March 26, USC President Carol Folt delivered her annual State of the University Address at Bovard Stadium, celebrating USC’s growth as an academic community. But, many faculty members pointed out that universities in Gaza won’t be able to do the same.
“The massive assaults against educational infrastructure, educators and students at all levels and throughout Gaza since October 7 have emerged as part of a larger campaign of ethnic cleansing intending to destroy the very foundations and bases of continued Palestinian life in Gaza,” Laurie Brand, a retired political science professor who specialized in international relations and Middle East studies, said during USC’s Palestine Justice Faculty group’s opening statements at the demonstration.
Twelve members of USC’s Palestine Justice Faculty group held a demonstration honoring Palestinian academics killed by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in Gaza, condemning Israel’s attacks against Gazan academics.
This demonstration was the first of its kind for the faculty group who had previously only organized educational teach-ins about the war in Gaza. Brand said the group hoped to raise awareness for the conflict in Gaza in the context of academia.
“People are inside, listening to President Folt talk about what is happening at USC and we were outside telling people about the terrible state of the academy in Gaza,” Brand said.
Since October 7, Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed over 30,000 people, including many educators. The Palestinian Ministry of Education reports more than 800 teachers have been injured and 239 staff members have been killed.
Two professors held up a large sign reading “USC Faculty Against the Genocide in Palestine,” while others held up pictures of Palestinian academics who were killed in the war.
“Today, as you hear about the state of USC, and have no concern on this spring morning that the hall you gather in will be bombed, that the library or archives in which you work will be flattened, that your colleagues and students will be absent because they have been killed, detained or disappeared,” Brand said. “We gather in honor and remembrance … [of those] who have been killed by the ongoing Israeli genocidal attacks on Gaza.”
In the past six months, all 12 of Gaza’s universities have been bombed and destroyed. In addition, several cultural heritage sites such as libraries and museums have been damaged, looted or demolished.
Kate Levin, a creative writing professor, said the event was to highlight Israel’s ongoing “Scholasticide” in Gaza, a term coined by Oxford Professor of Politics and International Relations Dr. Karma Nabulsi in 2009 to describe the “systematic destruction of Palestinian education by Israel.” Israel has a recorded history of attacking Gaza’s educational and cultural institutions spanning decades.
“We aim to call attention to the wholesale destruction of the educational sector in Gaza, from the bombing of every single university to the murder of thousands of students and faculty,” Brand said in the opening statement.
Brand called for an immediate ceasefire and criticized the Israeli military’s “genocidal violence against the Palestinians of Gaza” on behalf of the faculty group. She criticized the Biden administration’s continued rhetorical and monetary support of the IDF.
Following the statement, the faculty read out loud a translated version of “I Grant You Refuge” by Hiba Abu Nada, a Palestinian poet, novelist and teacher. The opening lines read, “I grant you refuge / in invocation and prayer. / I bless the neighborhood and the minaret / to guard them / from the rocket.” IDF soldiers killed Nada in her home in South Gaza on October 20. She was 32.
The group also read out loud the names of 23 Palestinian educators who have been killed since Oct. 7 along with short biographies for each person. According to the group, the fallen educators honored included:
Abdel Nasser al-Saqqa
Adham Hassouna
Ahmed Mahmoud Al-Qara
Ahmad Hamdi Abo Absa
Amin al-Bahtiti
Do’aa AlMasri
Ibrahim al-Astal
Isma’il Abu-Saada
Khalil Abu Yahia
Mohammed Awad
Mohammed Dabbour
Muhammad Eid Shabir
Nahed Al Rafati
Nasser al-Yafawi
Nidal Qudura
Omar Saleh Farwana
Raed Qaddoura
Refaat Alareer
Refat Lobad
Said Al-Zubda
Shaher Yusuf Yaghi
Sufjan Tayeh
Tareq Thabet
Some onlookers of the vigil stopped to listen to the names and stories of the educators. Some stopped to take photos, some clapped, while others simply passed by the demonstration. Multiple viewers of the demonstration refused to comment when approached by Annenberg Media.
Following a moment of silence, biomechanics professor Dr. George Salem closed out the demonstration by reading “If I Must Die,” a poem by the late Refaat Alareer, a Palestinian poet and professor at the Islamic University of Gaza. Alareer, along with six of his family members, were killed in an airstrike on Dec. 6. His poem, pinned to the top of his X account, was posted a month before his death and has since been reposted over 118,000 times.
Ali Pearl, lecturer at USC Dornsife, said she was motivated to attend this demonstration because she is Jewish and a faculty member.
“I feel like as a Jewish person, as a Jewish faculty member, it’s especially important for me to stand up and say, ‘Israel is occupied Palestine. Israel is currently committing a genocide in Palestine,’” Pearl told Annenberg Media. “I need my colleagues to realize that they’re working at a university that gets to exist and stand and not be bombed into oblivion.”
Tensions about Israel’s war in Gaza have been rising on college campuses across the country since October 7. Pro-Palestinan faculty and students nationwide have alleged censorship and fears of physical violence, blacklisting, doxxing and loss of employment. Annenberg Media reported on free speech concerns on USC’s campus back in November.
Pearl, who is not a tenured employee, said she’s observed fear among students and faculty to speak about Palestine.
“It would be nice to not be afraid to get fired for saying that Israel should not be killing 30,000 plus people,” Pearl said. “I think my dream would be for people to stop intentionally conflating anti-Zionism and antisemitism.”
Brand, who also serves as Chair for the Middle East Studies Association of North America’s Committee on Academic Freedom, said she’s heard rising fears of Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian sentiment from her colleagues at USC. Brand noted her status as a retired professor gave her more security to speak up.
Later in the day, USC Hillel and the student organization Trojans for Israel held a demonstration calling for the return of the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza and supporting Israel’s campaign in the region. Annenberg Media reached out to Trojans for Israel for comment on the faculty demonstration but did not receive a response.
Brand expressed her hope that the university will take steps toward assisting educators in Gaza with its resources, stating that she hopes the administration will be “willing to look at the tremendous destruction that has taken place.” Brand says the faculty group is “willing and ready to provide ideas and suggestions to try and work with the administration to see if USC can be a part of what ultimately is rebuilt in Gaza.”
The Palestine Justice Faculty group emailed the Provost asking for the constitution of an advisory committee on Palestine. The group says the committee will “provide support to our students and partner with the administration in creating a campus that accounts for the needs of our Palestinian and Arab students, as well as those who advocate for Palestinian human rights.” The group included additional requests for the University that read:
1. Affirm a clear, steadfast commitment to protecting the academic freedom of all our faculty, staff, and students.
2. Affirm First Amendment and free speech rights for all our faculty, staff, and students.
3. Reject calls to condemn, monitor, or punish students, staff, and faculty who criticize Israel and Zionism and organize and advocate for Palestinian rights and freedom, and ensure that they do not experience retaliation for such political speech.
4. Ensure that any member of the USC community who is accused of antisemitic speech or action is accorded complete due process, and that such accusations do not have the effect of chilling legitimate criticism of Israel and Zionism.
Additionally, Pearl hopes to see the school take steps to divest from Israel. In response to Israeli military campaigns in Gaza, there have been calls for universities to divest as a part of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Some student assemblies of universities in California have voted and passed resolutions calling to divest from companies that have ties supporting the IDF, including UC San Diego and UC Davis.
While there is no formal campus group campaigning for divestment, a few students are trying to revitalize DivestSC, a campaign calling for USC to divest from the fossil fuel industry. Jessica Hatrick, a Ph.D. candidate at Annenberg, says this new effort hopes to divest “from other forms of violence than just fossil fuels, including militarism, police, prisons and the State of Israel.”
One of the biggest obstacles that Hatrick says the student group has been facing in terms of getting their divestment campaign off the ground is the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism. This comparison has been a topic of heavy debate along with the conversation of censorship.
“People equate critiques of the state of Israel to antisemitism, particularly under the narrative that Jewish campus members do not feel safe on campus,” Hatrick said. “These narratives always speak to a few Jewish campus members and argue they reflect the experiences of all Jewish campus members, despite Jewish students, staff and faculty making up a large percentage of those critiquing the State of Israel.”
Hatrick, who found the campaign through USC’s Student Coalition Against Labor Exploitation (SCALE), said the campus and the country perpetuate the “Palestine Exception.” The Palestine Exception is a report conducted by Palestine Legal documenting the “widespread and growing suppression of Palestinian human rights advocacy in the United States.”
“Free speech and freedom of expression are prioritized in the U.S., except when it comes to discussions of Palestine,” Hatrick said.
Pearl echoed similar sentiments.
“When I get emails from this university that put Jewish students in the position of victim when those Jewish students aren’t actually experiencing antisemitism, they’re experiencing anti-Zionism. It really takes all the air out of any actual incidents of antisemitism,” Pearl said. “If we’re conflating anti-Zionism and antisemitism, then we’re actually doing a huge disservice to our Jewish population here.”
Pearl hopes to see the university protect students and faculty speaking out in support of Palestine.
“I think making sure that Palestinian students feel supported and safe to be themselves to speak out against what’s happening to their people,” Pearl said. “it would be nice to be able to talk about this in class and know that the university has my back.”