by Joel Lev-Tov

The University of Maryland’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter is here to stay, university Vice President of Student Affairs Patty Perillo said in an interview Tuesday. The university will not shut the chapter down, nor sanction it, for refusing to condemn the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people, as numerous pro-Israel students, faculty and staff have called for.

“What I have been very surprised at is that people don’t understand how that is actually constitutionally wrong,” Perillo said. “We will never shut down a student organization unless they’re doing something illegal.”

The point of a college campus, she said, is to engage with uncomfortable ideas, to fight them, to resist them, to protest them. But not to ban them.

107 faculty and staff members called on the administration to take action on the chapter in an open letter, pointing to a vigil it organized based on a toolkit from the national branch calling the attack a “historic win for the Palestinian resistance.”

At the vigil, an organizer said the Oct. 7 “uprising” was “a response to decades of colonial violence, ethnic cleansing, genocide and erasure.”

That rhetoric, the letter said, is inexcusable.

“Endorsing or rallying in support of violent acts, including the abduction and killing of children and infants, should neither be tolerated nor allowed within the University of Maryland’s bounds,” the petition read. “How can Jewish and Israeli students experience a sense of security on a campus where glorifying the loss of lives and families are celebrated?”

Perillo said the administration will step in if statements become threatening, as it did on Nov. 9 when a protester chalked “Holocaust 2.0” on Hornbake Plaza during a Students for Justice in Palestine rally.

“It could be perceived as threatening to a people and a history of people,” Perillo said. “We continue to monitor whatever people are writing or saying.”

The chapter later released a statement condemning antisemitism and told Stories Beneath the Shell in an interview that the author “did not mean to call for a second Holocaust,” they simply wanted to point out the parallels between the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 11,000 people and the Holocaust. Once the chapter realized the comparison was “not accurate,” though, it crossed out the message, a chapter organizer speaking on the condition of anonymity added.

The university cannot punish students for supporting or condoning the Hamas-led attacks, nor can it shut down the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter as long as it continues to follow university rules for obtaining event permits, Perillo emphasized. The university’s general counsel met with some letter signatories to explain this, she added.

“What I know is that we can’t stop the chalking, we can’t stop the words, we can’t stop the posters – it’s about free speech,” she said. “I’m consulting with legal counsel two or three or four times a day.”

While the administration keeps a close eye on rhetoric about the conflict on campus, both students supporting Israel and students supporting Palestine say they feel unsafe on campus. Perillo said the university has increased the number of police officers in places where Jewish or Muslim students go to help students feel safe.

“I can’t tell you how many emails that I get from parents who are saying, ‘My child’s walking across campus seeing this chalking, and they don’t feel safe,’” she said. “I get that. I think that’s legitimate.”

But the administration can’t regulate what’s said on campus. Instead, Perillo said she has reached out to Jewish and Muslim students to support them. She is hosting a town hall with Jewish students on Thursday and said she has invited Muslim, Arab and Palestinian students to host a similar town hall with her.

“That’s the stuff that we can do,” she said, “it’s to constantly try to be responsive, to be present, to answer questions, to respond to emails, respond to phone calls, to be present.”

Featured image: Students are pictured yelling at a rally demanding a cease-fire at Hornbake Plaza, Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023. Photo by Sanya Wason.