Adelphi University sanctions campus pro-Palestinian group, saying it created 'hostile environment' for Jewish community

Adelphi University sanctioned a pro-Palestinian campus group this week for creating a "hostile environment towards the Jewish community" with its social media posts, according to an investigation report from the university’s Office of Community Concerns and Resolution.

The Aug. 7 report announced a one-year period of disciplinary probation for the group, Students for Justice in Palestine, during which its activities will be subject to "increased scrutiny ... Violations of disciplinary probation terms, or any other Code violation during the probation period, may result in the organization’s suspension or revocation of recognition by the University."

Brandeis Center, a Washington, D.C.-based Jewish civil rights nonprofit representing complainant Tuval Foguel, an Adelphi math professor, received a copy of the report, which it released.  Foguel filed a formal complaint last year with the university alleging that SJP's social media policy was creating a hostile environment. 

University investigators reviewed 23 SJP social media posts. None was on its own so offensive to "constitute a hostile environment," but the "number and content of the social media posts over a protracted period of time was found to be subjectively and objectively offensive and so severe or pervasive to constitute a hostile environment towards those who identified of Jewish identity."

Posts investigators described as particularly concerning included one that read "Israel is a terror state and all its supporters are Zionist terrorists." 

About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and another 251 were abducted. Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed more than 60,900 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Dozens of children and adults starved to death in Gaza last month, and United Nations officials say the offensive and blockade appear to be pushing the area toward famine. 

Under the Adelphi sanction, SJP is required to meet by Sept. 15 with university communications officials to discuss "appropriate social media use and the use of credible news sources." Additionally, if SJP wants to continue to use its social media platform as an official university social media account, the group must comply with a university policy allowing its officials to read the posts.

A spokeswoman for the university did not respond to requests for comment. Adelphi SJP could not be reached. National SJP did not respond to a request for comment. That group’s website says student members of Palestine solidarity organizations "have been leaders in uplifting demands for freedom, justice, and equality for the Palestinian people."

In an interview, Foguel, who is a Jewish Israeli-American, said one of his students alerted him to the posts in early 2024. "This same Adelphi student explained to me he never wears a yarmulke around Adelphi — he told me, when he comes to Adelphi, he leaves the yarmulke in his glove compartment. I thought, that’s kind of painful. That’s an environment that is not conducive to all the students."

Rory Lancman, director of corporate initiatives and senior counsel at The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, as well as a former New York State assemblymember and New York City councilmember, said in an interview that the disciplinary action "laid down an important marker ... If SJP adheres to university policies and desists from making these inflammatory and antisemitic posts and other activity, life on campus for Jewish faculty, students and staff will be much better."

SJP social media accounts show chapters at Adelphi, Stony Brook University and Hofstra University.

In 2023 there were more than 200 SJP chapters on college campuses across the country, according to a blog post by the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented a Florida chapter in a First Amendment case that year.

Pro-Israel groups say SJP chapters organized many of the protest encampments at college campuses across the country in 2024 and that the rhetoric of some SJP chapters is not just anti-Zionist but antisemitic. 

The Adelphi SJP chapter held two peaceful demonstrations at the school in spring 2024, university spokesperson Bobbie Dell'Aquilo said last summer. "Freedom of expression is vital to Adelphi University's shared goal of the pursuit of knowledge," Dell'Aquilo said in a statement at the time. "At the same time, the University has long recognized that the right to demonstrate does not include the right to engage in conduct that disrupts the University's operations, endangers the safety of others, or violates any other university policies."

The Stony Brook University chapter of SJP organized pro-Palestinian protests at that school in 2024. Protest leaders were arrested and after one protest 20 students who were involved received interim suspensions, leading to faculty criticism over the use of police force.

In 2024, after the Florida State University chancellor in consultation with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered the state's public universities to deactivate their SJP chapters, the ACLU sued on behalf of the University of Florida chapter, alleging the order constituted "a clear violation of students’ First Amendment right to free speech and association."

The chancellor walked back the deactivation order and the ACLU claimed victory in the case, saying in a summary of the case that the outcome put elected officials and university leaders on notice that "they must not take steps to enforce viewpoint-based restrictions on students’ speech and association."

Lancman said that, in the Adelphi case, the chapter's speech needed to be viewed in context of the rights of others in the university community: "Speech and conduct needs to conform to civil rights law that protect students and faculty from discrimination." 

With AP