FJP condemns the subjection of 5 Wesleyan students to detention and threats of suspension and expulsion while exercising their fundamental right to protest the university’s complicity in Israeli apartheid and US-funded genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. We reaffirm what had, up until Friday, September 20, seemed to be a shared commitment to keeping police off the Wesleyan campus and treating all students, regardless of their political affiliations and topics of protest, with respect and dignity as they express their views on pressing political and ethical matters.

We are appalled that a university, especially one whose repeated calls for political engagement and free and open discourse have been so robustly lauded beyond campus, would ask for our students to be handcuffed as a measure of discipline. We are deeply disturbed by the increasing surveillance and securitization of this campus, from newly installed cameras, to intimidation of the student press, to the apparent willingness to call Middletown police on students. We condemn the heightened militarization of our campus.

FJP condemns the September 22 Board of Trustees vote against divesting the University’s endowment from companies that profit from Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian and Syrian Territory. We support the divestment proposal submitted by the Committee for Investor Responsibility, which we note was already a compromise position in that it did not call for full divestment from all Israeli companies. We affirm that investing Wesleyan’s endowment in companies that profit from apartheid and genocide violates the fundamental ethical commitments of our community. We stand with other universities who have pushed for divestment as a way to align their investments with their mission.

It should not be ignored that this unprecedented use of force against Wesleyan students revolves around a call for divestment from assets associated with Israel’s policies of occupation and destruction–a call that both the Committee for Investor Responsibility and 86% of the Wesleyan student body voted in favor of. We expect the Board of Trustees and senior administration to address these issues in good faith rather than continuing to vilify students and faculty working to uphold the agreement that ended the encampment in the Spring. The rejection of the divestment proposal as inappropriately “political” and the use of police force against student protestors are concerted efforts to silence any and all critiques of Israel’s occupation and genocidal campaign against Palestine and the Palestinian people.

Associate Professor of English Sally Bachner on behalf of the Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP).

The Wesleyan FJP can be reached at WesleyanFJP@protonmail.com.