George Mason University President doubles down on lies to justify crackdown on Students for Justice in Palestine

On Friday, December 13, George Mason University President Gregory Washington released a statement on the university’s website following the joint police and Federal Bureau of Investigation raid on two members of the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the subsequent ban. students and the campus club.

Washington claims to be responding to “concerns we have heard on campus” regarding “off-campus police action (that) has alarmed many people.”

Many GMU students told International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) that the raid of police and FBI agents on the homes of SJP members and the subsequent banning of them raises many concerns about respect for democratic rights by the university.

Washington’s letter is not intended to address these concerns. Instead, the president is simply doubling down on the misleading claims that have been made to justify the unprecedented attack on due process and free speech on campus.

The university president spins a disingenuous narrative about last month’s police raid, declaring that “the search revealed sufficient quantities of weapons and materials calling for violence against Americans and particularly against Jews.” That was enough “to warrant immediate precautionary measures to maintain the safety of the university community,” he said.

A pro-Palestinian protester interrupts President Joe Biden during an event on the George Mason University campus in Manassas, Va., Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

In fact, no publicly available documents regarding the incident indicate any intent to commit violence on the part of the two students or SJP as a whole. According to The interceptionthe weapons found at the scene were “antique firearms legally registered to the family’s son, a former Mason student and volunteer assistant chief firefighter.” Efforts to bring charges against him were fought in court “and a Fairfax County Circuit Court judge threw them out two weeks later.”

Lawyers representing the family said the allegations of “anti-Semitism” were based on errors in the translation of anti-Zionist literature. No further arrests or charges have been made following the raid a month ago.

Washington resorts to a series of circular arguments, stating that “based on the evidence obtained (during the raid) and as part of the investigation, the GMU police had reason, under University Policy 1132, to issue a notice of criminal trespass, barring two George Mason students from entry. physically enter university property.

Referencing the university’s policy resolves nothing, as a search of GMU’s website brings up a description of its criminal trespass notice. It indicates that the GMU can issue such an opinion if a student:

Violates criminal or civil laws;
Violates any University policies, regulations, rules or guidelines;
Poses a threat to the health, safety, welfare, or academic experience of members of the University community;
Causes significant disruption to the regular functioning of university functions; Or
Causes or threatens harm to people or property.

None of these criteria apply in the current situation because the university’s response is based on allegations that have not been proven or have been outright rejected by a court.

Concluding his letter, the university administrator reveals the authoritarian tendencies that dominate the school’s vision.

Issuing what can only be seen under current circumstances as a veiled threat to the rest of the student body, Washington states: “The bottom line for you is this: You are safe here… Our police department and a certain number of other less visible security services. the teams watch over you 24/7.

He continues: “Whether you can see them or not, extensive protections are in place, working as intended, maintaining the safe learning and living environment we cherish. »

In a subsequent email addressed to an unrelated incident involving a student involved in an alleged terrorist plot, Washington openly reveals what these “extensive protections” are.

He refers to GMU having “capabilities, as well as other measures that, by design, remain invisible, (which) form a protective network around the university campus that our proximity to the nation’s capital requires, with capabilities that are not always available to universities elsewhere.

These “capabilities” include: “the first fully equipped university SWAT team in Virginia,” a campus police department with “close ties to local, state and federal law enforcement,” police officers who are “regularly present at student gatherings” and “constant university vigilance,” including “a cross-functional team of university officials” meeting “regularly and as needed to provide emergency operations on demand.”

Washington cynically conflates the raid on two student activists engaged in constitutionally protected activities with the arrest of a terrorist suspect, declaring that “both recent actions are proof that these systems are working as intended.”

In fact, no charges have been proven in either case to demonstrate that “these systems work as intended.” In the case of the SJP members, no charges were even issued!

Washington, in responding to these incidents in this manner, demonstrates recklessness and contempt for an entire list of democratic rights defended by the Constitution, including: the presumption of innocence, due process and freedom of expression.

George Mason University has substantial ties to the U.S. government and intelligence apparatus, World Socialist Website has already reported. The crime the two students are suspected of committing, which triggered the police raid, included graffiti at the site of a job fair sponsored by defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin and other arms manufacturers, who have profited from US war crimes. machine.

By suppressing democratic rights to due process and free speech, George Mason University is acting as the mouthpiece of a government that openly embraces policies of genocide abroad and repression at home. Far from giving students a feeling of “safety,” Washington’s letter demonstrates that no one’s rights are protected at the university.