Free Speech Showdown: Pro-Palestine Students Sue University to Challenge ‘Weaponized’ Antisemitism Definition

Free Speech Showdown: After George Mason University in Virginia used a controversial definition of antisemitism to demand the removal of a social media post in which they referred to Israel as a “genocidal Zionist state” and the US as “the belly of the beast,” pro-Palestinian students are threatening to sue the university.

The Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at the public university claimed in a letter to the administration on Wednesday—which was exclusively obtained by the Guardian—that the video constituted “political expression on a matter of public concern, and thus the very speech the first amendment is meant to protect.”

The letter also demanded that GMU let SJP to repost the video by Friday, stating that “as a public university, the law is crystal clear that GMU may not censor its students or student organizations on the basis of viewpoint.” “GMU cannot censor student speech that the administration may find objectionable by using the appearance of anti-discrimination.”

The video had caused “fears and alarm among members of the university community,” a GMU representative told the Guardian in a statement, adding that it was removed “at the university’s insistence.”

The case is the most recent one using the so-called IHRA definition of antisemitism, which was created by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and has long been criticized for using the term to stifle pro-Palestinian discourse by confusing criticism of Israel with antisemitism. The term has been embraced by dozens of organizations worldwide and by state legislatures in the United States, including Virginia.

Although it was not legally obligatory, Donald Trump issued an executive order in 2019 urging institutions to use the term. Following antisemitic litigation and budget cutbacks by the Trump administration, Harvard and Columbia were two of the nation’s leading colleges to implement it earlier this year.

The definition’s detractors contend that it is incompatible with scholarly research and that it is most likely unlawful for public institutions to use it. The constitutionality of the term will be squarely addressed in federal court for the first time if the GMU students do wind up suing the institution.

“There’s not a way to apply the IHRA definition in a way that doesn’t infringe on students’ first amendment rights,” Tori Porell, a senior lawyer at Palestine Legal, the organization that represents the students, told the Guardian.

She said that “the IHRA definition is a tool just to censor students’ speech about Palestine.” “It never served as a means of ensuring the safety of Jewish students on campus.”

GMU’s SJP branch aired the contentious two-minute video in August. It showed a student in a keffiyeh discussing the starvation in Gaza and the suppression of the Palestinian liberation struggle in the United States.

We are all too familiar with the strategies used by the Israeli occupation and how they show up in the belly of the beast. Not just at George Mason University, but at campuses across occupied Turtle Island, we have personally seen it,” the student stated, referring to North America by an Indigenous name. “Until Palestine is completely freed from the river to the sea, the spirit of resistance will not be extinguished.”

The group’s leaders received a letter from the university in early September informing them that the video was against the IHRA definition and requesting that it be taken down immediately “to avoid any potential further action.”

In an email, a top administrator said

Although they asked for an explanation of how the video went against university regulations, the students took it down. According to a reaction from GMU, the institution stated that the reference to Israel as a “genocidal Zionist state” suggested that “all Jews and Israelis” are “genocidal Zionists.”

The institution also said that the term “belly of the beast,” which alludes to the students’ US base, was an antisemitic allusion to Jews’ and Israel’s “control” over other nations. It also asserted that the call for a “full liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea” amounted to a call for the “eradication of Jews in Israel” and that the use of the term “Turtle Island” was an attempt “to tie the struggle of indigenous peoples on these continents with those in the Middle East,” portraying Israel as a colonizer.

Citing the oppressive environment surrounding pro-Palestinian activism on school, a member of the university’s SJP branch, who requested anonymity, said that the definition’s adoption has already had a chilling effect on campus.

Given that the university banned SJP last year and penalized some of its members, the student said, “There has been a definite hesitation from the student body because George Mason has been known to use tools to suppress speech.”

“This was SJP’s reintroduction into Mason and it was faced with extreme suppression and hostility from the university administration,” the student said, adding that the video was uploaded soon after the group was allowed to re-enter Mason as a recognized student organization.