Pro-Palestinian students are threatening to sue George Mason University in Virginia after the school cited a contentious definition of antisemitism it recently adopted to demand the removal of a social media post in which they described Israel as a “genocidal Zionist state” and the US as “the belly of the beast”.
In a letter sent to the public university’s administrators on Wednesday, and shared exclusively with the Guardian, the university’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter argued that the video amounted to “political expression on a matter of public concern, and thus the very speech the first amendment is meant to protect”.
“As a public university, the law is crystal clear that GMU may not censor its students or student organizations on the basis of viewpoint,” the letter added, demanding the university allow SJP to repost the video by Friday. “GMU cannot utilize the veneer of anti-discrimination in order to censor student speech that may be disfavored by the administration.”
A spokesperson for GMU told the Guardian in a statement that the video had raised “fears and alarm among members of the university community” and confirmed it was taken down “at the university’s insistence”.
The case is the latest dispute over the so-called IHRA definition of antisemitism – after the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance that drafted it – which critics have long accused of conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism as a tool to suppress pro-Palestinian speech. Dozens of institutions across the world have adopted the definition, as have several US state legislatures, including Virginia.
In 2019, Donald Trump signed an executive order encouraging institutions to refer to the definition while noting it was not legally binding. Earlier this year, Harvard and Columbia became two of the top universities in the country to adopt it on the heels of antisemitism lawsuits and cuts by the Trump administration.
Critics of the definition maintain that it is antithetical to academic inquiry and that its implementation in public institutions is probably unconstitutional. If the GMU students do end up suing the university, it will be the first time the definition’s legality will be directly tested in federal court.
Tori Porell, a senior attorney at Palestine Legal, the group representing the students, told the Guardian that “there’s not a way to apply the IHRA definition in a way that doesn’t infringe on students’ first amendment rights”.
“The IHRA definition is a tool just to censor students’ speech about Palestine,” she argued. “It was never a tool to make Jewish students on campus safer.”
The two-minute video at the heart of the dispute was posted by GMU’s SJP chapter in August, and featured a student wearing a keffiyeh describing the famine in Gaza as well as the repression of the movement for Palestinian liberation in the US.
“We are all too aware of the tactics that the Israeli occupation uses and the ways in which they manifest in the belly of the beast. We have experienced it first-hand not only at George Mason University, but at universities across occupied Turtle Island,” the student said, using an Indigenous name to refer to North America. “The spirit of resistance will not be quenched until we see full liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.”
In early September, the university wrote to the group’s leaders, warning that the video violated the IHRA definition and demanding they remove it that same day “to avoid any potential further action”.
“The video really must come down,” a senior administrator wrote in an email.
The students removed the video, but requested an explanation of how it violated university policy. An analysis provided by GMU in response cited a reference to Israel as a “genocidal Zionist state”, which the university claimed implied “all Jews and Israelis” are “genocidal Zionists”.
The university also claimed the “belly of the beast” phrase – a reference to the students being based in the US – was an antisemitic nod to Israel’s and Jews’ “control” over other countries. It further claimed that the use of the phrase “Turtle Island” was an attempt “to tie the struggle of indigenous peoples on these continents with those in the Middle East”, therefore presenting Israel as a colonizer, and that the call for a “full liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea” was a call for the “eradication of Jews in Israel”.
A member of the university SJP chapter, who asked for anonymity citing the repressive climate around pro-Palestinian advocacy on campus, claimed the university’s adoption of the definition had already had a chilling impact on campus.
“There’s been a definite hesitation from the student body because George Mason has been known to use tools to suppress speech,” said the student, noting that the university suspended SJP last year and disciplined some of its members.
The video was posted shortly after the group was reinstated as a registered student organization, the student added: “This was SJP’s reintroduction into Mason and it was faced with extreme suppression and hostility from the university administration.”
