Pro-Palestinian faculty group holds 1st independent gathering at Voorhees Mall

On Tuesday, the Rutgers chapter of the Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) hosted its first independent demonstration at Voorhees Mall on the College Avenue campus to protest the University's ties to the Israeli government and the University's Free Speech Guidelines.

Over the course of the event, faculty members and eventually students and New Jersey congressional candidates gathered in a circle in front of Van Dyck Hall, inside Voorhees Mall, to pass around a list of names of young people and journalists who had reportedly been killed in Gaza due to causes such as air strikes and other militant events, malnutrition and targeted attacks from the Israeli Defense Forces. 

For each individual, the speaker holding the list would read a brief summary of their life, as well as the cause and date of their death. At the end of each summary, the group collectively asserted, "We charge genocide."

Once the speakers had exhausted their prepared list of names, they moved to live readings of various texts penned by pro-Palestinian poets and activists. 

Among these were "Apologies to All the People in Lebanon," written by June Jordan, a Black poet and activist, and "If I Must Die," by Refaat Alareer, a Palestinian poet and the current proposed namesake for an Arab Cultural Center on campus.

The event concluded with remarks from an FJP member, who expressed that the organization had gathered there that day to formally recognize the loss of lives in Gaza and how "human life can be reduced to nothing."

The speaker further stated that the organization has much progress to make and encouraged individuals to not lose hope even while reconciling with realities of the mortality in Gaza and censorship on campuses.

"We're gonna try not to lose hope … even though there doesn't seem to be an alternative to this political system that we're trapped in," the speaker said. "Take a moment to stop, cry, to hug your children close, gather yourself, and then keep going."

Belinda Davis, professor in the Department of History and attendee, provided more context to the ongoing event and the organization hosting it as a whole.

Davis stated that FJP has existed long before the events of Oct. 7, 2023, and those that came after, but has been working in various capacities since the 2023–2024 academic year to support pro-Palestinian demonstrations and endeavors.

During the pro-Palestinian encampments in May, for example, FJP members served as mediators in contentious and dangerous situations and advocated for students facing disciplinary measures for protesting.

Davis spoke about one particular incident in which a student sprayed washable spray chalk on the sidewalk. She described how the University administration reportedly attempted to charge the individual with a felony despite them repeatedly insisting — and providing evidence of how — the can was not spray paint. After negotiations with legal counsel, the charge was reduced to a misdemeanor.

Largely, faculty members tend to not face the same repercussions that student members do while protesting, Davis said. Even at the event on Tuesday, police were noticeably present and monitoring the area, but did not shut it down.

The work of faculty members during the encampment extended beyond their membership with the organization.

Certain individuals met with University President Jonathan Holloway during that time, outside of their role in the organization, to discuss the role of police, not students, in creating a disturbance at the encampment on campus. She said Holloway was ultimately the driving force behind police presence and intervention at Rutgers—New Brunswick and Rutgers—Newark.

"The argument both last spring and the argument now (is) that we are disturbing classes, which, of course, is ridiculous because there's nothing that people were doing last spring … that disturbed classes," Davis said. "That's all aside from the question of whether, when there is prevailing genocide, it could be appropriate to disturb classes."

In those same conversations, she explained that Holloway reported handling pressure to react to pro-Palestinian protests as antisemitic — another issue independent faculty members attempted to rectify in those conversations.

"A good percentage of us in (FJP) are Jewish, and we want nothing to do with genocide that's supposed to presumably be in our name," Davis said.

The members intentionally chose to meet in Voorhees Mall to both test the possible response from the administration for protesting in an area not approved by the University's recent Free Speech Guidelines and to maintain visibility with the Rutgers community, Davis said.

The goal of the event as a whole was to make sure that people did not forget that the situation in Gaza is ongoing and that there is a human element to the statistics coming from the region.

She called on people to not "feel paralyzed," and instead "feel empowered by the injustice, to speak out against it, to protest at rallies (and) to call congresspeople and otherwise to make their voices heard."

Editor's note: This article includes an updated reference to the legal counsel and spray chalk in the 12th paragraph.