On Friday, September 19, faculty and graduate students in the Jewish Studies Faculty–Graduate Student Colloquium walked out in solidarity with a student after she was harassed and barred from attending.
When the student—a PhD Candidate in Religious Studies with a minor in Jewish Studies who has previously served on the board of the Jewish Studies Graduate Student Association—attempted to enter the Zoom room for the hybrid event, the Interim Director of Jewish Studies derailed the event because of the student’s Zoom profile Picture: a drawing of a woman in a keffiyeh with the words “Free Palestine.” The Interim Director, hand-picked by IU admin despite the protests of faculty and graduate students in the program in direct violation of the values of shared governance, demanded that the student change her picture or turn on her camera before the meeting proceeded. Later in an email, he said the profile picture showed a “Palestinian terrorist”—a willful and deeply prejudiced misreading of the image.
Before the student could respond, faculty and graduate students in the room began to push back on the clear harassment and censoring of this student, warning that they would not participate in the event if she was excluded from the meeting. Ignoring these protests, the Interim Director unilaterally removed the student from the Zoom.
Almost every faculty member and graduate student walked out of the Colloquium and reconvened in another room, allowing the student to attend the event. This is what solidarity looks like. It’s not just walking out, but reconvening; not just taking action to stand with our colleagues, our students, and our community, but building something better through that action. That student was safer in the face of harassment and abuse of authority because faculty and graduate students stood together with her.
Solidarity isn’t complicated. It is just a matter of standing together.