Opinion: Reader Questions CCSU Decisions on Student Protests on Gaza
By Lily Mercado, CCSU IJC President
Author’s Note: Article Originally Denied by The Recorder
As a pretext, it should be known that this article was originally submitted to CCSU’s school newspaper, The Recorder, on Wednesday, April 24th, 2024, and denied publication. On Friday, April 26th, Managing Editor emailed me stating, “We’ve come to a mutual decision as editors that this piece is not suitable for The Recorder, both journalistically and stylistically,” and specifically that, “the length, tone and inaccuracies do not fit The Recorder’s standards. As well as a lack of acknowledgement to the opposing side’s stance, which appears even in opinion pieces to establish balance.” I have since exchanged further emails with several editors, in which they gave various suggestions for me to rewrite and resubmit my article. While I personally feel that some of the reasons they’ve provided for refusing to publish my article embody repression that is all-to-similar to what this piece describes, I do not wish to detract from my message by engaging further in this discourse here. Transparently, this article does include some changes reflecting important developments since initially submitting it to The Recorder.
April 11th: Rally for Palestine and Vigil for the Martyred
As the President of CCSU’s Intersectional Justice Coalition (IJC), I worked alongside CCSU club Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) to organize the April 11th Rally for Palestine and Vigil for the Martyred. As of April 22nd, over 34,000 Palestinians have been confirmed killed in the Palestinian genocide. A failure to acknowledge this genocide for what it is demonstrates complicity in that genocide; dismantling the colonialist war machine requires active resistance at minimum. CCSU students have repeatedly brought this concern to administration, both publicly and behind closed doors. Due to the administrative response thus far, the only conclusion we can rightly draw is that CCSU administration’s genocide denialism is intentional.
For context, I spoke at the rally about how pro-Palestine sentiments have been ignored and suppressed by our administration over the past two semesters. In part, I explained that CCSU President Zulma Toro, through campus email announcements, has repeatedly perpetuated the harmful narrative that anti-Zionism is antisemitic, has pacified all language relating to the genocide, and has noticeably refrained from mentioning words like “Palestine,” “Gaza,” “genocide,” and “Islamophobia.”
President Toro also bluntly refused to answer any questions related to Palestine at a Student Government Association senate meeting, rushing out of the meeting after being asked several times to answer questions. Toro additionally refused to answer any questions about institutional repression at her supposed “Open Forum” last month. Just before the rally, we released yet another open letter to CCSU administration including signed endorsements from twelve other student organizations.
On Wednesday, April 24th, President Toro held a scheduled meeting between club leaders, mostly comprised of an open Q&A. I, along with the Black Student Union President Zoé Pless, confronted Dr. Toro about her and her team’s lack of response or acknowledgement to our statements. She ultimately asked that I provide her with an updated list of questions/demands denoting which ones have not yet been answered. Dr. Toro proposed, “If you send me a new communication just including the things that have not been discussed up to this point with any member of my team, I commit myself to look over those and to have a conversation about those issues.” I agreed to provide that to her, though I clarified that our questions/demands will be mostly unchanged given that many of them have remained completely or partially unanswered.
On Monday, April 29th, Dr. Toro finally responded to our open letter by direct email to me, 18 days after the letter was sent. Rather than addressing any part of the letter, Dr. Toro said that the administration is “listening and [has] been making progress,” and stated, “I invite you to meet with Dr. Michael Russo, Vice President for Equity and Wellbeing, and Director of Inclusion, Dr. Beth Merenstein, to discuss further what steps we are taking, and what we might be able to do in the future to address some of the issues you’ve highlighted.”
While both these offers from administration are welcome changes in pace since we’re now at least receiving a response, I still find it far from acceptable. Despite our many attempts at voicing students’ concerns since last fall and requesting several times over two semesters that the university address them, we are being asked to again reiterate these concerns and engage in yet another private meeting. It is difficult to not interpret the administration’s response as further bureaucratic obstruction and minimal appeasement, rather than a legitimate attempt to fulfill students’ needs. Nonetheless, we do plan to, once again, attempt to negotiate openly with the administration.
Student Repression and Violation of Rights
We had originally planned a walkout, rally, and vigil for April 4th. The vigil was officially requested through Student Activities/Leadership Development (SA/LD) following all the proper procedures for club events, while the vigil and the rally were to be held as an exercise of our rights to protest without the need for administrative approval. However, leading up to April 4th we faced immense pressure from the university to cancel, diminish, and move our event.
Among these pressures: CCSU Administration unprecedently told us that we should remove any unregistered events from our clubs’ Instagrams; they told us our event would be canceled if we could not meet with administration within 48 hours before the event (without elaboration); they falsely accused us of not following proper procedures for university-sanctioned club events; and ultimately, we were notified via a text message from Associate Dean of Student Life Scott Hazan that our vigil was canceled by the university (which we later confirmed through email). All of these actions from CCSU’s administration do not simply represent an unwillingness to engage with the issue of the Palestinian Genocide; they represent actions from CCSU’s administration to illegally abridge the free speech and assembly rights of its students in order to prevent anyone from engaging with the idea of Palestinian liberation.
Feeling immense pressure from the university, SJP decided to postpone the events and met with representatives of CCSU’s administration, ultimately agreeing to a compromise; both the rally and the vigil were rescheduled for the following Thursday. During that meeting, we asked Dr. Hazan what policy we violated and why our event was canceled. He could not provide us with any answer supported by university policy, nor could he provide a determining factor. He promised to email me within a week with reference to specific university policy that we violated.
While I exchanged several emails with Dr. Hazan, he has still been unable to cite any policy we violated. The reasoning Hazan provided for canceling the vigil has been wildly inconsistent, making no commitment to any violation(s) being the determining factor for exercising such authority. Additionally, almost all the points he made were provided unsupported by any university policy. The one policy that was cited is irrelevant to the decision to cancel the vigil, and any attempts made to connect the policy to the vigil cancellation were not substantiated.
On April 21st, I asked Dr. Hazan once again to explain CCSU’s decision to cancel the April 4th vigil, with a specific reference to university policy, as he had promised me during our meeting. Hazan claimed to have already fulfilled my request despite objectively not doing so, and asked me to file any complaints I may have with the Office of Equity and Inclusion. As advised by Dr. Michael Russo, Interim Vice President of Equity and Wellbeing, I have filed a discrimination report with the Office for Equity and Inclusion and plan to follow through with the reporting process.
Dr. Hazan and CCSU administration have also attempted to cite their willingness to meet with us as a reason that we, as students who have had our civil rights violated, should not feel so wronged. It’s appalling to me that we’re expected to give merit to the university for first repressing us, adding barriers which unnecessarily cost students a great deal of extra time and energy, then putting onto us the need to compromise and work within their parameters.
Centering Palestinian Liberation
In the few days it took me to initially write this article, 139 more Palestinians had died and hundreds of bodies were found in a mass grave hidden by Israeli forces near a hospital in Gaza; Palestinians are still going through a genocide that the United States government actively aids in perpetrating with the persistent funding of the Israeli army. I get to grab my degree in a week, while schools in Gaza have been destroyed and Palestinians desperately lack basic necessities for the maintenance of human life. Frankly, this article, and certainly the Palestinian movement, should not center my personal experience with rights violations and oppression. I implore you to think beyond the repression I have faced as described in this article, and leverage my experiences to understand that anti-Zionism and the Palestinian movement as a whole are repressed by the broader settler-colonialist machine, from our universities to Gaza.
In solidarity with universities around the country including Yale, Columbia, and others schools, and in solidarity with Palestinians, I stand firmly in my commitment to centering the Palestinian struggle. Yes, recognizing and fighting against institutional oppression is important; many of the demands in our open letter aim for long-term, intersectional systemic change at our university. But every day I wake up is another day of genocide. I know that while I may be facing institutional repression, Palestinians have historically been killed for peacefully protesting their own occupation.
Our government, federally and at a state level, props up the Israeli war machine. They send weapons and aid to Israel using our tax money, invest employee pensions in Israeli companies, and give tax exemptions and credits to weapons manufacturers. Just last month, our legislators, including Rep. Jahana Hayes, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Rep. John Larson, Rep. Joe Courtney, Rep. Jim Himes, Sen. Chris Murphy, and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, all voted to continue funding and supplying the genocide with military aid and to cut humanitarian aid. All the while, they attempt to appease voters by calling for temporary ceasefires and claim they’re supporting humanitarian aid.
CCSU’s Responsibility
Is this an issue beyond the scope of CCSU administration? Absolutely not. For one, President Toro’s and the university administration’s language is characterized by an ostensible commitment to neutrality and false sensitivity towards “all sides.” Dr. Toro, however, has not once in her campus announcements since October 7th mentioned “Palestine,” “Muslim,” “Gaza,” or “Islamophobia” in her own words, yet several times mentioned the words “anti-semitism” and “Jewish,” demonstrating a one-sided stance which censors Palestinians. This behavior perpetuates a broader dehumanizing, normative, and colonialist discourse that marginalizes, undermines, and neglects the experiences of Palestinians. This narrative also fuels the flames of violence against Muslim, Arab, and anti-Zionist students, subjecting students to risks of hate crimes, harassment, and doxxing.
Further, advocacy for Palestinian liberation is undoubtedly in line with the university’s own core values which include commitments “to social responsibility to promote the public good” and to collaboration “with our legislators, industry, and community partners.” CCSU has a moral and professional responsibility to advocate for our legislators funding things like higher education, housing, and public transportation to benefit our students, rather than funding genocide.
CCSU also launched the John Lewis Institute (JLI) for Social Justice in February of 2021. Fellow student organizers take part in the academic and experiential program, named after the late civil rights movement leader and former United States Representative John Lewis, following his word to get into “good trouble.” In fact, at the JLI launch ceremony, President Toro said, “This is our time to cause some good trouble – necessary trouble – to inspire and prepare a new generation of leaders who will advance the cause of social justice.” It’s difficult to see, then, why CCSU should continue to repress students in our fight for a free Palestine, let alone violate our rights for something so peaceful and inoffensive as a vigil.
Continuing the Fight for Palestine
As we face institutional repression, both here at CCSU and as we witness students at Yale, Columbia, and other universities face arrests for protesting, we are only emboldened to fight harder for a free Palestine. As students we must continue to organize and build power to push back against settler-colonialist interests.
At CCSU, it is vital to continue the intersectional advocacy for Palestinian liberation, following the likes of Black Student Union, Sustainability Club, and retired Jewish professor Elizabeth Aaronsohn. In furthering this solidarity, please bring this conversation to clubs and communities you are a member of. Also, please consider joining CCSU’s Students for Justice in Palestine. We have an amazing community of student organizers/activists here at CCSU and we are all more empowered when we build solidarity with each other for universal liberation.
It’s also important that we hold CCSU administration accountable by continuing to demand responses to students’ questions and demands, including those in our open letter. It is unacceptable for President Toro and her administration to continue practicing obstructionism while claiming to be open and honest.
In the immediate future, please show up and support the encampments/liberated zones at our Connecticut universities, including at Yale, UConn, Trinity, and Wesleyan. Of great importance at each university, students are protesting to demand that the administrations disclose financial investments and divest from companies that profit from the genocide and colonization of the Palestinian people. Help protect the student protests in solidarity with their cause, and in support of Palestine. Experience what community really looks like; experience how we keep us safe while holding our institutions accountable for justice.
Ultimately, CCSU has a chance to do better by fully responding to our demands and standing firmly in support of our rights to protest and speak against genocide. Students also have a chance to get involved and challenge their own complicity.
Genocide and colonization, or liberation and justice – which side will you be on? Here’s to a summer of revolution, and a free Palestine.
Editor’s note: Opinion pieces published in the New Britain Progressive do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the New Britain Progressive, the New Britain Independent Newspaper, Inc. or its editors, officers, directors or other volunteers.
Editor’s note (5/8/2024): The New Britain Progressive did not approve of the use of the New Britain Progressive masthead in reproductions of this opinion piece, as published here, with profanity added, nor did the New Britain Independent Newspaper, Inc.
