New FSJP chapter emerges on campus

By James Cancelarich     9/3/24 10:46pm

Rice Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine established a campus chapter, echoing the mission of the existing undergraduate SJP chapter.

“FSJP aims to protect and defend students, faculty and staff who engage in speech, teaching and activities for Palestine and Palestinians,” FSJP’s mission statement says.

In an email to the Thresher, Rice FSJP declined to name any members of the Rice chapter. The collective says it has over 10 members from different schools of study and plans to grow as the semester progresses.

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Rice FSJP is part of the national Faculty for Justice in Palestine Network, which describes itself as a decentralized national network of affiliated university chapters that supports Palestinian liberation movements. Rice FSJP also says the collective is participating in regional coalitions with other universities in Texas.

The Rice FSJP mission statement was released in June, following months of student protests amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza. The collective aligns itself with the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, which describes itself as a movement to end international support of Israel’s “settler colonialism, apartheid and occupation” of Palestine. Specifically, FSJP calls for the application of BDS principles to college endowment and retirement funds, as well as “academic and cultural boycotts” of Israeli institutions.

Rice FSJP said they aim to amplify the voices of campus groups working for Palestinian liberation at Rice. This includes Students for Justice in Palestine, a student group that organized numerous protests, a “liberated zone” and a teach-in during the previous academic year.

“FSJP and SJP share common goals of supporting Palestinian freedom, but are separate entities,” Rice FSJP wrote in an email to the Thresher. “We started an FSJP chapter at Rice to support students, including but not limited to SJP members.” 

“Given [Rice] FSJP has recently been founded and the semester has just started, there has not yet been the opportunity for formal collaboration,” Matti Haacke, a representative of Rice SJP, wrote in a message to the Thresher. “We are working internally on how FSJP can best achieve that mission of supporting student speech around Palestine.”

Rice FSJP also expressed “disappointment and concern” about the spring-semester decision to table a student resolution attempting to block Student Association funds from going to Israel-aligned companies, as identified by the BDS movement. The resolution was tabled indefinitely following a discrimination complaint filed with the Office of Access, Equity and Equal Opportunity.

“We support student efforts that work towards ethical investment practices and ending the genocide in Palestine,” Rice FSJP wrote in an email to the Thresher.

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