Pittsburgh students face repression for pro-Palestinian slogans on ‘free speech fence’
By Margold Cameron
Pittsburg, PA – Ten students at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) are facing repression from campus authorities, after displaying messages in solidarity with Palestine on the campus's so-called “free speech fence.”
The Fence is a landmark of CMU's campus, which the university describes as “a student-centered space for free expression and community.” According to school policy, students are permitted to paint the Fence however they like, yet this past summer a cohort of anti-Zionist students discovered a very specific boundary around what speech the administration deems free.
Between June 9 and July 4 this summer, a series of anti-Zionist messages painted on the Fence provoked escalating censorship by campus administration. These paintings included slogans like: “75 years of apartheid, 56 years of occupation, 16 years of blockade,” “Forcing ideological conformity (Zionism) on Jews is antisemitic – free Palestine,” “Anti-Zionism ≠ antisemitism” and “Death to Zionism” (written in Yiddish)
Most telling was the July 3 painting, which read “Multiple choice: which will they censor? Death to: fascism, apartheid, Zionism, colonialism, racism.” A question which the administration answered by covering only the word “Zionism” the following day.
In an attempt to silence anti-Zionist sentiments among the student body, the CMU opened Title VI investigations into ten of the students believed to have been responsible for the series of paintings. This grossly stretches the definition of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which protects against discrimination “on the ground of race, color, or national origin,” not adherence to genocidal political ideologies.
Rather than accepting this repression, the suspected students are working with Palestine Legal to challenge the administration's actions, as well as activist groups like Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and the International Solidarity Committee of Pittsburgh (ISCPIT) to build popular support within the city.
In response to this blatant attack on free speech, ISCPIT Chair Dot Bodwell addressed administration, saying, “Like it or not, you have an obligation to these students. Plenty of them are paying an arm and a leg to attend CMU, and they get a voice on campus. You can't get in the way of that.”
At time of writing, JVP is circulating a petition calling on the university to drop the Title VI investigations against these ten students and end the censorship of pro-Palestinian messaging.
Rosalyn Tosh, one of the students under disciplinary investigation, defended the paintings, saying, “In censoring our fence paintings, Carnegie Mellon is showing it is more concerned about the possibility people find the language we use offensive than the reality of Zionism’s genocidal violence. We won’t stop drawing attention to this reality and protesting CMU's complicity in it.”
CMU administration released a statement attempting to justify their actions, in which they baselessly liken anti-Zionist fence painting to the 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue, where 11 people were murdered in an antisemitic hate crime. The statement claims that the fence painters, some of whom are themselves Jewish, “threatened to create a hostile environment for members of our Jewish community, and increasingly undermined, rather than promoted, constructive dialogue.”
Incidentally, the final Fence painting, in response to which the administration launched its Title VI investigations, read, “21,000+ children murdered due to Zionism – who are the ones inciting violence here?”
CMU is thoroughly complicit in the genocide of the Palestinian people, as the university regularly hosts “defense” industry companies, which recruit engineering students directly into the military industrial complex. This complicity has long been the target of protest from students, such as when CMU hosted defense and ICE contractor Palantir in February this past year.