A pro-Palestinian student group gathered to mourn the lives lost in the war in Gaza on Monday, following a federal judge’s ruling last week against the University of Maryland’s plan to block it.
The court battle over the vigil and other events at Maryland was unusual, but universities across the country have struggled with how to handle Oct. 7, the anniversary of the Hamas-led attack on Israel.
Student groups sympathetic to either the Israelis and the Palestinians used the anniversary to host speakers, teach-ins and protests at campuses across the country, from Boston to Los Angeles. In advance of the day, administrators fretted over how to balance safety with free expression.
At least at Maryland, the university had not struck the right balance, according to a U.S. district judge, Peter J. Messitte.
The school’s administrators had first said they would allow the event, which was organized by the university’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. They reversed course last month, citing security concerns, and said they would prohibit all expressive activity by student groups on Oct. 7. In court filings, lawyers for the university said that it had received “credible threats of violence” connected to the pro-Palestinian event.
Students for Justice in Palestine, aided by two other organizations, Palestine Legal and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, sued the university, arguing that it had violated the student group’s First Amendment rights. They portrayed the school as having censored the event after pro-Israel individuals and groups complained and having justified the decision by citing vague safety concerns.
The university had, before prohibiting the event, considered moving all classes and events online for the day. “The university’s goal has not been to silence S.J.P., but to protect its members and all community members from a credible risk of violence,” it wrote in court documents.
But the atmosphere on campus on Monday was relatively calm as the pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up a display — and pro-Israeli demonstrators set up another nearby.
The weather was warm and sunny, and by midday, a small crowd gathered on a campus lawn with a fountain. Pro-Palestinian activists, surrounded by TV crews, handed out “For Gaza We Rise” fliers to students hurrying between classes. Some flew white kites in the early-fall breeze. Several students spread blankets and pulled picnics from coolers.
Daniela Colombi, 20, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine who is studying astronomy and physics, said the group expected additional people because of attention brought by the lawsuit.
“Oct. 7 is a flashpoint day,” she said, adding, “We wanted to get as much attention as possible.”
By the evening, the vigil that the university had sought to prevent had drawn several hundred people. Someone read a list of Palestinian children killed in Gaza. Another recited a poem by a Palestinian writer who also died. The crowd listened silently.
Some Jewish student groups had celebrated the university’s earlier decision to curb the pro-Palestinian event. The Jewish Student Union on campus said in a statement that the anniversary should be “a day of mourning for the Jewish and Israeli community” and that the university’s decision “ensures that our physical and psychological safety is protected on this day of grief.”
The pro-Israel students’ display included more than 100 folding chairs as a tribute to the hostages abducted from Israel on Oct. 7. Elle Schanzer, 20, a sophomore from New York, handed out yellow hostage pins to students and faculty. Several chatted quietly or stood silently in front of photos of the hostages.
“It’s a space where you can be one with your thoughts,” Ms. Schanzer said.
She said that she saw an opportunity to hold the event when the judge’s ruling forced the school to permit the Palestinian demonstration. “I think everyone has the right to speech,” she said. “I don’t know if I agree with the way they went about it,” she added, but turning toward the posters, said “it gave us the opportunity to do this — which is amazing.”
Lawyers for the university had argued that Students for Justice in Palestine had been approved every time it applied to host an event over the last year — garnering a total of more than 70 OKs — despite vociferous opposition. But they said that the security concerns around the Oct. 7 events were “of a different nature and degree” than any event in the previous year.
They cited an example, saying that on Aug. 30, two days before the university’s president, Darryl J. Pines, announced that the Oct. 7 event would not be allowed, a university lawyer received a call from someone who said she was “locked and loaded” and would bring a gun to campus for self-defense.
In granting the pro-Palestinian group’s request for a preliminary injunction last week, thereby effectively allowing the event to go forward, Judge Messitte wrote, “This is a matter of law, not of wounded feelings.”
The university had other options besides barring the event, he wrote, including employing extra security personnel, installing temporary metal detectors and checking for student identification. In the end, the university ended up enhancing security for the vigil.
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