Memorial created by members of Marquette University Students for Justice in Palestine. Photo used with permission of Haitham Salawdeh.

BY RACHEL IDA BUFF

On April 7, Marquette University Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), with full knowledge and consent by the university administration, planted 41,000 flags to symbolize the death toll from the ongoing genocide in Gaza. That night, three Zionist educators not affiliated with the university desecrated the memorial. One of them carried a loaded Glock. This statement was read at a press conference about the incident at Marquette Campus this morning. A version of it was posted on the Jewschool blog.

A university is a community of people united, to paraphrase the venerable Wisconsin Idea, by our collective endeavors toward the untrammeled search for knowledge and understanding. in this community, the well-being of students, staff and academic workers, including Jewish and Palestinian, BIPOC, and queer students is of paramount importance. it’s hard to teach, learn, or conduct research while fearing for your personal safety.

And yet, that’s where we are. Because of broad forces beyond the university, forces that fill our neighbors with false anxiety about “woke campuses” and “college antisemitism,” it’s increasingly hard to do our important work. These forces intentionally misunderstand the beautiful and necessary diversity of speech, thought, and expression on our campuses.

Our universities become sites of fake “free speech” policies sanctioning free expression in the name of preventing antisemitism. Last week, the world witnessed Columbia University’s brutality against students encamped for Palestinian solidarity. testifying before a congressional inquisition, Columbia President Shafiq wrapped herself in the lunatic idea that repressing student expression is somehow protecting Jewish students. But we know better.

Sometimes this anxiety inspires dangerous vigilante action. Last week, three Zionist extremists, Jewish educators not connected to MU, took it upon themselves to desecrate a memorial to the 41,000 people murdered in the Israeli genocide in Gaza. They pulled down flags honoring the dead. Imagine!

That’s not all. Motivated by a sense of endangerment and entitlement, one of these extremists was armed with a loaded Glock on this campus, desecrating the dead, with a loaded gun prepared to menace—or worse—any “threats” they might encounter. I know of no more serious threat to academic freedom.

I stand here today, my Jewish ancestors invisible behind me, to communicate my shame and rage at this unholy act. And that it was wrapped into a false concern for Jewish safety! In Yiddish, we call that a shondah.

We thank the Marquette University Police Department for their swift apprehension and disarming of these dangerous extremists. And I call on all of us, particularly the Marquette administration, to defend our collective rights of freedom of speech and expression.

We know that criticizing Israel, criticizing anything, is not antisemitic; in fact, analysis and criticism are central functions of a university. That’s really what the purveyors of false fear are after: nothing less than the central idea of the university, our very business model.

The unholy threats by extremists against Palestinian and other students continue in informal as well as organized ways, creating a climate that is hostile to the Marquette community, to academic work in general, to Palestinian and other students of color in particular. There is no room on our campuses for any kind of terrorism, Zionist or otherwise.

Collectively we have a decision to make: protect free expression, support SJP and other organizations targeted by the enemies of the university or the university, our beautiful community of inquiry and critique, dies from a thousand affronts. That’s happening, right here, right now.

Guest blogger Rachel Ida Buff teaches history at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.