Students wanted to voice their concerns to staff and faculty about the discriminatory nature of study abroad trips to Israel. Instead, they say they were racially profiled and silenced. (SJP UIC)
Students at the University of Illinois Chicago have filed a federal complaint against the school, alleging that staff discriminated against them because of their ethnicity and national origin.
The seven students, six Palestinian Americans and one Jewish American, attempted to join an informational session over the videoconferencing platform Zoom in January about a study abroad summer program in Israel.
During and after the video call, students say they were racially profiled, harassed and silenced by university staff and, later, by campus police.
In the Zoom call, UIC staff denied the students with Arab and Muslim names admission to the session while other students who had Western-sounding names were able to participate.
It was only after several of the Palestinian students decided to change their screen names to non-Arab pseudonyms that the university staff allowed them entry into the session.
The students say that this showed the staff’s intent to bar Arab and Muslim students from participating and asking critical questions.
The Jewish student, who has a name of European origin, was allowed entry immediately, according to the complaint, and witnessed the blatant discrimination against her friends.
Civil rights group Palestine Legal is representing the students in the complaint, which was filed this week with the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
The students say that the public university has violated its non-discrimination obligations under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Title VI protects individuals from being “excluded from participation in, be[ing] denied the benefits of, or be[ing] subjected to discrimination” on the basis of race, color or national origin.
Before the informational session took place, the university’s study abroad program office posted an advertisement for the event on Instagram, inviting students to participate.
The Israel trip was marketed as a chance “to learn more about how you can immerse yourself in new cultures, music, dance and food while enriching your UIC academic experience.”
The students filing the complaint, who are members of Students for Justice in Palestine, replied to the post “by pointing out Israel’s well-documented pattern of discriminating against Palestinians, including Palestinian Americans, and criticized the university’s decision to host a trip in the apartheid state. UIC subsequently removed its post from view,” the complaint states.
Such study abroad programs are often part of an Israeli propaganda effort “designed to give international students a ‘positive experience’ of Israel, whitewashing its occupation and denial of Palestinian rights,” according to PACBI, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.
Critics have repeatedly pointed out that they also violate equal rights clauses because Israel regularly denies entry to persons on the basis of their Palestinian, Arab, Middle Eastern or Muslim ancestry.
Students wanted to be able to voice their concerns to staff and faculty about the discriminatory nature of these types of trips.