The University of Pittsburgh violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments when it suspended the school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine last month, according to a federal lawsuit filed on Tuesday against the school
The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. The complaint alleges that Pitt violated the Constitution’s prohibitions on restricting free speech when it placed the SJP chapter on an indefinite suspension last month after the group organized a letter condemning what it said was the university’s harassment of SJP.
“Recent actions taken by Pitt administrators to unconstitutionally muzzle pro-Palestinian speech have been pervasive and relentless.”
“Recent actions taken by Pitt administrators to unconstitutionally muzzle pro-Palestinian speech have been pervasive and relentless, and they have left us with no choice but to seek legal action,” Pitt’s SJP chapter said in a statement to The Intercept. “We hope that by lifting our suspension and ending ongoing disciplinary proceedings, this lawsuit will ensure that students’ constitutional rights to free speech and association are fully respected on campus.”
The suspension is an attack by the university on First Amendment rights, the SJP spokesperson said.
“The University of Pittsburgh’s decision to suspend our group for engaging in constitutionally-protected speech is a clear attack on student activism,” they continued. In suing the school, they said, student activists hope to set a precedent: “that universities cannot silence students because of their political views—especially those that challenge the role that our institutions play in advancing genocide abroad.”
“The First Amendment requires that public universities respect students’ right to engage in vigorous debate about important issues of the day. Pitt’s suspension of the club’s status and other interference with peaceful advocacy is unconstitutional retaliation,” ACLU of Pennsylvania legal director Witold Walczak said in a press release. “Pitt cannot constitutionally put its thumb on one side of the debate by harassing and chilling the pro-Palestinian students’ side of that important discussion.”
Pitt did not respond to a request for comment.
“Discourse and Dialogue”
The 2023-24 academic year was designated by Pitt as its first dedicated to the theme of “Discourse and Dialogue.” The school said it was more important than ever to foster an environment for the free exchange of ideas on campus and to celebrate diverse points of view.
“Our support for discourse and dialogue on our campus and our commitments to free speech are now even more in focus as we aim to engage across students, staff, and faculty on each of Pitt campuses,” the school wrote in a post announcing the theme.
Those claims are at odds with the school’s attacks on SJP, the group told The Intercept. The SJP spokesperson said university administrators had demonstrated a “striking double standard” in taking steps to punish the group for its speech while allowing pro-Israel groups on campus to harass and target pro-Palestine students.
“While other student groups enjoy full institutional support — even when their conduct escalates into real threats to the safety of our members — we have been met with surveillance, censorship, and punishment,” the SJP spokesperson told The Intercept. “In a clear violation of the First Amendment’s requirement of content neutrality, Pitt has unabashedly taken a side — exhausting all avenues available to them to suppress pro-Palestinian voices whilst simultaneously encouraging zionist, pro-Israeli speech.”
The spokesperson said that SJP members had been subjected to harassment by pro-Israel groups on campus, including one of which has worked with the far-right Zionist group Betar.
Betar has said it sent hundreds of names of students it wants deported to the White House and other federal agencies. The group has targeted Palestinian students, including Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi, in the lead-ups to their abductions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — and celebrated after the fact.
Last year, Betar posted a petition to ban SJP from Pitt’s campus to Instagram. The Pitt group Students Supporting Israel collaborated with Betar on the post and shared it to its own page, according to the lawsuit. The petition claims that SJP aligned itself with terrorist groups and promoted violence. Students Supporting Israel maintains a link to the petition on the LinkTree on its Instagram page.
The lawsuit also claims that last year, a member of the executive board for another pro-Israel student group, the Student Coalition for Israel at Pitt, placed a note on a former SJP leader’s car that read: “Sinwar is dead you MF! Israel Will Always Be. Fuck you! Jew hating BITCH” — referring to Yahya Sinwar, the former leader of Hamas in Gaza who was assassinated by Israel. According to the complaint, the university investigated the incident but declined to take disciplinary action against the individual or the group. (Spokespeople for the Student Coalition for Israel at Pitt and the school’s chapter of Students Supporting Israel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
Betar continued to be active at Pitt. Ahead of a visit to Pitt’s campus last year, Betar’s executive director posted to Instagram that he planned to send out beepers to SJP members. The post was referring to the Israeli surprise attack on Lebanon using explosives in civilian pagers. Experts said the bombings may amount to a war crime because of their indiscriminate nature.
The head of Betar – a post he later told Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., the post was a “joke.” SJP reported the post as a bomb threat, and Meta banned Betar from its platforms.
“The chilling effect has rippled outward.”
Attacks on pro-Palestine students have not only hampered SJP’s efforts to organize on campus, but also had a wider effect on chilling speech on Palestine in general, the SJP spokesperson said. Those attacks have also left the school’s Palestinian, Muslim, and Arab students feeling afraid as they watch the slaughter of their families and communities abroad.
“The chilling effect has rippled outward — other organisations have canceled pro-Palestine events and are fearful to plan new ones, knowing the level of repression we’ve been forced to endure,” the spokesperson said.
The lawsuit is one of a wave of similar actions taken by student protesters and their allies in response to university crackdowns on speech on Palestine.
“Pitt claims to ‘welcome myriad political viewpoints’ and ‘offer spaces for debate’ across classrooms, libraries, and campus spaces,” the SJP spokesperson said. “Evidently, that welcome ends where Palestine begins.”
Update: April 16, 2025
This story has been updated to include more information from the lawsuit and statements from the University of Pittsburgh’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter.
The post Pitt’s Suspension of Pro-Palestine Student Group Violates First Amendment, Says ACLU Lawsuit appeared first on The Intercept.
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