Charges, evidence, and Remedies

Charges (v. the UMass Admin):

1. The weaponization of antisemitism against Palestinian students, faculty, staff, and community members and their allies.

Evidence:

1. Collaboration with the Anti-Defamation League 

2. Explicitly aligning UMass with a wider pro-Israel coalition 

3. The dismissal of real violence against Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and pro-Palestinian students while prioritizing (presumed) Jewish feelings of anxiety about the pro-Palestinian movement 

4. Conflating antisemitism with anti-Zionism in alignment with the discredited IHRA definition of antisemitism

Verdict: Guilty

Remedies:

1. Cease all discriminatory investigations of students, faculty, and staff on the basis of the IHRA definition of antisemitism 

2. Drop the IHRA definition and instead adopt the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism

3. Pursue training on antisemitism grounded in a commitment to justice and dignity for all people

Charges (v. Hampshire College Board of Trustees & Business Operations Committee):

1. Complicity in the genocide of Palestine through its financial investments.

2. Institutional censorship regarding Israel's genocide against Palestine.

3. Failure to uphold its purported values and mission as an alternative institution of higher-learning, including the failure to abide by its own Ethical and Social Government Policy.

Verdict: Guilty

Remedies:

1. The administration must address incongruencies between the ESG policy and its current financial investments. This includes the promise that Hampshire "(...) will not invest in businesses whose products, services or business practices are inconsistent with the college's values in particular avoiding businesses that have significant operations in countries with serious human rights violations as designated by inclusion on the list of countries and regions named and investigated by the United Nations Human Rights Council or by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights."

2. The administration must divest from major tech giants such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon, which comprise 12.6% of Hampshire College's global equity portfolio.

3. The administration must continue divestment negotiations with the student body. More specifically, Hampshire SJP demands that the Hampshire College Business Operations Committee schedule a meeting with Hampshire College SJP to take real steps towards an ethical investment policy.

Charges (v. the Trustees of Smith College):

1. Complicity in the active genocide and ethnic cleansing occurring in Palestine over the past 24 months

2. Surveilling students and silencing their voices

3. Failure to uphold their purported values and mission

Verdict: Guilty

Remedies:

1. Smith must vow not to waste its copious resources on surveilling and stifling dissent from its own students

2. We demand that Smith adopt AJP (Alums for Justice in Palestine)'s ethical investment policy, a modified and expanded version of SJP's numerous iterations of divestment proposals

Charges (v. Raytheon and the UMass Administration):

1. The weaponization of antisemitism against Palestinian students, faculty, staff, and community members and their allies

2. Complicity in weaponizing science and supporting the military-industrial complex

3. Complicity in the Israeli genocide in Palestine through its direct and long-standing relationship with Raytheon and other war profiteers on campus

4. The suppression and criminalization of pro-Palestine organizing on campus

Evidence:

1. Contracts with the DoD and weapons manufacturers, particularly Raytheon

2. $23,799,555 invested in companies that directly profit from genocide, occupation, and apartheid in Palestine

3. Violent, militarized repression of student protest 

4. Direct attacks on academic freedom 

5. CAIR's (The Council for American Islamic Relations) designation of the university as a "hostile campus"

Verdict: Guilty

Remedies:

1. For UMass Amherst administrators to pursue training on antisemitism such as the recently published PARCEO “Curriculum on Antisemitism from a Framework of Collective Liberation,” which is devoted to understanding and challenging antisemitism while being grounded in a deep commitment to justice and dignity for all people

2. For the removal of war profiteers from campus

3. For the university to boycott and divest from the Israeli and U.S. war machine

4. For the UMass administration to fund programs of solidarity with students, faculty, and administrators of universities and libraries in Gaza, and to create a Five College Refaat Alareer Center for Decolonial Studies

5. For the UMass administration to publicly denounce the IHRA definition of antisemitism

6. For the UMass administration to publicly apologize to pro-Palestine organizers, including organizers of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, and for the administration to hold a ceremony of apology and reparations