George Washington University suspends pro-Palestine group after demonstration

George Washington University on Tuesday announced it had suspended Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) after the group projected anti-Israel messaging onto a building during a demonstration in October.

The group used a projector to display messages critical of Israel, including calls to liberate Palestine "from the river to the Sea."

GW said in a statement that the group's "actions violated university policies," The Hill reported. "As a result, effective immediately, the university has prohibited SJP from participating in activities on campus."

The suspension will last for 90 days and bars the group from sponsoring or organizing on campus events or "posting communications on university property through May 20, 2024."

"We see this very clearly as being a political response to a growing wave of backlash and repression towards Palestinian organizing, but specifically the Palestinian student movement that’s been happening the past few weeks," the group told the GW Hatchet.

The move follows Columbia University's suspending its own chapter of SJP last week as well as Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).

"This decision was made after the two groups repeatedly violated University policies related to holding campus events, culminating in an unauthorized event Thursday afternoon that proceeded despite warnings and included threatening rhetoric and intimidation," the school stated. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for his part, in October, moved to shut down chapters of SJP in his state, earning criticism from Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who said "the answer to bad speech is not less speech, it is more speech. And I think it is wrong for us to silence those we disagree with."

"I don't think that’s the American way. I don’t think that's productive and I don’t think we convince any of those people by browbeating them into submission through fear either," he said at the time.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.