A week following a polarizing AMS Assembly, Palestinian and Jewish students have reflected on the experience.
A discussion point called “Call to Action by Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights student group” drew approximately 60 students to AMS Assembly on Nov. 21. The discussion point consumed the agenda, with student leaders listening to students recount their experiences of Islamophobia and antisemitism before a presentation was given by SPHR.
“Regrettably, what was meant to be an informative and constructive dialogue was instead met with targeted disruptions and offensive demands,” Queen’s Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) said in a statement to The Journal after Assembly.
of SPHR submitted the discussion point to speak to Assembly about the rise of Islamophobia on campus, and to encourage the AMS to Palestinian voices. No student leader responded to students’ statements or the SPHR’s presentation.
During the statement period, Palestinian students recounted being ostracized or removed from clubs for ing Palestine or organizing events celebrating Palestinian culture. Some students’ stories were met with laughter.
“Disturbingly, laughter and disrespectful behavior were directed at Palestinian students sharing their personal experiences, and racist conflations of terrorism with the Palestinian/Arab identity went unaddressed,” SPHR said.
Though AMS Assembly Speaker Sean Lee reminded students not to record other attendees, the request wasn’t enforced. According to the statement submitted to The Journal, Palestinian students and SPHR reported facing harassment and discrimination which included their privacy rights being breached at Assembly.
Though The Journal ed all faculty society executives to comment and respond to the concerns raised at last week’s AMS Assembly, no student leaders responded to the request for comment.
Representatives of the largest student bodies on campus, ASUS President Amaiya Walters, Engineering Society (EngSoc) President Aidan Shimizu, and Commerce Society (ComSoc) President Mahir Hamid didn’t respond to The Journal’s request for comment.
In light of the agenda item, the Jewish community at Queen’s was frustrated they weren’t ed by the AMS to submit their own discussion point but rallied roughly 30 students to attend Assembly.
“If the AMS Executive didn’t recognize the format [Assembly’s] discussion was inevitably going to be inherently inequitable to Jewish students then they’re either shockingly ignorant or actively complicit in our communities [sic] erasure,” a Queen’s Hillel representative said in a statement to The Journal.
Jewish students at Assembly spoke of incidents of antisemitism on campus, including the desecration of three mezuzahs in residence.
The Social Issues Commissioners (SIC) Ruth Osunde and Khadija Farooq wore keffiyehs, a traditional Palestinian scarf, during Assembly. According to the Hillel representative, the move was alienating for the Jewish community on campus.
“When the Social Issues Commissioners (both internal and external) attend AMS Assembly, clearly marking themselves as holding a partisan positionality on the current conflict, what is Hillel supposed to think,” Hillel said.
The Social Issues Commissioners didn’t directly respond to this accusation in their statement to The Journal. Instead, Osunde and Farooq said the SIC represents all equity-deserving students fairly and aims to create social justice and I-EDIAA dialogue in a safe and productive environment.
In recent weeks, the SIC has been working with Vice-Principal (Culture, Equity, and Inclusion) Stephanie Simpson, and the Human Rights and Equity Office (HREO) to address the hate and discrimination Queen’s students are facing.
“The SIC remains focused on the wellness and voices of our students in these difficult times and we are committed to taking appropriate steps to continue to strengthen student networks,” Farooq and Osunde wrote in their t statement to The Journal.
In the eyes of both Jewish and Palestinian students, student leadership failed to them before and during AMS Assembly. SPHR felt their legitimacy as an advocacy group was questioned and and allies were subject to racist rhetoric. Hillel accused the AMS of being inaccessible to minority students.
Tags
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be ed, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to [email protected].
Nina
How is wearing a scarf alienating to Jewish students?? Shocked that no questions were asked of Hillel on whether they condoned the bullying and intimidation that occurred from their students at the assembly. I would like to know if that is something they are okay with.
Sophie
Why does this bad faith ‘article’ omit the experiences of individual Palestinian and Palestinian-allied students who faced racist discrimination? Disappointing, why go through the trouble of interviewing attendees if you refuse to do honest reporting?
Molly McGill
I was interviewed for this article because I experienced two discriminatory actions by counterprotestors against the SPHR at this meeting just for wearing a keffiyeh. The first, was that I was prevented entry into the meeting after leaving to get food, as the doors closest to my seat (that I used) auto-locked. The counterprotestors stood in front of those doors and wouldn’t open them for me. They did this also with my boyfriend. The second, when I offered my seat to some counterprotestors that were sat ON THE FLOOR, they smugly refused to sit next to me. These are racist actions based on culturally identifiable markers. When I asked why my testimony was not included, apparently it did not fit within context of this article. As a white person coming from a point of privilege, I was willing to go on record with my full name to help legitimize the treatment that Muslim and Arab people experience all too often on this campus. Many Muslim and Arab people cannot speak up because they will be targeted. I will confirm it was not up to the author of this article to exclude or include my testimony, she was very lovely to speak to, but it was rather the entire board of editors who looked over this piece and decided it was not important to uncover racism on this campus. I did not “feel” like I was subjected to racist rhetoric. I WAS subjected to discriminatory actions. It is a reality, it is not something the SPHR makes up.