Anti-Zionists Petition College To Ban Jews: ‘Their Presence Oppresses’

“It’s all about inclusivity.”

New York, August 4 – Student activists gearing up for the 2021-2022 academic year at Columbia University have begun preparations for a campaign to pressure the undergraduate administration into restricting admission to gentile applicants beginning next fall, because the presence of people of overlapping ethnic background with those responsible for Palestinian suffering rouses a feelings of persecution among other students, a representative of the activists group disclosed today.

The Columbia University chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine has launched collection of a signatures for a petition to the Dean of Admissions not to allow Jews to enter the undergraduate programs at Columbia College, Barnard College, the School of Engineering, or any other Bachelor’s Degree-granting programs at the institution, citing the sense of oppression and trauma that the presence of such people will generate on campus, given that Palestinian dispossession, statelessness, suffering, and political limbo stems in part from the actions of Jews.

“We intended to take this action this past year already,” explained SJP member Ayama Biggett, who will begin her sophomore year this fall. “But COVID happened and there wasn’t that much face-to-face encounter on campus, and it was hard to mobilize under the circumstances. Now we’re getting down to it, standing up for our Palestinian brothers, sisters, and allies, to proclaim to the Zionists, ‘Our existence does not oppress you!’ They’ve played victim effectively for too long, as if victims can’t turn around and become oppressors.”

“It’s all about protecting our fellow students,” added Jewish Voice for Peace activist Mark Kapowitz. “Obviously I’d be grandfathered in, because I’m here already, and the policy change we seek is al about admissions, about the future. The university has already made plans and budgets and all sorts of things that we can’t really demand they change in any practical way, and besides, I think my friends and allies here on campus do a fine job of intimidating, bullying, and just generally making life for visibly-Jewish people on campus a nightmare, which is the whole point. I think soon only the most progressive, least-affiliated, Islamist-embracing Jews will want to apply here anyway, and we can lobby for that kind of exception to be carved out in the new admissions policy.”

“It’s all about inclusivity,” he added. “We can’t have supporters of Palestine feel traumatized by the microaggression of simply being near someone who’s probably a Zionist, and who definitely has relatives who are Zionists. We need to include those potentially-traumatized students, and the only way to equitably accomplish that is to keep potential Zionists out. Safety first.”

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