University of Maryland Faces Backlash for Allowing Anti-Israel Protest on Anniversary of October 7 Attack
The University of Maryland has decided to permit an anti-Israel protest organized by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) on its campus, scheduled for October 7—exactly one year after the Hamas terrorist attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,200 Israelis.
Last week, SJP held an event during the first week of classes at the university, where they displayed 15,000 flags on campus to “honor the 150,000+ martyrs who have lost their lives within the past year” amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. However, the claimed figure of 150,000 is significantly higher than the 40,000 deaths reported by Hamas. SJP justified the inflated number by stating that the “health ministry has been unable to keep count of the dead.”
The SJP Maryland chapter has made several controversial statements, including that “the Zionist state of Israel has no right to exist” and that “the Zionist entity has committed some of the most egregious criminal acts of our century.”
“We are approaching 11 months of genocide against the Palestinians,” the group said in an Instagram post. “It has been almost a full year of genocide and terror as death tolls continue to rise.”
The decision to allow the protest has sparked concerns within the university community. According to the Daily Wire, Rabbi Ari Israel, director of the university’s Hillel chapter, informed Jewish students that “we did voice our concerns with senior UMD leadership” and “apprised them of the emotional load SJP’s callous behavior will bear on our Jewish community if they protest on the greatest Jewish day of mourning and tragedy since the Holocaust.”
Legal challenges have also been raised as a result of this scheduled event. Gerald Filitti, a lawyer from the Lawfare Project, an organization combating antisemitism on college campuses, wrote a letter to University of Maryland President Darryll Pines urging him to cancel the event. Filitti argued that the event constitutes a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits federal funds from being used to support discrimination.
“No campus should permit SJP or any similar organization to hold any kind of event on October 7th,” Filitti argued. He went on to state that “doing so gives the university’s tacit approval to the celebration of Hamas’ violent and despicable actions on that day,” and tells “Jewish students, faculty, and staff that the university is condoning the celebration of the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.”
“Would any university allow a student organization to burn crosses on its campus to celebrate the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.? To celebrate the anniversary of 9/11 by calling for new Al Qaeda attacks? We all know the answer to those questions is an emphatic no,” he added.
