Fordham Alumni for a Free Palestine statement

May Day 2024

Fordham Alumni for a Free Palestine is a collective of Fordham University alumni spanning schools, professions, walks of life and generations, organizing for a Palestine liberated from Israeli occupation, subjugation and apartheid. We are united by our sense of moral outrage, hope for a just future, and pride in the collective action of Fordham's students in support of Palestinian liberation.

Our demands echo those of Fordham Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

We demand that Fordham University:

1) Join the call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, an end to the Gazan genocide, and an end to the occupation of Palestine.

We believe that universities have an ethical obligation to call for ceasefire, and that Fordham, as a Jesuit university, possesses a unique duty to do so. Fordham’s mission emphasizes the central role of research and education to ending poverty, pursuing justice, protecting human rights and respecting the environment. Recalling that Israeli forces have destroyed every single university in Gaza and three quarters of its schools, we demand that Fordham reflect publicly on its place in the educational ecosystem and its moral duty as a Jesuit university, and put its word to action in this crucial historical moment.

2) Immediately Reinstate Fordham Students for Palestine (SJP).

In 2016 – more than a year after students applied to start an SJP group on campus – SJP’s application was denied by the Dean of Students, who said that the group would create "polarization" on campus and "run contrary to the mission and values” at Fordham. Fordham’s repression of the group contributed to a climate of fear and intimidation on campus, hindering meaningful discourse on the movement for Palestinian liberation even before Israeli subjugation of the Palestinians reached the genocidal fever pitch of the current moment.

In April 2017, The Center for Constitutional Rights and Palestine Legal advocated on behalf of Fordham students who were denied permission to start an SJP chapter at the university and then disciplined for protesting the decision. The case, Awad, et al. v. Fordham University, resulted in an annulment of Fordham’s decision, “mandating that the university recognize SJP as an official club because Fordham’s refusal was irrational and inconsistent with its own policies, which protect free expression.” Following that decision, SJP operated successfully for more than a year at Fordham.

During a time of economic austerity for the university, Fordham allocated resources towards a five-year-long legal battle with SJP that would have better served faculty and academic programs. Addressing Fordham's drive to silence Palestinian voices and their allies is an essential piece of the movement to dismantle systemic oppression and advance the cause of Palestinian liberation on campuses nationwide.

3) Immediately disclose endowment investments in companies complicit in Israel's occupation, apartheid, and genocide, divest from these companies, and commit to refraining from any future investments that perpetuate these atrocities.

Full financial transparency will ensure that Fordham does not fund or invest, publicly or privately, in the perpetuation of Israeli apartheid and genocide. Without a clear picture of its investments, we can only presume that Fordham, like other major private institutions in New York City and the country, is betting endowment money on the financial successes of entities who profit from settler colonialism and genocide. Fordham must recognize its responsibility to uphold ethical investment practices and immediately sever ties with entities complicit in human rights abuses. Ending its relationship with HP (Hewlett-Packard, which provides technology infrastructure to the Israeli military) is a critical step. Failure to take decisive action will leave us with no option but to intensify our calls for divestment and hold the university accountable for its role in perpetuating injustice.

4) Commit to the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), cutting all ties with both the Hebrew University in occupied Jerusalem and with Tel Aviv University.

Recalling the faculty-supported anti-apartheid actions at Fordham in the 1980s, we demand that Fordham take a moral stand among its peers in academia by joining PACBI. Initiated in 2004 to support the struggle for Palestinian freedom, justice, and equality, PACBI advocates for a boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions on the basis of their deep and persistent complicity in Israel’s denial of Palestinian rights. By refusing to engage with Israeli academic and cultural institutions complicit in the subjugation of Palestinians, Fordham would be living into its commitment to ethical principles and human rights.

To the administration:

We encourage you to consider the statement WE CANNOT BE SILENT! made by the Society of Jesus in March:

“Following the horrors of the attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, the massive Israeli bombardments of the Gaza Strip, the ground offensive that has left most of the Gaza Strip in ruins, we are now witness to famine and the spread of disease in Gaza. Engaged for decades in the communities and societies of the Middle East, we, as Jesuits, want to say that it need not be this way. The choice of death over life, vengeance over reconciliation, wrongdoing over justice, self-interest over relationship, violence over dialogue is a choice and not fated destiny. There are other choices that could be made. We will continue to foster a dream of a different future, a future already foreseen by the prophets in the Holy Scriptures. “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:4). We join our voice to that of the Holy Father, Pope Francis, who has repeatedly warned: ‘War is a defeat! Every war is a defeat’ (Angelus, 8 October 2023).”

To the President:

We encourage you to recall your own belief that “Jesuit education inspires people to get into ‘good trouble,’ as the late civil rights leader and congressman John Lewis used to say.”

To alumni, students, faculty and community members:

We recall being taught that Ignatius closed his letters to Jesuits with ite inflammate omnia – go forth and set the world on fire. To echo the statement made by Fordham for Palestine coalition: if Gaza burns, the world burns for them too.