To the Goucher Administration,

We write to you as Goucher College alumni and supporters outraged with the College’s failure to take a stance against the ongoing genocide that Israel has been enacting on Palestinians for more than six months. We are disappointed to see that Goucher’s choice “not to take a political stance”1 against genocide is creating a campus culture which suppresses student activism and furthers the marginalization of anti-zionist voices on campus. Historically, students have been at the forefront of freedom movements globally and domestically— from antiwar demonstrations to the direct actions of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and beyond. Across college campuses nationwide, administrations are weaponizing identity and anti-semitism to censor students calling for Palestinian liberation. It is more important than ever to support students who are upholding this legacy by organizing against genocide and U.S. imperialism from Palestine, to Sudan, to Haiti, to the Congo and here in this country.

During the Fall of 2023, Goucher students had the courage to speak up against the genocide happening in Gaza and Palestine through a series of projects on campus, documented under the name @decadesandoceans on Instagram. In each instance, Goucher's administration removed the installation instantly and without conversation, citing a newly-formed demonstration policy.2 This new policy, which requires students to inform the Dean about their intent to participate in a demonstration five days in advance, fails to meet this moment of crisis. Furthermore, its rollout was an insidious form of censorship that does not keep students safe, but rather facilitates the silencing and targeting of student organizers.

The ability for students to freely demonstrate and speak out is integral to Goucher’s core principles. Student activism has long sought to hold Goucher accountable to its mission of providing an education focused on “solving complex problems”3 of social injustice. Less than ten years ago, the Center for Race, Equity, and Identity (CREI) at Goucher did not exist; the Center only came to be through the relentless courage of students of color who protested, created a list of demands to the administration, and followed through to see that their demands were met. It doesn’t escape us that if the Goucher administration had enforced this demonstration policy in 2014, there would be no Center for Race, Equity, and Identity.

The Goucher administration is failing its students, faculty, staff, and alumni. We will not stand for the unacceptable behavior of campus public safety and the college administration at large. In December 2023, alumni initiated a call-to-action concerning the college’s targeting of pro-Palestinian students exercising their right to free speech through demonstration and art installation. Our concerns were met with silence and inaction. We witnessed the administration espouse neutrality with one hand while attacking student organizers with the other. As @decadesandoceans writes in their Project #3,4 “Every time a genocide is not named it is a political stance. […] Every time the weaponization of anti-semitism gets its way on this campus, it is a political stance.”

In light of the college’s clear political stance in support of Palestinian genocide, and the administration’s flagrant profiling, targeting, and terrorization of pro-Palestinian students and alumni, we can no longer demand better from our alma mater using words alone. There are several campus initiatives that we believe align the college more closely with its mission and foster greater accountability and respect between members of the Goucher community.

As alumni, we commit to withhold all donations to the institution until these conditions are met:

• Acknowledge the ongoing genocide in Palestine in the form of a written statement.
• Immediately suspend the current demonstration policy and allow students to speak and protest freely and without restrictions. Written or visual expressions of speech in support of or in solidarity with Palestine must be tolerated without censorship by the college, unless such speech legally constitutes a threat, or incitement of violence. To protect this right, we demand an end to the flier approval process.
  • Should any future demonstration policies be adopted, the college must include a detailed grievance and retaliation-protection procedure for students; and include accountability mechanisms regarding the procedural and schedule requirements for the college to grant or withhold permissions on both a standard and expedited timeline. Future adoption of a demonstration policy must receive student input through student town halls, and receive a majority vote of approval from the college’s faculty prior to its adoption.
• Continue to work with faculty to develop an institutional definition of anti-semitism that does not equate with, nor is determined by, anti-zionism.
• Support students of all faiths and beliefs, in equal measure, and establish a grievance procedure for students who are not provided with religious accommodations. This must include, but is not limited to, providing an alternative space for anti-zionist Jewish students who don’t feel represented by Hillel.
• Immediately cease the discriminatory and excessive surveillance of students and student activists. This includes, but is not limited to, the profiling and selective enforcement of campus policies against students as well as alumni engaging in pro-Palestinian activism and advocacy. In particular, the college must immediately end the profiling, policing, and punishment of Muslim, Arab, Black, and Brown students, student activists, and community members.
  • The administration and the public safety department must consider the repercussions and impact of threatening students of color with police terror, issue a public statement acknowledging the harm sustained by the community from this practice, and outline a plan to protect vulnerable students from discriminatory and excessive surveillance in the future.
• Support the academic boycott of Israel by removing Israeli study abroad programs from the college’s approved program list.
• Provide greater transparency regarding the nature of the college’s investments. At minimum, make publicly accessible an annual report on the college’s endowment investment portfolios in addition to the college’s financial statements.

It is increasingly transparent that the institution’s present concern is only with donors and their reputation, not with students. Goucher students and the community at large should not and will not tolerate these repressive and discriminatory behaviors and policies. Without mechanisms for accountability, transparency and respect for all community members, the college has no future. We affirm that what we allow in Palestine we allow elsewhere, including on our own campus.

Signed,

The Goucher Anti-Zionist Alliance & Supporters

1) “A Letter from President Devereaux - An Invitation to Dialogue”: https://tinyurl.com/44dryw7h

2) “Campus Demonstration”: https://tinyurl.com/nhfmyyh7

3) goucher.edu

4) Decades and Oceans Project #3 https://tinyurl.com/y6k5fj4t