Media Roundup: Palestine Legal files federal civil rights complaint against University of Illinois Chicago
/On September 12th, Palestine Legal filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), demanding an investigation into the University of Illinois Chicago’s (UIC) discriminatory treatment of Palestinian students.
Below is a media roundup on the Title VI complaint in outlets including The Electronic Intifada, CBS News Chicago, Middle East Eye, and The Palestine Pod.
The Electronic Intifada
Univ. of Illinois conspired against Palestinians, federal complaint alleges
“Students at the University of Illinois Chicago have filed a federal complaint against the school, alleging that staff discriminated against them because of their ethnicity and national origin.
The seven students, six Palestinian Americans and one Jewish American, attempted to join an informational session over the video-conferencing platform Zoom in January about a study abroad summer program in Israel.
During and after the video call, students say they were racially profiled, harassed and silenced by university staff and, later, by campus police.
It was only after several of the Palestinian students decided to change their screen names to non-Arab pseudonyms that the university staff allowed them entry into the session.
…‘As Palestinians, you shouldn’t feel like you have to stay silent, or normalize apartheid, or normalize Israel. Just because it’s what everyone around you is okay with, or it’s what professors and faculty gaslight you to think, you as a Palestinian have every right to complain that you are being discriminated against,’ Salaam Khater told The Electronic Intifada.”
CBS Chicago
Civil rights complaint accuses UIC of discriminating against Palestinian students
“Palestine Legal filed the Title VI complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR). The organization demands a civil rights investigation into what it describes as a pattern of censoring and creating a hostile environment for students of Palestinian heritage and others who voice support for Palestine.
This is the third complaint Palestine Legal filed with the OCR accusing universities of discriminating against Palestinians. Previously, the organization filed complaints about incidents at George Washington University and Florida State University, which prompted the OCR to open investigations in both cases earlier this year, records obtained by CBS 2 show.
…‘The stress of this whole situation…it's just unbelievable, and to think it would happen at UIC, a public university with a big Palestinian population, let alone Arab population, it's just crazy for me to see,’ Khater said.
‘It is very upsetting and disheartening that UIC not only failed Palestinian students in 2021 but for this to happen again, to be censored again and silenced, and UIC not take any action at all, it's upsetting. It's dehumanizing,’ Khater said.
‘These civil rights laws exist to protect students and ensure these institutions are treating them equally and providing the same opportunity regardless of ethnicity or race,’ said Zoha Khalili, staff attorney with Palestine Legal. ‘Were hoping if there is an intervention by the federal government, it would force [UIC] to make its own investigative and accountability procedures more robust, and that it will send a message across the country that Palestinian students have people on their side.’
Palestine Legal also cited a previous study from UIC itself, which found Arab Americans across Chicagoland experience widespread racism in everyday life. Regarding what the university's students experienced in the recent incidents, the complaint said, ‘UIC should have known better and done better.’"
CBS Chicago
Civil rights complaint filed against UIC
Salaam Khater, who graduated this year and was previously the president of Students for Justice in Palestine at UIC, and our staff attorney Zoha Khalili spoke about anti-Palestinian discrimination at the University of Illinois Chicago and our civil rights complaint against the school on the CBS Chicago live news stream!
Middle East Eye
Palestinian students file federal complaint alleging discrimination at University of Illinois
“In its submission, Palestine Legal alleges that the UIC singled out and excluded six Palestinian students from attending a virtual university-sponsored event in what amounted to deliberate targeting of Palestinian students at the university. Three students were eventually admitted with different names, while three others who had kept their names remained excluded, the complaint said.
A Jewish student, part of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), was also censored during the incident, and Palestine Legal is representing this student, too.
The complaint calls on the Department of Education to investigate UIC’s violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S. Code § 2000d, which protects students from discrimination on the basis of race, colour, or national origin.
Zoha Khalili, a lawyer at Palestine Legal, told MEE they pursued this course of action after student efforts to document and report it through the proper channels at the university had not yielded any action on the part of the administration.
‘This is a repeated issue at the UIC,’ Khalili from Palestine Legal said.
Three Palestinian students at UIC told MEE that the incident last January was part of a larger, inherent bias against Palestinian students at the university.
‘It's just a constant routine of treating Palestinian students differently; treating the entire issue of Palestine as something that doesn't matter, even though Palestinian students make up such a large population of our university,’ Khatib added.”
The Palestine Pod